1000 Best Failure Quotes

I don't fear pain or failure anymore because I'm too grateful for the pains and failures of my past - they have made me who I am, and most of the good things in my life are a direct result of them in some way. Scott Derrickson

Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity successful men act as though they have accomplished or are enjoying something. Soon it becomes a reality. Act, look, feel successful, conduct yourself accordingly, and you will be amazed at the positive results. William James

A man who has never made a woman angry is a failure in life. Christopher Morley

As is well known, 'McCarthyism' was an alleged focus of political evil in the 1950s: Accusations of Communist taint, without factual basis; bogus lists of supposed Communists who never existed; failure in the end to produce even one provable Communist or Soviet agent, despite his myriad charges of subversion. M. Stanton Evans

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

They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America? Fidel Castro

Failure means a stripping away of the inessential. J. K. Rowling

War is something Arafat sends others to do for him. That is, the poor souls who believe in him. This pompous incompetent caused the failure of the Camp David negotiations, Clinton's mediation. Oriana Fallaci

What matters is this: Being fearless of failure arms you to break the rules. In doing so, you may change the culture and just possibly, for a moment, change life itself. Malcolm Mclaren

It is important for investors to understand what they do and don't know. Learn to recognize that you cannot possibly know what is going to happen in the future, and any investment plan that is dependent on accurately forecasting where markets will be next year is doomed to failure. Barry Ritholtz

Growing up, I had the weird fantasy list: I wanted to be Alice Cooper, Steven Spielberg, and Stan Lee. You have to have almost psychotic drive, because you're going to have years of failure. Rob Zombie

I feel that marriage can lead to the ultimate rejection and failure and divorce and things we all fear. Mike Birbiglia

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery. Winston Churchill

There is no question that the Islamic State will be defeated in Mosul; the real question is what comes afterward. Can the post-Islamic State effort resolve the squabbling likely to arise over numerous issues and bring lasting stability to one of Iraq's most diverse and challenging provinces? Failure to do so could lead to ISIS 3.0. David Petraeus

Never be afraid of failure. And don't stop yourself from doing something you want to do because of what others might think. Only you know yourself best. Suki Waterhouse

Once our country is fully engulfed in a debt crisis, our economy will be torn apart, and every American will be a victim of the federal government's failure to prevent this disaster. Kevin McCarthy

The publishing scene in India is evolving rapidly, and the key challenge is to keep reinventing oneself so that one does not become formulaic. Sometimes it is safer to deal with the consequences of failure than the fruits of success. Remaining on one's toes is critical, and often one finds that success makes one complacent. Ashwin Sanghi


If you set your goals ridiculously high and it's a failure, you will fail above everyone else's success. James Cameron

From a public perspective, the Grand National is the biggest race of all, and not to have won it yet is definitely a failure. But there's been a lot of jockeys every bit as good and better than me that haven't won it - John Francome, Peter Scudamore, Jonjo O'Neill, Charlie Swan, to name a few. Tony McCoy

My biggest failure is I have too many to talk about. Dean Kamen

A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it. Alexandre Dumas

The great question is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with failure. Laurence J. Peter

But whatever my failure, I have this thing to remember - that I was a pioneer in my profession, just as my grandfathers were in theirs, in that I was the first man in this section to earn his living as a writer. Robert E. Howard

Lead yourself whenever your boss' leadership deteriorates. When your boss doesn't praise what you do, praise yourself. When your boss doesn't make you big, make yourself big. Remember, if you have done your best, failure does not count. Mario Teguh

I always write about subjects which attract me because if I didn't, it would be awful, a failure. Ruth Rendell

In a crowded marketplace, fitting in is a failure. In a busy marketplace, not standing out is the same as being invisible. Seth Godin

There were times in 'Adaptation' during the editing where I really thought, 'Okay, well, this was a noble failure. I tried to do something good, but this is not going to work.' Spike Jonze

Performers should really go to the best schools, like Lady Gaga, you know, she went to NYU and had great teachers... It's best to really study your technique as much as you possibly can so you can have a long career instead of a quick one that's a failure. Tony Bennett

It is worth noting that 'too big to fail' is not simply about size. A big institution is 'too big' when there is an expectation that government will do whatever it takes to rescue that institution from failure, thus bestowing an effective risk premium subsidy. Reforms to end 'too big to fail' must address the causes of this expectation. Jerome Powell

The study of literature threatens to become a kind of paleontology of failure, and criticism a supercilious psychoanalysis of authors. John Updike

Some people will go to the opening of an envelope. They live their lives in the public eye and get off on it, they need it. They need that kind of adoration. If their name isn't in the tabloids once a week they feel like a failure. Jensen Ackles

