"Nothing ventured, nothing gained."

The old proverb, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained”, is apparent in its meaning, depending on the context.  There are a few different meanings of “ventured”, from the more obvious, “to expose to hazard; to risk, gamble”, to the less literal, “to offer a risk of rebuff, rejection, or censure”.  As for the word “gain”, well that can have several meanings depending on the person and the place.  The definition of gain can even be lost in the same context, depending on what the proverb-giver meant and how the proverb-listener took it.  Overall, however, the general meaning of the proverb can be defined as, “if you do not take risks, you’ll never accomplish anything.”  How this proverb accomplishes its meaning rhetorically is, of course, less general and relies on the ethics, logic, and emotion of the phrase.

            “Nothing ventured, nothing gained”, will change meaning depending on the ethics of the situation, or even just the intention and ethics of the person saying it.  For example, the difference between your mother expressing this statement to you vs. your drug dealer would change the meaning quite a bit.  Here, the ethics of the situation change as well as the ethics of the proverb-giver and your trust in them.  Who you trust, your ethics, and the ethics of the situation all come into play when interpreting this well known proverb.

            Logically, this phrase makes sense: “Nothing ventured, nothing gained”; how can one gain anything without doing something first?  In this sense, the phrase can be considered a type of enthymeme in that there lies an unstated assumption that to gain something, you must do something first.  Then you may lead to the broader, deductive, conclusion that if nothing is ventured, nothing will be gained.  In the case of most proverbs, they start inductively, crafted out of a series of similar circumstances, and become deductive, applied to all situations.  What is convenient about most rhetorical devices is their ability to change depending on the context, and still make sense. 

            If a public speaker were to enter the room with the phrase, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained”, it would most definitely mean something different to every person.  One person might feel regret for not taking a risk earlier in life – the “what if” guy.  Another person might apply it to a current situation and get excited – the “needed a push” guy.  Either way, you cannot hear this proverb without feeling a certain emotion tied to the words and the context to which you apply it.  For me, I feel both encouragement and apprehension for the potential risks I’m about to take, knowing that I will not gain anything without trying and yet scared of the outcome, of failure, and even success.  Even if we take the risk and make the gain, but that gain turns out to be something we don’t want in the future, how can we win?  It’s the level of uncertainty tied to the phrase that boils up so many emotions and gives it its meaning, its encouragement, its regret. 

            One doesn’t need to pull apart the rhetoric of this statement to understand its meaning.  We all take it differently depending on the context anyway.  However, it is interesting to appreciate the many meanings of this proverb that can only be realized if you incorporate rhetoric.  It is this ability to pull apart the many meanings of a sentence or statement that will broaden one’s writing, one’s thinking, and one’s emotion.