Assumption of risk

“ We will use the term ‘valued risk’ when a risk is valued with money or utility. When all risks have been made comparable by valuing them, then we can add them, and we will use the term expected risk value for the expected value of the ‘valued risks’. Then, crucially, once these definitions are well understood, then we may also use ‘the risk’ for the expected risk value. ”

“ If, for example, a new enterprise is to be undertaken, the special knowledge and experience which its promoters possess is a vital factor in determining their estimate of the risk involved. An outsider with no special knowledge would necessarily require to estimate the risk far more highly if we were to form a rational opinion on the basis of his knowledge. So great, indeed, would be the risk to him, that we can lay it down as a sound maxim that people are extremely rash who invest their money in risky undertakings about which they know very little. ”

“ You've always wanted to get out of the insurance business, and now with that fear of being turned out which you have you mustn't neglect this offer. I suppose it has its risks, but it's a risk keeping on as we are ”

“ It is enough that the risk be real, but it may be more or less imminent. A slight risk would justify a trifling sacrifice. A more imminent risk a greater sacrifice. The terms risk, hazard, peril, and, indeed, the whole class of words used in describing general average cases, always include both the idea of danger and the possibility of escape. The only questions in judging of the propriety of the course of a master, in any given case of voluntary sacrifice, are, Was the peril real? ”

“ Gradually there came about a specialization of risk-taking by the men most able to bear it. They could tell by experience about what was the degree of uncertainty, and could lay their wagers accordingly. ”

“ It is a risk which I could never sanction—a big risk, a serious risk.”
“I believe in risks,” cried Philippa gallantly. “‘There is a tide in the affairs of men’—Risk—deliberate, thoughtful risk—is only another name for courage and enterprise and faith. What would become of the world if no one was willing to take a risk? What battle would be won if soldiers did not risk everything—health, limbs, life itself—to overcome the enemy! We know it is a risk; we have faced it with our eyes open; but we feel it is the right thing to do. ”

“ The reasons for or against taking a particular business risk are seldom such as can adequately be expressed in terms of arithmetic, or even by clear arguments the soundness of which is proportioned to their logical cogency. ”

“ It is the price we must pay for our insurance, and it is but a moderate price for so important an insurance. I know there are persons who will say, 'Let us run the risk.' Be it so. But, my lords, if the calamity should come, if the conflagration should take place, what words can describe the extent of the calamity, or what imagination can paint the overwhelming ruin that would fall upon us? ”

“ Ought n't one to try to be safe?"
"One ought to try, yes. That is common prudence. But the point is that, whatever you do or get, you are n't after all secure. There is no such condition, and the harder you demand it, the more risk you run. ”

“ The tips of sinew quivered as if Sleth Forander were fighting to restrain their power. George tried to ignore their closeness and went on. "There's a principle here," he said. "A very basic principle. Risk. You have to take a risk every time to take a step ahead. Risk to your vulnerable parts, whether it be in your physical body or your secret dreams.
"We learned that a long time ago. You have never learned it, because you demanded one hundred percent protection and no risk at all to your vulnerable spot. ”

“ Though this objection is hardly worth answering to men of business, yet it looks something fair to them that know no better; and for the information of such, I trouble the reader with a few heads:
First, they must consider the insurer is out no stock.
Secondly, it is but one risk the insurer runs; whereas the assured has had a risk out, a risk of debts abroad, a risk of a market, and a risk of his factor, and has a risk of a market to come, and therefore ought to have an answerable profit. ”

“ Still, we realize the precariousness of seeming, in some cases, to build upon an apparently non-existing foundation; but the risk must be taken, and, as we hope to show, the evidence from subsequent times justifies the risk. ”

“ It is, however, exceedingly difficult to define precisely, what import or value we are to attach to our ideas of safety, even in many of the ordinary occurrences of life. As in all cases involving risk of any kind, the idea of safety can only be taken in a qualified sense. ”

“ As to “risk,”—why, a carpenter cannot ascend to the top of a house to put the rafters thereon without risk; a chemist cannot investigate the properties of certain fumes without risk; you cannot even eat your dinner without risk. ”

“ So we call it a great risk."
"It seems to be a small risk of a great calamity," said Marco.
"Yes," replied Forester, "but we call it a great risk. We call the risk great, when either the evil which we are in danger of is great, or when the chance of its befalling us is great. For example, if you and I were to walk over that log which lies across the stream, we should run a great risk; but that would be, not a small chance of a great evil, but a great chance of a small evil. There would be a great chance that we should fall off into the stream ”

“ Do not try to refute me with those rare and accidental cases, viz. that a circumspect person perishes, whilst the careless and unprotected one is saved. For the word safety means something quite different from the word risk. ”

“ "But nobody can stay alive without getting into danger sometimes, and danger doesn't mean getting hurt, Cap'n; it only means we might get hurt. So I guess we'll have to take the risk." ”

“ It is probable that risks would be estimated and undertaken more wisely or less wisely under a different system of society or of industrial organization? Upon this issue, methods of precise analysis are out of place, but we may have something to learn from the emphatic testimony of tradition. It has become an axiom of business men that, while Governments can manage with more or less competence a safe and routine business like a Postal Service, their success would be unlikely to prove conspicuous in undertakings where the element of risk is great. ”

“ The risk, computed in free and open market, will be nearly right. It is a kind of insurance against these risks, and the insurers and insured will calculate the rate of insurance better than Government can do it. ”

“ The rule deducible from them is, that the measure of care against accident, which one must take to avoid responsibility, is that which a person of ordinary prudence and caution would use if his own interests were to be affected, and the whole risk were his own. ”

