65 Quotes That Will Dare You to Do Great Things

At some point in life we’re all faced with a decision of whether to take a risk. Whether it’s leaving a miserable job, moving to a different position that stretches you, starting your own business, or even taking on a tricky new assignment, greatness requires risk.

Whether you succeed or fail, the act of taking a risk will stretch you and give you faith in yourself–and the confidence to do even more. Maybe we’re meant to do things that scare us so we can build greatness in ourselves.

Allow these amazing quotes to dare you:

1. “Keep away from people who belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.” –Mark Twain

2. “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” –Lao Tzu

3. “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” –T. S. Eliot

4. “Many great ideas have been lost because the people who had them could not stand being laughed at.” –Unknown

5. “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I … I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” –Robert Frost

6. “Unless you choose to do great things with it, it makes no difference how much you are rewarded, or how much power you have.” –Oprah Winfrey

7. “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.” –Tony Robbins

8. “Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.”– Henry David Thoreau

9. “If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat! Just get on.” –Sheryl Sandberg

10. “People who don’t take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year.” –Peter F. Drucker

11. “Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.” –e. e. cummings

12. “If you’re going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big.” –Donald Trump

13. “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” –Andre Gide

14. “The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.” –Chuck Palahniuk

15. “You can’t outwit fate by trying to stand on the sidelines and place little side bets about the outcome of life. Either you wade in and risk everything to play the game, or you don’t play at all. And if you don’t play, you can’t win.” –Judith McNaught

16. “If things seem under control, you are just not going fast enough.” –Mario Andretti

17. “Everyone has a ‘risk muscle.’ You keep it in shape by trying new things. If you don’t, it atrophies. Make a point of using it at least once a day.” –Roger von Oech

18. “Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it.” –Oprah Winfrey

19. “The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live.” –Leo F. Buscaglia

20. “Life is inherently risky. There is only one big risk you should avoid at all costs, and that is the risk of doing nothing.” –Denis Waitley

21. “You can measure opportunity with the same yardstick that measures the risk involved. They go together.” –Earl Nightingale

22. “The universe has no restrictions. You place restrictions on the universe with your expectations.” –Deepak Chopra

23. “Do one thing every day that scares you.” –Mary Schmich

24. “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” –Pablo Picasso

25. “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” –Steve Jobs

26. “If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.” –Jim Rohn

27. “There is only one way to avoid criticism: Do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.” –Aristotle

28. “There’s something liberating about not pretending. Dare to embarrass yourself. Risk.” —Drew Barrymore

29. “If you don’t build your dream, someone else will hire you to help them build theirs.” –Dhirubhai Ambani

30. “You don’t concentrate on risks. You concentrate on results. No risk is too great to prevent the necessary job from getting done.” –Chuck Yeager

31. “The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you first find yourself. ” –Mark Caine

32. “Always go with your passions. Never ask yourself if it’s realistic or not.” –Deepak Chopra

33. “Creative people who can’t help but explore other mental territories are at greater risk, just as someone who climbs a mountain is more at risk than someone who just walks along a village lane.” –R. D. Laing

34. “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something–your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” –Steve Jobs

35. “The most important thing to remember is this: to be ready at any moment to give up what you are for what you might become.” –W. E. B. Du Bois

36. “Leap and the net will appear.” –Zen saying

37. “Often the difference between a successful man and a failure is not one’s better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on his ideas, to take a calculated risk, and to act.” –Maxwell Maltz

38. “I don’t think you’re human if you don’t get nervous.” –Sidney Crosby

39. “There can be no vulnerability without risk. There can be no community without vulnerability. There can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community.” –M. Scott Peck

40. “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” –John A. Shedd

41. “Our lives improve only when we take chances, and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.” –Walter Anderson

42. “Think big and don’t listen to people who tell you it can’t be done. Life’s too short to think small.” –Tim Ferriss

43. “You’ve got to keep fighting; you’ve got to risk your life every six months to stay alive.” –Elia Kazan

44. “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” –Michael Jordan

45. “Because if you’re prepared and you know what it takes, it’s not a risk. You just have to figure out how to get there. There is always a way to get there.” –Mark Cuban

46. “When you take risks you learn that there will be times when you succeed and there will be times when you fail, and both are equally important.” –Ellen DeGeneres

47. “To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself.” –Soren Kierkegaard

48. “Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson

49. “The time to take counsel of your fears is before you make an important battle decision. That’s the time to listen to every fear you can imagine! When you have collected all the facts and fears and made your decision, turn off all your fears and go ahead!” –Gen. George S. Patton

50. “Many a man is praised for his reserve and so-called shyness when he is simply too proud to risk making a fool of himself.” –J. B. Priestley

51. “Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one’s ideas, to take a calculated risk–and to act.” –Andre Malraux

52. “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might has well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default. ” –J.K. Rowling

53. “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” –Chinese Proverb

54. “Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.” –-Katherine Mansfield

55. “Don’t worry about failures, worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.” –Jack Canfield

56. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, dream, discover.” –H. Jackson Brown

57. “When you play it too safe, you’re taking the biggest risk of your life. Time is the only wealth we’re given.” –Barbara Sher

58. “Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.” –George Addair

59. “Screw it, Let’s do it!” –Richard Branson

60. “You can’t have everything you want, but you can have the things that really matter to you.” –Marissa Mayer

61. “Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else’s.” –Billy Wilder

62. “I am thankful for all of those who said NO to me. It’s because of them I’m doing it myself.” –Albert Einstein

63. “Only those who play win. Only those who risk win. History favors risk-takers. Forgets the timid. Everything else is commentary.” —Iveta Cherneva

64. “The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” —Ayn Rand

65. “Risk more than others think is safe. Care more than others think is wise. Dream more than others think is practical. Expect more than others think is possible.” –Cadet maxim

When you take the path of timidity and fear, your destiny is to wonder, years later, what might have been. So go for it! The cost may be great but the reward may be bigger. Get inspired and take the chance you need today.