Even when you have doubts, take that step. Take chances. Mistakes are never a failure - they can be turned into wisdom. Cat Cora

Delivering a successful presentation could mean landing a major new contract, better prices for your services, or getting the funding you need. Failure can mean lost customers and a business that never gets off the ground. Lewis Howes

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I, therefore, intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt. Barack Obama

If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being. Jerry Falwell

Feminism is doomed to failure because it is based on an attempt to repeal and restructure human nature. Phyllis Schlafly

For me, utter failure is to make a film that people pay their money to go see and they don't like. Peter Jackson

If your goal is to lose 10 pounds, you may wake up each day with failure in mind because the goal is hard to reach, and you are progressing only by small amounts. It takes up all your willpower. I recommend that instead of a goal, you have a system. Scott Adams

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

Optimism is a kind of heart stimulant - the digitalis of failure. Elbert Hubbard

I was a diabetic for 16 years, since I was 14. Being that I lost weight, no more diabetes. You don't have to lose your eyesight, cut off your toes, have a stroke, get kidney failure. You just have to lose weight - you know - for most of the diabetes. Fat Joe

If we say we trust in Him, but in reality do not, then God, taking us at our word, lets us see that we do not really confide in Him; and hence failure arises. George Muller

Failure is central to engineering. Every single calculation that an engineer makes is a failure calculation. Successful engineering is all about understanding how things break or fail. Henry Petroski

Capitalism, after all, is no fun when real failure becomes a possibility. James Surowiecki

A real failure does not need an excuse. It is an end in itself. Gertrude Stein

Many of the familiar little things that we use every day have typically evolved over a period of time to a state of familiarity. They balance form and function, elegance and economy, success and failure in ways that are not only acceptable, but also admirable. Henry Petroski

I have experienced failure as a politician and for that very reason, I am ready to give everything for Japan. Shinzo Abe

I think that a failure of statistical thinking is the major intellectual shortcoming of our universities, journalism and intellectual culture. Steven Pinker

I was very afraid of failure because if you fail at something you love, then you ruin what you love. Kimbal Musk

Failure in the theater is more dramatic and uglier than any other form of writing. It costs so much, you feel so guilty. Lillian Hellman

In fiction workshops, we tend to focus on matters of verisimilitude largely because such issues are so much easier to talk about than the failure of imagination. Tim O'Brien

No failure in America, whether of love or money, is ever simple; it is always a kind of betrayal, of a mass of shadowy, shared hopes. Greil Marcus

The only failure is not to try. George Clooney

In addition to being an economic security issue, the failure to pay women a salary that's equal to men for equal work is also a women's health issue. The fact is that the salary women are paid directly impacts the type of health care services they are able to access for both themselves and their families. Kirsten Gillibrand

The idea of capitalism is not just success but also the failure that allows success to happen. P. J. O'Rourke

Success is not built on success. It's built on failure. It's built on frustration. Sometimes its built on catastrophe. Sumner Redstone

The dumb-manager theory of business problems just didn't hold water for me. There had to be a deeper reason why smart people would make decisions that lead to failure. Clayton M. Christensen

Not failure, but low aim, is crime. James Russell Lowell


Coming to terms with the fact that my marriage was a failure was devastating and very difficult. Sarah McLachlan

As an entrepreneur, I've come across countless articles and quotes proudly telling me that I should accept failure, smile, and keep my head up. In other words, I've been told to stay positive. The thing is, when you're forced to shut down a business and let really awesome people you care about go, staying positive is the last thing on your mind. John Rampton

Remember the two benefits of failure. First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn't work; and second, the failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach. Roger von Oech

At the end of the day I have always seen the end of my relationships as a personal failure. There is nothing ever pretty in saying goodbye. Elisabetta Canalis

In the different voice of women lies the truth of an ethic of care, the tie between relationship and responsibility, and the origins of aggression in the failure of connection. Carol Gilligan

I'm drawn to failure. I feel like I'm contending with it constantly in my own life. Joyce Carol Oates

Notice the difference between what happens when a man says to himself, I have failed three times, and what happens when he says, I am a failure. S. I. Hayakawa

People never confess to failure. They should. Mo Ibrahim

It's how you deal with failure that determines how you achieve success. Charlotte Whitton

Ultimately, all human activities have as their goal the realization of happiness. Why, then, have we ended up producing the opposite result? Could the underlying cause be our failure to correctly understand the true nature of happiness? Daisaku Ikeda

Winning is great, sure, but if you are really going to do something in life, the secret is learning how to lose. Nobody goes undefeated all the time. If you can pick up after a crushing defeat, and go on to win again, you are going to be a champion someday. Wilma Rudolph

