What is the point of being on this Earth if you are going to be like everyone else and avoid trouble?
It is only by being bold that you get anywhere. If you are a risk-taker, then the art is to protect the downside.
If you aren't making waves, you aren't kicking hard enough.
There’s a tremendous bias against taking risks. Everyone is trying to optimize their ass-covering.
Don’t be afraid of new arenas.
It takes character to sit there with all that cash and do nothing. I didn’t get to where I am by going after mediocre opportunities.
No wise pilot, no matter how great his talent and experience, fails to use his checklist.
I constantly get out of my comfort zone. Looking cool is the easiest way to mediocrity. The coolest guy in my high school ended up working at a car wash. Once you push yourself into something new, and whole new world of opportunities opens up. But you might get hurt. In fact you will get hurt. But amazingly when you heal – you are somewhere you’ve never been.
Thinking will not overcome fear but action will.
You jump off a cliff and you assemble an airplane on the way down.
If you only do things where you know the answer in advance, your company goes away.
The time to go into a new business is when it’s badly run by others.
When I started SpaceX I thought that the most likely outcome was failure. And I think to have any other expectation would have been irrational.
I am prepared to try anything once.
The balloons only have one life and the only way of finding out whether they work is to attempt to fly around the world.
You never know with these things when you're trying something new what can happen. This is all experimental.
Risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
I never looked at the consequences of missing a big shot. When you think about the consequences you always think of a negative result.
Every great move forward in your life begins with a leap of faith, a step into the unknown.
The future belongs to the risk-takers, not the comfort-seekers .