“So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?”
Hunter S. Thompson
“Never was anything great achieved without danger.”
Niccolò Machiavelli
“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”
Theodore Roosevelt
“Fortune sides with him who dares.”
Virgil
The risky life is far more interesting and rich than the fearful life. This does not mean that common sense is tossed away, but it must not be allowed to interfere with fullness of life.
One of my friends is the most risk-averse person I have ever known. His life is barren as a result. Soon he can retire (VERY comfortably) but he is beginning to think it’s too risky. He never married because it is too risky (a divorce might occur). He has few friends because he has no time, work and household responsibilities take it all, and besides other people require the expense of emotional involvement, which is too risky.
Interesting, purposeful lives, even with some messiness attached, can only be found by having courage, even over the smallest things. I do believe that the constant mantras regarding safety that currently pervade public discourse minimize the value of fearlessness in our culture. Snowflakes are a good example.