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default. J. K. Rowling

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

Rather than viewing a brief relapse back to inactivity as a failure, treat it as a challenge and try to get back on track as soon as possible. Jimmy Connors

Remember your dreams and fight for them. You must know what you want from life. There is just one thing that makes your dream become impossible: the fear of failure. Paulo Coelho

When you fail, things get real. In fact, they get real real. If your success was a high profile success, then your failure will be a high profile failure. Opportunities and 'friendships' will evaporate. Failure shines a bright light on all relationships. The ones that last are pure and true, which is a true gift. Julie Wainwright

Success needs no explanation. Failure does not have one that matters. Jesse Jackson

Military leaders, many of whom were students of counterinsurgency, recognized the dangers of an incremental escalation and the historical lesson that 'trailing' an insurgency typically condemned counterinsurgents to failure. Stanley A. McChrystal

Comedy was my sport. It taught me how to roll with the punches. Failure is the exact same as success when it comes to comedy because it just keeps coming. It never stops. Emma Stone

A failure doesn't mean you are unworthy, nor does it preclude success on the next try. Leonard Mlodinow

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in failure. Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure. Napoleon Hill

Life is so fresh, life is every day so new if we are fighting, only for the best. Sometimes I think the only real satisfaction in life is failure, failure in your endeavor to do your best. Maude Adams

Success without someone to share it with is hollow indeed. On the other hand, it beats the heck out of failure. Judith McNaught

Failure is not our only punishment for laziness; there is also the success of others. Jules Renard

I think if you just eat healthy, you're active, and you don't beat yourself up, you're setting yourself up to win rather than setting yourself up for failure. Kristin Cavallari

The terror of failure can make you feel like a failure. So a bunch of people think you're not very good at your thing. How much do you invest in what they say? How much do you care? Failure is not putting yourself on the line. Dylan Moran

In all our deeds, the proper value and respect for time determines success or failure. Malcolm X

We have actually experienced in recent months a dramatic demonstration of an unprecedented intelligence failure, perhaps the most significant intelligence failure in the history of the United States. Zbigniew Brzezinski

Kids have been let down by adults - we've tried to give them too much, we've tried not to impose discipline. We've tried to make their lives easier and, in doing so, we've taken something away from them. Kids like boundaries, they also like to be pushed, need to learn what failure is all about, need guidance. Daley Thompson

Because most startups are lean and scrappy organizations consisting of a limited number of people and supported by an even smaller number of resources, startups cannot afford to have any slackers on board. When you fail, you cause an 'epic failure,' and when you win, everyone in the company knows about it. Clay Clark

Like prospecting in the 19th century, reconnaissance of the asteroids would of necessity take place in an arena where trouble is likely and help is distant. Heroic stories of individual triumph and failure, set on landscapes never seen by humankind, are in the cards. Seth Shostak

Defeat may serve as well as victory to shake the soul and let the glory out. Edwin Markham

Crime and bad lives are the measure of a State's failure, all crime in the end is the crime of the community. H. G. Wells

The failure to work out sensible budgets makes it impossible for government agencies to make long-term plans, and instead leaves them scrambling to spend money in the short term. Matt Taibbi

I love Rauschenberg. I love that he created a turning point in visual history, that he redefined the idea of beauty, that he combined painting, sculpture, photography, and everyday life with such gall, and that he was interested in, as he put it, 'the ability to conceive failure as progress.' Jerry Saltz

My friend was on dialysis for six years before he got a new kidney. I was on dialysis for eight months. I'm almost not even the typical person who has kidney failure. Natalie Cole

There's no such thing as failure - just waiting for success. John Osborne

Before success comes in any man's life, he's sure to meet with much temporary defeat and, perhaps some failures. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and the most logical thing to do is to quit. That's exactly what the majority of men do. Napoleon Hill

Whether you're successful or not, you'll never actually feel the joys of accomplishment unless you love yourself. Success can be very difficult to deal with. You have to stay in the center. If you let your success define you, then you're really just setting yourself up for failure. Goldie Hawn

Nothing succeeds, they say, like success. And certainly nothing fails like failure. Margaret Drabble


I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. Bill Cosby

Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure. George Edward Woodberry

I was interested in political failure here in the U.S. The way we're failing to work together to solve even our smallest problems, let alone the complex ones. Paolo Bacigalupi

The world is divided into two categories: failures and unknowns. Francis Picabia

I fear that our true motivation is about oil and our own flailing economy; about the failure to destroy Al Qaeda and about revenge. Dave Matthews

I have a tendency to sabotage relationships; I have a tendency to sabotage everything. Fear of success, fear of failure, fear of being afraid. Useless, good-for-nothing thoughts. Michael Buble

