Sam Keen Quotes

I prefer to be alive, so I'm cautious about taking risks.

The policy of being too cautious is the greatest risk of all.

Risk taking in business is one thing. Risk taking in your personal safety is a different thing.

I don't like to risk - I'm actually not a tough guy at all, make no mistake about it, so I'm not going to do something that I'm scared of. So, if something looks dangerous, at the time I didn't think it was, because I'm the first person to cower away from a risk of injury if there seems to be one.

I'm not really much of a risk taker.

I like to control the risk I take. And when risk is taken out of my hands, it frustrates me.

Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.

I'm not a reckless person, in the sense that I wouldn't do something that's reckless or dangerous, because I'm a pretty careful person. For example, I don't snow ski. I did it once, and I promised God I'd never do it again if I lived through it.

I don't enjoy any kind of danger or volatility. I don't have that kind of 'I love the bad guys' thing. No, no thank you. I like nice people.

I forced myself to think what is the new concept and it became clear to me that it was risk, not only in technology and ecology, but in life and employment, too.

In business, you try to minimise risk.

When I take a risk, I like it to be a calculated risk, meaning I make it as small as possible.

Some of the most interesting research that I did was about risk assessment and how ordinary citizens like me handle risk assessment and how irregular our risk assessments are.

People need to learn to live with more risk.

I think we need to think beyond the issue of absolute risk.

Some people revel in taking risks, and some go through life taking no risks at all.

The concept of insurance is not to share risk but to avoid risk.

We always take acceptable risks in our society.

If you want to avoid all risks, soon you will have no risks to worry about.

We respond to the unknown by trying to retreat from it, or trying to comprehend it, or trying to control it. The first approach is evident in longings for return to a simpler "risk-free" life that never was. The second is reflected in the fantasy of synoptic risk assessment: Measure the requisite probabilities and trade-offs, calculate the social risk-benefit function, and the common good will have been defined. The third approach is in the tradition of professional engineering. It serves us well but, as engineers have been among the first to point out, has met its match and more in the complex social problems it increasingly is called upon to address.

Much of the research into humans' risk-avoidance machinery shows that it is antiquated and unfit for the modern world; it is made to counter repeatable attacks and learn from specifics. If someone narrowly escapes being eaten by a tiger in a certain cave, then he learns to avoid that cave.

I'm not a huge risk taker. I think that, for me, I take certain kinds of risks, but if you look at me, you wouldn't say I was a big risk taker. I'm not going to jump out of an airplane and parachute and things like that. That's not really me.

None of us live in a zero-risk world.

People are used to dealing with risk.

In any endeavor, you have to understand your tolerance for risk. What's a failure you can afford?