“The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
Frequently attributed to Nin, but without cited source in her work (possibly due to a quotation in Living on Purpose: Straight Answers to Universal Questions (2000) by Dan Millman that attributed the quote to Nin without source).
In March 2013, a former Director of Public Relations at John F. Kennedy University in Orinda, Elizabeth Appell, claimed she had authored the quote in 1979 for an inspirational header on a class schedule: http://anaisninblog.skybluepress.com/2013/03/who-wrote-risk-is-the-mystery-solved/
Disputed
Variant: The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
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Anaïs Nin 278
writer of novels, short stories, and erotica 1903–1977Related quotes

“The more we think about risk, the more risk seem to be.”
Source: Take The Risk (2008), p. 58

Epitaph on an Infant
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“…if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.”
Becoming Light: Poems New and Selected (1991)
Variant: ... if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 39.