The reality is gas prices should be much more expensive then they are because we're not incorporating the true damage to the environment and the hidden costs of mining oil and transporting it to the U.S. Whenever you have an unpriced externality, you have a bit of a market failure, to the degree that eternality remains unpriced. Elon Musk

I was convicted of three misdemeanors of willful failure to file a form. Wesley Snipes

Indulging in unrestrained and immoderate laughter is a sign of intemperance, of a want of control over one's emotions, and of failure to repress the soul's frivolity by a stern use of reason. Saint Basil

Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success. Dale Carnegie

I failed first grade, which is my biggest problem. You always feel like a failure, like you're stupid. Amy Sedaris

My failures may be my greatest successes. It is in failure that I have often drawn closer to God, learn to depend more on Him than myself, gained self-knowledge, and seen things in their right perspective. Mother Angelica

Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes. John Dewey

Success is not forever and failure isn't fatal. Don Shula

American democracy must be a failure because it places the supreme authority in the hands of the poorest and most ignorant part of the society. Thomas Babington Macaulay

When we tackle obstacles, we find hidden reserves of courage and resilience we did not know we had. And it is only when we are faced with failure do we realise that these resources were always there within us. We only need to find them and move on with our lives. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

Fear stifles our thinking and actions. It creates indecisiveness that results in stagnation. I have known talented people who procrastinate indefinitely rather than risk failure. Lost opportunities cause erosion of confidence, and the downward spiral begins. Charles Stanley

Ultimately there is no such thing as failure. There are lessons learned in different ways. Twyla Tharp

In Chicago, you have an absence of strong family units, and that absence gets filled by gangs. You have a failure in the school system, after-school programs and other social programs to help keep kids off the streets. Amnesty International speaks to that in some way, by keeping these issues in the forefront. Lupe Fiasco

Who I am as a guitarist is defined by my failure to become Jimi Hendrix. John Mayer

Failure is a great teacher, and I think when you make mistakes and you recover from them and you treat them as valuable learning experiences, then you've got something to share. Steve Harvey

I think you can have 10,000 explanations for failure, but no good explanation for success. Paulo Coelho

There is failure in every industry; there is failure in every step. It's just that we are working in an industry where everything is just out there; that is why it looks so magnified. But failure is a part of life. Yami Gautam

I've had a lot of success; I've had failures, so I learn from the failure. Gordon Ramsay

Failure is success if we learn from it. Malcolm Forbes

A love of nature is a consolation against failure. Berthe Morisot

Heaven knows that I have done all that a mortal could do, to save the people, and the failure was not my fault, but the fault of others. Davy Crockett

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

If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure. Al Gore

I don't know which is stronger: the thrill of winning or the fear of failure. I don't know which one affects me most. I don't know where the middle is. Tony McCoy

Do not blame anybody for your mistakes and failures. Bernard Baruch

There are certainly times when baseball is much more than bread and circus, times when baseball resonates deeply and meaningfully with many, many people, and times when a game that is built around overcoming failure can teach us all a few important lessons. Theo Epstein

Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success. C. S. Lewis

The surest way to fail is not to determine to succeed. Richard Brinsley Sheridan

The album 'Cheers to the Fall' is really kind of me breaking out and being like, 'Listen, I don't care about criticism, and I don't care about possibility of failure. I'm going to do it. And if I do fail, well then, here's to it.' Andra Day

Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure. The way you think about a fact may defeat you before you ever do anything about it. You are overcome by the fact because you think you are. Norman Vincent Peale

You can't let a failure keep you down, because if you stay down after you fail, you are going to stay down for good. Heidi Roizen

I hate to be a failure. I hate and regret the failure of my marriages. I would gladly give all my millions for just one lasting marital success. J. Paul Getty

It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they much oftener succeed through failures. Precept, study, advice, and example could never have taught them so well as failure has done. Samuel Smiles

We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery. Samuel Smiles

A minute's success pays the failure of years. Robert Browning

Success and failure are both part of life. Both are not permanent. Shah Rukh Khan

Sometimes the best lighting of all is a power failure. Douglas Coupland

Without failure there is no achievement. John C. Maxwell

If you aren't learning, you are regressing, because more growth comes from failure than from success. Shahid Khan

Not many people are really that meticulous with what they do, I suppose, but I'm just a control freak and terribly afraid of failure or regret. I work very hard on these things. George Michael

Art school had taught me it was far better to be a flamboyant failure than any kind of benign success. Malcolm Mclaren

You cannot climb the ladder of success dressed in the costume of failure. Zig Ziglar

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. Theodore Roosevelt

I feel rejecting rejection is one of the most crucial steps in getting past failure. John Rampton

There are no mistakes, save one: the failure to learn from a mistake. Robert Fripp

