quotations about failure
Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.
GEORGE ELIOT
Middlemarch
The only guarantee for failure is to stop trying.
JOHN C. MAXWELL
Put Your Dream to the Test
Don't fear failure -- Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.
BRUCE LEE
Striking Thoughts: Bruce Lee's Wisdom for Daily Living
My parents always allowed me to fail when I was growing up, and I think that gave me a lot of strength going forward in my life. I lost high-school and junior-high elections when I ran for class president. I learned early in life to get up and dust yourself off and keep going.
ANDREA WONG
Newsweek, Oct. 15, 2007
Failure is ever impending.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Estimates of Some Englishmen and Scotchmen
If a man has directed his course to great ends there is compensation even in ruin.
ARTHUR LYNCH
Moods of Life
The fact that you have been knocked down is interesting, but the length of time you remained down is important.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Better to fail in the pursuit of the noble, than to succeed in the search for the mean.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
I'm very proud of my failures. I'm perverse that way.
BARRY DILLER
Playboy, Jul. 1989
There's no disgrace in failing, lad,
Though friends and foes deride;
In fact, a failure's not so bad
As never having tried.
EDGAR GUEST
"The Shame"
I would way rather not have middle ground. I would way rather fail in someone's eyes than be that sort of tepid ... that's the worst.
SCARLETT JOHANSSON
The Guardian, March 16, 2014
All great success is preceded by failure.
BRIAN TRACY
The 100 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success
One of the most important tasks of a manager is to eliminate his people’s excuses for failure.
ROBERT TOWNSEND
Further Up the Organization
In times of success remember many have succeeded even better than thou: in times of failure, remember many have failed even worse than thou.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.
TRUMAN CAPOTE
Portraits and Observations
I've come to believe that all my past failure and frustration were actually laying the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living I now enjoy.
ANTHONY ROBBINS
Awaken the Giant Within
Every man is in some sort a failure to himself. No one ever reaches the heights to which he aspires.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
My problem is that I don't get the same exhiliration from success as I get depression from failure.
STEVE MARTIN
Time Magazine, Aug. 24, 1987
Man is certain of nothing but his ability to fail.
KEN KESEY
Sometimes a Great Notion
Few things are impracticable in themselves; and 'tis for want of application, rather than of means, that men fail of success.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Moral Maxims