Failure famous quotes

My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.
-- Abraham Lincoln

#Inspirational #Failure #Learning

One's only rival is one's own potentialities. One's only failure is failing to live up to one's own possibilities. In this sense, every man can be a king, and must therefore be treated like a king.
-- Abraham Maslow

#Kings #Failure #Men

Do not compare yourself to others. If you do so, you are insulting yourself.
-- Adolf Hitler

#Inspirational #Motivational #Failure

It is better to make a mistake than to do nothing.
-- Adolf Hitler

#Mistake #Failure

We may fail of our happiness, strive we ever so bravely; but we are less likely to fail if we measure with judgement our chances and our capabilities.
-- Agnes Repplier

#Failure #Judgement #May

No matter how hard the loss, defeat might serve as well as victory to shake the soul and let the glory out.
-- Al Gore

#Failure #Loss #Political

Everyone should fail in a big way at least once before reaching forty.
-- Al Neuharth

#Failure #Way #Failing

Failure is enriching. It's also important to accept that you'll make mistakes-it's how you build your expertise. The trick is to learn a positive lesson from all of life's negative moments.
-- Alain Ducasse

#Mistake #Failure #Important

By honestly acknowledging your past errors, but never damning yourself for them, you can learn to use your past for your own future benefit.
-- Albert Ellis

#Failure #Past #Errors

Failure doesn't have anything to do with your intrinsic value as a person.
-- Albert Ellis

#Failure #Intrinsic Value #Persons

Several excuses are always less convincing than one.
-- Aldous Huxley

#Inspirational #Life #Failure

Of all the causes which conspire to blind Man's erring judgement, and misguide the mind, What the weak head with strongest bias rules, Is PRIDE, the never-failing vice of fools.
-- Alexander Pope

#Failure #Pride #Men

I’ve lived to bury my desires, And see my dreams corrode with rust; Now all that’s left are fruitless fires That burn my empty heart to dust.
-- Alexander Pushkin

#Dream #Failure #Heart

Failure and success are not accidents, but the strictest justice.
-- Alexander Smith

#Failure #Justice #Success And Failure

No experience is a cause of success or failure. We do not suffer from the shock of our experiences, so-called trauma - but we make out of them just what suits our purposes.
-- Alfred Adler

#Success #Congratulations #Failure

All failures - neurotics, psychotics, criminals, drunkards, problem children, suicides, perverts, and prostitutes - are failures because they are lacking in social interest
-- Alfred Adler

#Suicide #Children #Failure

The more congenial page of some tenth-rate poeticule worn out with failure after failure and now squat in his hole like the tailless fox, he is curled up to snarl and whimper beneath the inaccessible vine of song.
-- Algernon Charles Swinburne

#Song #Failure #Vines

The success or failure of a life, as far as posterity goes, seems to lie in the more or less luck of seizing the right moment of escape
-- Alice James

#Lying #Failure #Luck

Insurrection. An unsuccessful revolution; disaffection's failure to substitute misrule for bad government.
-- Ambrose Bierce

#Success #Failure #Government

Please know that I am aware of the hazards. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be a challenge to others.
-- Amelia Earhart

#Courage #Women #Failure

We climb to heaven most often on the ruins of our cherished plans, finding our failures were successes.
-- Amos Bronson Alcott

#Success #Failure #Heaven

I didn't fear failure. I expected failure.
-- Amy Tan

#Failure #Expected

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.
-- Anais Nin

#Life #Change #Failure

lack of will power leads to more failure than lack of intelligence or ability.
-- Anchee Min

#Failure #Will Power #Ability

It is not always by plugging away at a difficulty and sticking to it that one overcomes it; often it is by working on the one next to it. Some things and some people have to be approached obliquely, at an angle.
-- Andre Gide

#Life #Work #Failure

Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.
-- Andy Grove

#Business #Failure #Inspire

Success is seldom permanent, and failure is seldom fatal. The important thing is to keep trying.
-- Anna Olson

#Failure #Important #Trying

I wasn't afraid to fail. Something good always comes out of failure.
-- Anne Baxter

#Failure #Failing

It's best to have failure happen early in life. It wakes up the Phoenix bird in you so you rise from the ashes.
-- Anne Baxter

#Inspiring #Failure #Phoenix

the knowledge of personal failure ... is the invaluable predicate of all honest compassion.
-- Anne Truitt

#Failure #Compassion #Honest

When you get rid of your fear of failure, your tensions about succeeding... you can be yourself. Relaxed. You'll no longer be driving with your brakes on.
-- Anthony de Mello

#Being Yourself #Fear #Failure

If I were to say, 'God, why me?' about the bad things, then I should have said, 'God, why me?' about the good things that happened in my life.
-- Arthur Ashe

#Life #Sports #Failure

Always have the situation under control, even if losing. Never betray an inward sense of defeat.
-- Arthur Ashe

#Failure #Inward #Losing

A failure will not appear until a unit has passed final inspection.
-- Arthur Bloch