I can plunk out enough chords to write a song, but I'm completely afraid to play guitar in front of other people. It's a fear of failure, I guess. Mandy Moore

I feel, in the end, as if everything I've done has been a failure. Jonathan Kozol

Federal regulations forbid delaying inspections for fracture-critical bridges like the fallen Minneapolis bridge - the kind with a lack of redundancy in design, so that a single failure in a load-bearing part can cause the entire bridge to collapse. Bill Dedman


I went to a motivational training course once, a course of self-discovery, and I found out after a week that my fear - it was not a fear of not being accepted - was a very violent fear of failure. Emanuel Steward

Every stumble is not a fall, and every fall does not mean failure. Oprah Winfrey

The failure to readily identify the battle between good and evil is a nagging, ongoing, dangerous pattern that shows no sign of easing up any time soon. Mike Gallagher

This is the paradox for me: in failure alone is there any possibility of success. I don't think I'm alone in this - nor do I think it's an attitude that only prevails among people whose work is obviously 'creative'. Will Self

If something works, you shouldn't do it again. We want to do something that is new, original - something where there's a good chance of failure. Ed Catmull

He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being. Paul Tillich

Our health-care morass is like the problems of global warming and the national debt - the kind of vast policy failure that is far easier to get into than to get out of. Americans say that they want leaders who will take on these problems. Atul Gawande

You gotta lose 'em some of the time. When you do, lose 'em right. Casey Stengel

Failure is inherent in the game. So if you don't respond well to adversity, you're probably not going to have a long career. Theo Epstein

Education is the only billion dollar industry that tolerates abject failure. Geoffrey Canada

Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure. Earl Wilson

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

One of the most basic factors in sports is that winning becomes a habit, and losing is the same way. When failure starts to feel normal in your life or your work or even your darkest vices, you won't have to go looking for trouble, because trouble will find you. Count on it. Hunter S. Thompson

The will to persevere is often the difference between failure and success. David Sarnoff

To establish true self-esteem we must concentrate on our successes and forget about the failures and the negatives in our lives. Denis Waitley

Brain surgeons are dealing with the very last thread of life, and they have to be very confident, but I think they tend to remember their failures rather than their successes, and that must be very hard. Who do you share that failure with? That's why their personal lives are often disastrous. James Nesbitt

Most success springs from an obstacle or failure. I became a cartoonist largely because I failed in my goal of becoming a successful executive. Scott Adams

In most parts of the world, starting a company that goes bust is dubbed a 'failure.' In Silicon Valley, we call this 'gaining experience.' We are willing to take the risks that are inherent for innovation. Sebastian Thrun

'No one can make you successful; the will to success comes from within.' I've made this my motto. I've internalized it to the point of understanding that the success of my actions and/or endeavors doesn't depend on anyone else, and that includes a possible failure. Fabrizio Moreira

There is an increasingly pervasive sense not only of failure, but of futility. The legislative process has become a cruel shell game and the service system has become a bureaucratic maze, inefficient, incomprehensible, and inaccessible. Elliot Richardson

Well, I think it's too early to call Fallujah a failure. Chuck Schumer

We create success or failure on the course primarily by our thoughts. Gary Player

I think everyone shares a fear of failure - that you're only as good as your most recent collection. That's definitely a fear, but it's a fear that fuels me, that makes me want to work harder, that makes me take on more challenges. Alexander Wang

I failed the LSAT. Basically, if I had not failed, I'd have been a lawyer and there would be no Spanx. I think failure is nothing more than life's way of nudging you that you are off course. My attitude to failure is not attached to outcome, but in not trying. It is liberating. Sara Blakely

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

When preaching is done right, it can change lives. When it's done badly, my failure goes beyond the merely human. John Ortberg

Ego is certainly there in many of the greatest and most dizzying tales of success - but it's there in some of the greatest stories of failure and self-implosion as well. Ryan Holiday

It's impossible for a Democrat to be a failure. It's impossible for a Democrat to be a reprobate. It's impossible for a Democrat to be a mess. It just isn't possible, as far as the mind-set of the media is concerned. Rush Limbaugh

A failure establishes only this, that our determination to succeed was not strong enough. Christian Nestell Bovee

Katie Price is no exception. She, too, is - in a distinctive way - a philosopher. Partially, Katie Price's philosophy is one of extraordinary confidence. She is remarkable not for her looks or antics but because of her tremendous self-assurance and her unwillingness to be intimidated by criticism or failure. Alain de Botton

Before you can win a game, you have to not lose it. Chuck Noll

It's - everybody's looking at the bottom line all the time, and failure doesn't look good on the bottom line, and yet you don't learn anything without failing. Alan Arkin

The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life. Theodore Roosevelt

But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated. Ernest Hemingway

Civilization is a failure. We need to think what we can do together in love and peace. Serj Tankian

