Qui ne risque rien n’a rien.
– French proverb
Literally, “who risks nothing, gains nothing”. I got this proverb out of a really terrible novel about a girl who ‘finds herself’ in Paris (so terribly I don’t even remember the title), but I liked the proverb enough to paint it on a t-shirt. It’s true – sometimes you just got to take the risk, even though it’s scary. I need to remember that sometimes.
UPDATE: If you want a much better story about a girl who travels to Paris, check out my novella, Paris in Clichés
Hmm... 
C’est magnifique! So true . I love it!
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You can also say “Qui ne tente rien n’a rien.” And yes, it means exactly the same thing, but I don’t know, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard that one more often. Not that “risque” is incorrect, you can say both 🙂
There’s another thing we say, it’s : “Quand on veut on peut.” Which means “When you want you can.” It’s the most litteral translation. It just means that if you have enough motivation you can do anything. There’s also “A coeur vaillant, rien d’impossible” ! Larousse.fr says it translates as “nothing is impossible to a valiant heart.” It’s not a proverb as oftenly used as the other two but I like it.
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Lovely! Many ways of getting the same idea across. I was wondering if you’d comment and tell me how common that saying was (since I got it from a novel – sometimes authors have no clue about the language they’re attempting to use).
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Ahah, true but this time it was accurate, we do say that a lot 🙂
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