#Failure #Finals #Inspection

Admitting errors clears the score and proves you wiser than before.
-- Arthur Guiterman

#Failure #Errors #Admitting

The end of a relationship is not always a failure. Sometimes all the love in the world is not enough to save something. In these cases, it is not a matter of fault from either person. Some things cannot be, it's as simple as that.
-- Ashly Lorenzana

#Failure #Simple #World

The real test is not whether you avoid failure, because you won't. It's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it. . .
-- Barack Obama

#Real #Failure #Tests

Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it's not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won't. it's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere.
-- Barack Obama

#Perseverance #Real #Failure

Most people, after one success, are so cringingly afraid of doing less well that they rub all the edge off their subsequent work.
-- Beatrix Potter

#Inspirational #Failure #People

Keep on beginning and failing. Each time you fail, start all over gain, and you will grow stronger until have accomplished a purpose - not the one you began with perhaps, but one you'll be glad to remember.
-- Ben Stein

#Moving On #Time #Failure

It's a failure only if you don't get anything out of it, Thomas Edison said he knew 999 ways that a light bulb did not work; yet we have lights today.
-- Benjamin Carson

#Failure #Light #Today

Stop thinking of failing.
-- Benjamin Carson

#Failure #Thinking #Failing

What we anticipate seldom occurs: but what we least expect generally happens.
-- Benjamin Disraeli

#Failure #Political #Politics

A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.
-- Benjamin Franklin

#Work #Failure #Live Life

If you have made a mistake cut your losses as quickly as possible.
-- Bernard Baruch

#Mistake #Failure #Cutting

If we try and fail, we have temporary disappointments. But if we do not try at all, we have permanent regrets.
-- Bernard Williams

#Disappointment #Regret #Failure

What a shame to be so afraid of failure that you stop living. My wife has a great one-liner about failure: "Never consider yourself a failure-you can always serve as a bad example." She is right. Failure can be a better teacher than success.
-- Bernie Siegel

#Teacher #Failure #Wife

Failed the bright promise of your early day?
-- Bill Vaughan

#Failure #Promise

The main thing is not a matter of wanting to win; the main thing is being scared to lose.
-- Billie Jean King

#Failure #Winning #Matter

More men fail though lack of purpose than lack of talent.
-- Billy Sunday

#Life #Failure #Men

Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else's.
-- Billy Wilder

#Mistake #Failure #Life Is Short

When failure is not an option, we can forget about creativity, learning, and innovation.
-- Brené Brown

#Failure #Learning #Creativity

When you're fearless, you take more risks because you're less conscious of failure or what can go wrong.
-- Brett Ratner

#Failure #Fearless #Risk

Be prepared to ride the cycles and trends of life; success is never permanent, and failure is never final.
-- Brian Tracy

#Failure #Finals #Trends

Never consider the possibility of failure; as long as you persist, you will be successful.
-- Brian Tracy

#Giving Up #Failure #Successful

Incorrect assumptions lie at the root of every failure. Have the courage to test your assumptions.
-- Brian Tracy

#Inspirational #Lying #Failure

An artist's failures are as valuable as his successes: by misjudging one thing he conforms something else, even if at the time he does not know what that something else is.
-- Bridget Riley

#Failure #Artist #Doe

We pay just as dearly for our triumphs as we do for our defeats. Go ahead and fail. But fail with wit, fail with grace, fail with style. A mediocre failure is as insufferable as a mediocre success.
-- Bruce Barton

#Failure #Grace #Style

It's not a very high failure rate if you choose people that you really like the sound of.
-- Bryan Ferry

#Failure #People #Sound

If I had permitted my failures, or what seemed to me at the time a lack of success, to discourage me I cannot see any way in which I would ever have made progress.
-- Calvin Coolidge

#Congratulations #Failure #Progress

People tend to grow fearful, when they taste failure, face a daunting challenge or fall ill. Yet, that is precisely the time to become even bolder. Those who are victors at heart are the greatest of all champions!!!!
-- Carmelo Anthony

#Failure #Fall #Heart

The failure of Christianity in the areas west from Sicily was even greater, and was increased by the spread of Arab outlooks and influence to that area, and especially to Spain.
-- Carroll Quigley

#Failure #Spain #West

If Liberia has failed, then, it is no evidence of the failure of the Negro in government. It is merely evidence of the failure of slavery.
-- Carter G. Woodson

#Failure #Government #Slavery

I don't understand a way to work other than bold-facedly running towards failure.
-- Cate Blanchett

#Running #Failure #Romance

Failure is nothing but success trying to be born in a bigger way. Most seeming failures are just installments toward victory!
-- Catherine Ponder

#Failure #Victory #Trying

Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.
-- Charles Babbage

#Failure #Errors #Data

An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.
-- Charles Horton Cooley