I feel that 'The Great Failure' is really a book written out of great love and a willingness to face all of who a human being is. Natalie Goldberg

Why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. J. K. Rowling

If we can actually decrease the failure rate from nine out of 10 drugs failing in clinical trials and instead have seven out of 10 instead failing, that is a major victory for drug discovery and for people having better therapy. Anne Wojcicki

I may be a successful football player, but I feel like such a failure. Brett Favre

Fear of failure must never be a reason not to try something. Frederick W. Smith

People who have a sense of self-efficacy bounce back from failure; they approach things in terms of how to handle them rather than worrying about what can go wrong. Albert Bandura

I grew and learned, journeyed and understood, that someone who is afraid of failing won't get anywhere, and someone who dares to do it runs the risk of failure if they don't learn, correct their mistakes, and get back up. Fabrizio Moreira

In God's world, for those who are in earnest, there is no failure. No work truly done, no word earnestly spoken, no sacrifice freely made, was ever made in vain. Frederick William Robertson

The only risk of failure is promotion. Scott Adams

Translation is the art of failure. Umberto Eco

Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit. Napoleon Hill

Historically, defense spending cuts have preceded increased international turmoil as America's global enemies sense a failure of will. Ben Shapiro

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

Poverty is about people lacking the tools they need to get on in life. And solving it is about tackling educational failure, antisocial behaviour, debt problems and addiction, and of course it's about work. Theresa May

So many financial dreams are thwarted by the failure to act upon good intentions. Suze Orman

Bacon is so good by itself that to put it in any other food is an admission of failure. You're basically saying, 'I can't make this other food taste good, so I'll throw in bacon.' Penn Jillette

The British health care system is a blueprint for the failure of Obamacare, as it is structured. Marsha Blackburn

A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else. John Burroughs

At the heart of the failure of most plays is the inability to carry on a thoughtful conversation about your work with yourself. Marsha Norman

It is easy to lay the blame on successive governments for failing to address health as a fundamental right for the Indian people. But the real tragedy is that we, the people of India, have not taken our government to task for this catastrophic failure. Vikram Patel

It's only when you risk failure that you discover things. When you play it safe, you're not expressing the utmost of your human experience. Lupita Nyong'o

There are many victories worse than a defeat. George Eliot

I never see failure as failure, but only as the game I must play and win. Tom Hopkins

Our failings sometimes bind us to one another as closely as could virtue itself. Luc de Clapiers

Failure sometimes enlarges the spirit. You have to fall back upon humanity and God. Charles Horton Cooley

I believe in trusting men, not only once but twice - in giving a failure another chance. James Cash Penney

What strikes me is that there's a very fine line between success and failure. Just one ingredient can make the difference. Andrew Lloyd Webber

We've been conditioned to think that quitting is a failure, a form of failure. How do we know that that's true? Stephen J. Dubner

I really don't think life is about the I-could-have-beens. Life is only about the I-tried-to-do. I don't mind the failure but I can't imagine that I'd forgive myself if I didn't try. Nikki Giovanni

If your startup is only in the development or idea stage, there is almost no better predictor of failure - I mean, utter failure, scorched-earth bankruptcy - than raising too much money in the first round. Steve Jurvetson

It's not necessary to fear the prospect of failure but to be determined not to fail. Jimmy Carter

Big companies are like marching bands. Even if half the band is playing random notes, it still sounds kind of like music. The concealment of failure is built into them. Douglas Coupland

Aging is mostly the failure to repair. Gregory Benford

I don't take success and failure seriously. The only thing I do seriously is march forward. If I fall, I get up and march again. Kareena Kapoor Khan

The wisest of the wise may err. Aeschylus

I grew up in a household where I learned five things from my old man. You know what they were? You're no good. You're a failure. You're not going to amount to anything. Don't trust nobody, and don't tell nobody your business. When I lost to Larry Holmes in 1982, I felt all five of those things smacked me right across the face. Gerry Cooney

Progress requires setbacks; the only sure way to avoid failure is not to try. Henry Spencer

I think my whole life, because of where I came from, I had a fear of failure. Howard Schultz


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

Intemperance and intolerance serve no one, and hatred guarantees failure. Edward Brooke

The first week in intelligence school, you learn there are only two conditions in life. There is policy success, or there is intel failure. There is no other condition in life. James R. Clapper

I don't believe in failure. It is not failure if you enjoyed the process. Oprah Winfrey

The only failure one should fear, is not hugging to the purpose they see as best. George Eliot

I think I'm less afraid of failure than some others. Russell Simmons

It's okay to fail 'cause there's no failure, you're just informing the richness of your experience, and that's - that's the greatest gift you can possibly give yourself. Ben Foster