“ It is not customary to use the term ‘risk’ for unknown categories. For example, it is uncommon to say, or write economics papers about this, that “all our lives are at risk of a suddenly imploding universe, or black hole hitting Earth, or waking up as a cockroaches”. Such real ‘Acts of God’ are commonly neglected. Note though that it still remains possible to say that a situation is risky even though one cannot put a number to it. Above expectation may be indeterminate since one may lack knowledge about the probability distribution or even the categories. ”

“ After breathing hard for a little while he went on.
“We who have survived this ordeal have gained much more than we risked. I know that anything is worth a risk, the risk in itself is the gain, and to risk everything for nothing is a fine thing. ”

“ Of course, it may be a theoretical estimate, but there is a general conclusion among economists that only about one man in every ten succeeds who assumes these risks of business. The rest fail chiefly because of the constant variation and inevitable losses of those taking the risk in business not even averaging with the possible gain. ”

“ Risk is being assumed, traded, diversified out of, avoided, insured against. It gives rise to visions and hopes and it is the most efficient "economic natural selection" mechanism. To be a market participant one must assume risk, it in an inseparable part of economic activity. ”

“ But while under the individual system everybody charged for the risk of loss, the losses in reality fell on only a part, and so the rest got something for nothing. When insurance companies were organized to distribute part of the risks, making those who did not lose, contribute to make up the loss of those who did, the risks of all were diminished, and the profit and interest charges on that account reduced. ”

“ This is the element of payment for risk, or rather the reward of risk-bearing. Risk is inherent in all business, as it is inherent in all life. The vagaries of nature and the vagaries of man are alike responsible. The farmer may find his harvest ruined by a drought or by a deluge; the coal or the gold, for the extraction of which you have perhaps set up an extensive mining plant, may come to an end which is unexpectedly abrupt. You may put your money into roller-skating rinks and find that cinemas have become the rage with the fickle public ”

“ The risk, which the producer runs until the commodity produced is actually consumed must also be borne in mind.637 There are things which are a real risk in small enterprises that by the intervention of an insurance company, or where the enterprises are large and insure themselves, become a more or less variable portion of the cost of production. The price of the product, in the latter instance, rises, by this means, very regularly. ”

“ Because you humans cheated at every opportunity. And you still do. That's why we must have guarantees. We go to all the expense, take all the risk and then run the added risk of being double crossed. That's too much. ”

“ So far as possible, business men and people in general seek to eliminate risk from their daily relations, and they have invented insurance for this purpose. But you can not insure against rising prices, for they do not move by any definitely known law of averages. Economics can tell you why prices change, but it has not the data upon which to predict with reasonable accuracy any particular change. Here is a risk which the business man can not escape; neither can any one else; it affects us all, and, for the most part, in an evil manner. ”

“ In estimating the possibility of danger in connection with any undertaking, an ordinary man will confine his inquiries to the kind of risk that has already attended such undertakings in the past; whereas a prudent person will look ahead, and consider everything that might possibly happen in the future, having regard to a certain Spanish maxim: lo que no acaece en un ano, acaece en un rato—a thing may not happen in a year, and yet may happen within two minutes. ”

“ In all this, the Risk might be truly said to fall entirely upon himself; so that it is not easy to imagine, how any Man's Circumstances could be more critical than his actually were in this Conjuncture. ”

“ Some writers have so magnified the thought that the enterpriser's function is to assume risk, as to make it a denial of the view that profits are the earnings of ability. The risks of business are not those of the throwing of dice in which (if it is fair) skill plays no part, and gains in the long run offset losses. Business risks are rather those of the rope-walker in crossing Niagara; the task is easily undertaken by the skilful Blondin, it is fatally dangerous to the man of unsteady nerve and limb. Profits are due not to risks, but to superior skill in taking risks. ”

“ Qualitatively, risk may be thought of as some function of the combination of exposure and the intrinsic properties of the substance or process under consideration by linking an exposure to the likelihood of an outcome. ”

“ The students are told very frankly what the possibilities of danger for them in certain excesses may be, so that at least the young man can not say "I knew nothing about it," when the risk becomes an actual reality of danger. ”

“ Wherefore, then, should I run a fearful and terrible risk daily from your excesses? You admit—you must admit—that I, to the very spirit and letter, fulfil my contract with you; and yet I run a fearful risk—a risk which can do you no manner of good. What, if you were to die, Andrew Britton? You are a man of wild excesses ”

“ Now speculation has its proper place in business: there are certain inherent hazards that must be undertaken, mainly to be found in the risk of the seasons in the production of crops, and the risk of the future in undeveloped enterprise. These risks must be carried by somebody, but clearly they constitute an activity for specialists who study conditions, becoming relatively expert in determining how and when to act. ”

“ You will be in danger of losing some of your profits by waste in retailing; you will also be in danger of losing goods and profits too, by selling to those who will never pay you; and you will run some risk in the transportation of your goods, or of your money, so far by water, although this latter risk can be guarded against. ”

“ Risks are at a static level only when they are thus reduced; and for our present purpose it is best to consider that competition has eliminated the establishments where any recklessness has been shown in the management, and that the unavoidable remainder of risk resolves itself, nearly enough for practical purposes, into a deduction from the product which the surviving establishments turn out in a long period of time. ”

“ Every operation is a risk that we judge wise to take, and this is a malignant misbelief to be extirpated. There will be no unreasonable danger."
"If we can somehow get this medium out here—" said Mr. Tabor. ”

“ I lay there for some time thinking, as men active and alert in body and mind will, of the chances I might miss of witnessing some deed of heroism or of violence, were I to allow myself to count the possible cost of the risk, rather than the certain opportunities of distinction which its dangers would present to a man of an enterprising spirit. ”