#Art #Failure #Positive Thoughts

One fails forward toward success.
-- Charles Kettering

#Inspirational #Business #Failure

The biggest job we have is to teach a newly hired employee how to fail intelligently. We have to train him to experiment over and over and to keep on trying and failing until he learns what will work.
-- Charles Kettering

#Jobs #Work #Failure

We need to teach the highly educated man that it is not a disgrace to fail and that he must analyze every failure to find its cause. He must learn how to fail intelligently, for failing is one of the greatest arts in the world.
-- Charles Kettering

#Education #Art #Failure

The only time you mustn't fail is the last time you try.
-- Charles Kettering

#Success #Failure #Science

Learn how to fail intelligently.
-- Charles Kettering

#Failure #Failing

Every great improvement has come after repeated failures. Virtually nothing comes out right the first time. Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.
-- Charles Kettering

#Success #Failure #Achievement

Uncalled for excuses are practical confessions.
-- Charles Simmons

#Failure #Excuse #Confession

To many men, moderate success is only another aspect of failure.
-- Charles Tomlinson

#Failure #Men #Aspect

In all pursuits men complain of failure when they have not attained the measure of success they proposed to themselves.
-- Charles Tomlinson

#Failure #Men #Complaining

Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself.
-- Charlie Chaplin

#Courage #Failure #Humility

As kids we're not taught how to deal with success; we're taught how to deal with failure. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. If at first you succeed, then what?
-- Charlie Sheen

#Failure #Fall #Kids

I don't think anyone's a failure as long as they're still innocent. Just a little. They may lose everything good in them but as long as they believe just a little in something very small, they're still innocent. To fail is to lose every bit of innocence.
-- Charlotte Bingham

#Believe #Failure #Thinking

To try and fail is at least to learn; to fail to try is to suffer the inestimable loss of what might have been.
-- Chester Barnard

#Failure #Loss #Suffering

Don't look for excuses to lose. Look for excuses to win.
-- Chi Chi Rodriguez

#Failure #Winning #Looks

There is no failure except in no longer trying.
-- Chris Bradford

#Inspirational #Failure #Trying

It's okay to fail; it's not okay to quit.
-- Chris Gardner

#Failure #Quitting #Failing

No human ever became interesting by not failing. The more you fail and recover and improve, the better you are as a person. Ever meet someone who's always had everything work out for them with zero struggle? They usually have the depth of a puddle. Or they don't exist.
-- Chris Hardwick

#Zero #Failure #Struggle

The more failure you can accept, the greater your chance of success.
-- Chris Matthews

#Failure #Chance #Accepting

We are spirits clad in veils; Man by man was never seen; All our deep communing fails To remove the shadowy screen.
-- Christopher Pearse Cranch

#Failure #Men #Veils

It is painful to reflect upon your failures knowing that you alone caused them.
-- Clarence H. Burns

#Failure #Knowing #Painful

Success depends upon previous preparation, and without such preparation there is sure to be failure.
-- Confucius

#Success #Congratulations #Failure

The faults of a superior person are like the sun and moon. They have their faults, and everyone sees them; they change and everyone looks up to them.
-- Confucius

#Failure #Moon #Reality

He will know from and early age that failure is not disgrace. It's just a pitch that you missed, and you'd better get ready for the next one. The next one might be the shot heard round the world. My son and I are Americans, we prepare for glory by failing until we don't.
-- Craig Ferguson

#Success #Failure #Son

The real mark of your character comes from not how you react to your successes, of which I know there will be many. How you react to your failures, of which there will be, if you are bold, a number in your lifetime.
-- Daniel Goldin

#Real #Failure #Character

Failure is more frequently from want of energy than want of capital.
-- Daniel Webster

#Failure #4th Of July #Energy

The leading cause of death among fashion models is falling through street grates.
-- Dave Barry

#Fashion #Humorous #Failure

To fail is a natural consequence of trying, To succeed takes time and prolonged effort in the face of unfriendly odds. To think it will be any other way, no matter what you do, is to invite yourself to be hurt and to limit your enthusiasm for trying again.
-- David Viscott

#Hurt #Failure #Thinking

Failure is not an option. Failure is a prerequisite.
-- David Zinczenko

#Failure #Failure Is Not An Option

Failure: Is it a limitation? Bad timing? It's a lot of things. It's something you can't be afraid of, because you'll stop growing. The next step beyond failure could be your biggest success in life.
-- Debbie Allen

#Failure #Next Steps #Growing

The current perception I get from the evening news is that the world is dominated by human failure, crime, catastrophe, corruption, and tragedy. We are all tuning in to see how the human mind is evolving, but the media keeps hammering home the opposite, that the human mind is mired in darkness and folly.
-- Deepak Chopra

#Failure #Home #Media

Forget about the consequences of failure. Failure is only a temporary change in direction to set you straight for your next success.
-- Denis Waitley

#Failure #Next #Forget

Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.
-- Denis Waitley

#Teacher #Failure #Saying Nothing

Great individuals make great successes out of failure.
-- Denis Waitley

#Motivational #Failure #Greatness