I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right. Albert Einstein

I don't have a fear factor. Well, not much of one. And I'm willing to risk quite a lot - as a comedian, you're always risking a lot. You're risking failure, especially if you're improvising and going on TV shows trying to make comedy out of thin air. That is quite a risky business. David Walliams

My father was a dreamer - my hero. He was a smart, tough guy from Poland, a cutter of lady's handbags, an old socialist-unionist who always considered himself a failure. His big line was: 'Don't end up like me.' Alan King

The young think that failure is the Siberian end of the line, banishment from all the living, and tend to do what I then did - which was to hide. James A. Baldwin

Working hard to fulfill a dream or instinct and learning over time it doesn't work, doesn't mean a career is over and a reputation killed. When a reputation is killed, it's when failure comes as a result of loss of integrity or judgement... breaking of laws. Bob Iger

Increasing extremism - across Africa and the world - must be understood in the context of the failure of our leaders properly to manage diversity within their borders. Mo Ibrahim

Anybody who dies with money in the bank is a failure. Dan Gilbert

People are afraid of failure - they don't like to work so hard and have people keep saying, 'No.' I think that's what people fear most. Russell Simmons

You just don't go out when you're over 55 years of age, have a colossal failure, and expect to find work in your field again. Roger Ailes

Be greedy for social change, and your life will be endlessly enriched. The only failure lies in not trying, or giving up. Ann Cotton

I've tried to handle winning well, so that maybe we'll win again, but I've also tried to handle failure well. If those serve as good examples for teachers and kids, then I hope that would be a contribution I have made to sport. Not just basketball, but to sport. Mike Krzyzewski

War remains the decisive human failure. John Kenneth Galbraith

The higher the artist, the fewer the gestures. The fewer the tools, the greater the imagination. The greater the will, the greater the secret failure. Ben Okri

Elegance is not a dispensable luxury but a factor that decides between success and failure. Edsger Dijkstra

E! has just become a sad, sad place to live. They don't know what they're doing; they have no ideas... everything they do just is a failure. Chelsea Handler

Success is 99 percent failure. Soichiro Honda

In Torch Song, I did that character almost non-stop from 1978 until I made the movie in 1987. Then I had some failure, which also colors how you react to doing other things. Harvey Fierstein

There's something to be said for failing. It's not the failure you feel, it's the failure that people project when something disappoints. You're back to ground zero, where there's no expectations, and that's where I like to be. Kevin Smith

Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one's ideas, to take a calculated risk - and to act. Andre Malraux

At some point, you have to declare an idea dead and, if not a failure, then at least not a success. Michael E. Gerber

First developed as a weapon by the U.S. Army, VX is an oily, odorless and tasteless liquid that kills on contact with the skin or when inhaled in aerosol form. Like other nerve agents, it is treatable in the first minutes after exposure but otherwise leads swiftly to fatal convulsions and respiratory failure. Barton Gellman

When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work. George Bernard Shaw

Successful people have a bigger fear of failure than people who've never done anything because if you haven't been successful, then you don't know how it feels to lose it all. You don't have that fear. So why do you think people get stuck in those boxes? It's that fear of going back down. Jay-Z

I know it wouldn't seem like I've had a lot of failure in my career, but there are things that I regard as failures, when I look at certain performances and go, 'That's not good enough.' Daniel Radcliffe

The failure to set standards for Palestinian conduct hurts the cause of peace. Elliott Abrams

So nevertheless, what I'm saying is that what one is - one's parameters are constantly narrowed by one's success, and my desire is to widen my field even if I risk failure. Jeremy Irons

Failure will happen. It's a normal part of the startup process. Steve Blank

Do not brood over your past mistakes and failures as this will only fill your mind with grief, regret and depression. Do not repeat them in the future. Swami Sivananda

Everybody is an expert on one thing - that's what I learned in my high school journalism class - and that's, of course, his own life. And everybody deserves to live and have his story told. And if it doesn't seem like an interesting story, then that's the failure of the listener, or the journalist who retells it badly. William T. Vollmann

The point is not to take the world's opinion as a guiding star but to go one's way in life and working unerringly, neither depressed by failure nor seduced by applause. Gustav Mahler

Man's sin is in his failure to live what he is. Being the master of the earth, man forgets that he is the servant of God. Abraham Joshua Heschel

Most people think of success and failure as opposites, but they both are products of the same process. Roger von Oech

Thoughtless risks are destructive, of course, but perhaps even more wasteful is thoughtless caution which prompts inaction and promotes failure to seize opportunity. Gary Ryan Blair

