Worst Case Scenario Quotes

• One thing that makes it possible to be an optimist is if you have a contingency plan for when all hell breaks loose.

  Randy Pausch

  Risk, Management, Hell

  Randy Pausch, Jeffrey Zaslow (2008). “The last lecture”, Hyperion Books

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• In the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore got more votes than George W. Bush, but still lost the election. The Supreme Court's ruling in Florida gave Bush that pivotal state, and doomed Gore to lose the Electoral College. That odd scenario - where the candidate with the most votes loses - has happened three times in U.S. history.

  Juan Williams

  College, Florida, Presidential

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• Always plan for the fact that no plan ever goes according to plan.

  Simon Sinek

  Facts, Plans, According To Plan

  Twitter post from Jul 07, 2009

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• If you train worst case scenarios consistently, they will no longer be worst case scenarios

  Rener Gracie

  Training, Martial Arts, Cases

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• I learned to embrace risk, as long as it was well thought out and, in a worst-case scenario, I'd still land on my feet.

  Eli Broad

  Learning, Land, Feet

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• Another way to be prepared is to think negatively. Yes, I'm a great optimist. but, when trying to make a decision, I often think of the worst case scenario. I call it 'the eaten by wolves factor.' If I do something, what's the most terrible thing that could happen? Would I be eaten by wolves? One thing that makes it possible to be an optimist, is if you have a contingency plan for when all hell breaks loose. There are a lot of things I don't worry about, because I have a plan in place if they do.

  Randy Pausch

  Attitude, Optimistic, Thinking

  Randy Pausch, Jeffrey Zaslow (2008). “The last lecture”, Hyperion Books

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• I would visualize the best- and worst-case scenarios. Whether I get disqualified or my goggles fill up with water or I lose my goggles or I come in last, I'm ready for anything.

  Michael Phelps

  Sports, Water, Lasts

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• I'm a worst-case scenario person. I'm only interested in a story because I kind of go, like a magnet, to the worst thing that can happen.

  John Irving

  Stories, Kind, Cases

  "Why novelist John Irving's latest protagonist is a fiction writer". "PBS NewsHour" with Jeffrey Brown, www.pbs.org. November 3, 2015.

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• I highly recommend inviting the worst-case scenario into your life.

  Portia de Rossi

  Cases, Inviting, Scenarios

  Portia de Rossi (2010). “Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain”, p.304, Simon and Schuster

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• The future is unwritten. there are best case scenarios. There are worst-case scenarios. both of them are great fun to write about if you' re a science fiction novelist, but neither of them ever happens in the real world. What happens in the real world is always a sideways-case scenario. World-changing marvels to us, are only wallpaper to our children.

  Bruce Sterling

  Children, Fun, Real

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• Always play for the worst case scenario..If it is the best you'll win anyway

  David Trott

  Winning, Play, Advertising

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• My friends call me Miss Worst Case Scenario.

  Patricia Cornwell

  Missing, Cases, Call Me

  "Crime does pay". Interview with Simon Hattenstone, www.theguardian.com. May 13, 2001.

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• That's the way I look at things - if you focus on the worst case scenario and it happens, you've lived it twice. It sounds like Pollyanna-ish tripe but I'm telling you - it works for me.

  Michael J. Fox

  Focus, Sound, Looks

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• The taste for worst-case scenarios reflects the need to master fear of what is felt to be uncontrollable. It also expresses an imaginative complicity with disaster.

  Susan Sontag

  Needs, Taste, Disaster

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• The minute I spend any energy defending myself, explaining myself, or in the worst case scenario, trying to please those who are criticizing me, I will, you know, just fall off a cliff.

  Amanda Palmer

  Fall, Trying, Energy

  Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

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• Reassurance can actually exacerbate anxiety: when you reassure your friend that the worst-case scenario he fears probably won't occur, you inadvertently reinforce his belief that it would be catastrophic if it did. You are tightening the coil of his anxiety, not loosening it. All to often, the Stoics point out, things will not turn out for the best.

  Oliver Burkeman

  Anxiety, Would Be, Belief

  "Happiness is a glass half empty" by Oliver Burkeman, www.theguardian.com. June 15, 2012.

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• Most of us have to think worst-case scenario.

  Willie Parker

  Thinking, Cases, Scenarios

  Source: m.motherjones.com

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• She gave me the jabs and said I was covered for every worst-case scenario, including being bitten by a dirty chimp. I told her this is why we have over-population problems. Why are idiots who annoy dirty chimps being protected?

  Karl Pilkington

  Dirty, Population Problem, Idiot

  Karl Pilkington (2010). “An Idiot Abroad: The Travel Diaries of Karl Pilkington”, p.11, Canongate Books

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• Confronting the worst-case scenario saps it of much of its anxiety-inducing power. Happiness reached via positive thinking can be fleeting and brittle, negative visualization generates a vastly more dependable calm.

  Oliver Burkeman

  Positive Thinking, Anxiety, Negative

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• Even if it doesn't work out, the experience is so valuable to so many employers that your worst case scenario is, 'Ok, so that was a bust, I'll get a six-figure job at whatever company.' Risk is this outmoded idea - your parents might not understand that, but taking these types of risks doesn't have a downside.

  Drew Houston

  Jobs, Ideas, Work Out

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• In my mind, being overdressed is not a bad thing at all. What's the worst case scenario? That you are the best-dressed person in the room? Who cares!

  Rachel Zoe

  Style, Mind, Who Cares

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• So let's raise the tone of the debate. Too often at the moment we look like schoolchildren squabbling over a toy - our most precious toy, the Earth. And the danger is that as we pull in opposite directions in our global tug of war, the Earth will end up broken - or at least unable to sustain human life. That is the worst case scenario - or maybe, from the Earth's point of view, the best.

  Roz Savage

  War, Views, Opposites

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• If you fixate on the worst-case scenario and it actually happens, you’ve lived it twice.

  Michael J. Fox

  Cases, Happens, Ifs

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• The worst case scenario sees the Amazon rainforest burning, huge amounts of methane being released by Siberian peat bogs and so on - by the time today's six year olds are 60, such a scenario would see global warming already out of control.

  Mark Lynas

  Years, Climate, Amazon

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• I find some comfort in running through the worst-case scenario in my mind and seeing how it's all going to go down.

  Laurel Nakadate

  Running, Mind, Comfort

  Interview with Scott Indrisek, believermag.com. October 1, 2006.

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