The story of Detroit's bankruptcy was simple enough: Allow capitalism to grow the city, campaign against income inequality, tax the job creators until they flee, increase government spending in order to boost employment, promise generous pension plans to keep people voting for failure. Rinse, wash and repeat. Ben Shapiro

It does not matter what you know about anything if you cannot communicate to your people. In that event, you are not even a failure. You're just not there. Saul Alinsky

Iraq's Sunnis need to be brought back into the fold. They need to feel as though they have a stake in the success of Iraq rather than a stake in its failure. David Petraeus

All human actions are equivalent... and all are on principle doomed to failure. Carl Sandburg

By far the most important factor in the success or failure of any school, far more important than tests or standards or business-model methods of accountability, is simply attracting the best-educated, most exciting young people into urban schools and keeping them there. Jonathan Kozol

A man can get discouraged many times but he is not a failure until he begins to blame somebody else and stops trying. John Burroughs

My failure to lay aside the sin that so easily entangles is the direct result of my refusal to die to my natural proclivity toward attaining my own freedom, meaning, value, worth, and righteousness - not believing that, by virtue of my Spirit - wrought union with Christ, everything I need, I already possess. Tullian Tchividjian

The modern rise of Alzheimer's Disease in the twentieth century is not a sign of failure. It's a sign of success. Success in living long enough to see that disease expressed. S. Jay Olshansky

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

No man ever achieved worth-while success who did not, at one time or other, find himself with at least one foot hanging well over the brink of failure. Napoleon Hill

I love failure. It's stuff that I'm thinking about all the time in my life, so it would make sense to me anyway to write about it. Loudon Wainwright III

I tell young people, including my own kids, don't do this, it's too difficult. It's a career full of rejection, disappointment and failure. It's murderously hard on the ego. Don't become an actor. John Lithgow

Failure is essential. Trial and error is necessary. David Bergen

Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out. Benjamin Franklin

Successful people have a bigger fear of failure than people who've never done anything because if you haven't been successful, then you don't know how it feels to lose it all. Jay-Z

He who refuses to stoop, who cannot be bribed by the promise of success or the fear of failure - who walks the highway of the right, and in disaster stands erect, is the only victor. Robert Green Ingersoll

When my father left us, my mother went back to school immediately. She went to school in the day while we were at school, and she worked at night. She worked very hard to never let someone define her as a victim or a failure. Ginni Rometty

Success is more difficult to handle than failure. Ravi Zacharias

If terrorists are already on our southern border, a national-security failure has already occurred. Mike Pompeo

Sometimes failure isn't an opportunity in disguise, it's just you. Douglas Coupland

The main reason for the failure of the modern medical science is that it is dealing with results and not causes. Nothing more than the patching up of those attacked and the burying of those who are slain, without a thought being given to the real strong hold. Edward Bach

The more important argument against grade curves is that they create an atmosphere that's toxic by pitting students against one another. At best, it creates a hypercompetitive culture, and at worst, it sends students the message that the world is a zero-sum game: Your success means my failure. Adam Grant

I have self-doubt. I have insecurity. I have fear of failure. I have nights when I show up at the arena and I'm like, 'My back hurts, my feet hurt, my knees hurt. I don't have it. I just want to chill.' We all have self-doubt. You don't deny it, but you also don't capitulate to it. You embrace it. Kobe Bryant

Fear comes in two packages fear of failure, and sometimes, fear of success. Tom Kite

The freedom to fail is vital if you're going to succeed. Most successful people fail from time to time, and it is a measure of their strength that failure merely propels them into some new attempt at success. Michael Korda

You know, failure hurts. Any kind of failure stings. If you live in the sting, you will - undoubtedly - fail. My way of getting past the sting is to say no, I'm just not going to let this get me down. Sonia Sotomayor

Never fret for an only son, the idea of failure will never occur to him. George Bernard Shaw


Wherever there's an all-encompassing 'always,' 'all' or 'never' in your life, it's a sign that your mischievous subconscious is setting you up for failure by consistently leading you back toward these repeat performances. Karen Salmansohn

When I served as prime minister last time, I failed to prioritize my agenda. I was eager to complete everything at once, and ended my administration in failure. After resigning, for six years I traveled across the nation simply to listen. Shinzo Abe

Achievement is not always success, while reputed failure often is. It is honest endeavor, persistent effort to do the best possible under any and all circumstances. Orison Swett Marden

The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God's children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil. H. L. Mencken

Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence. Colin Powell

We decided to try in vitro, because both Peter and I felt we couldn't handle another failure. When I miscarried after that, we had to come to terms with the possibility that this wasn't meant to be. Christie Brinkley

The democratic system is challenged by the failure in television because our evening news programmes have gone for an attempt to entertain as much as to inform in the desperate fight for ratings. Walter Cronkite

All war represents a failure of diplomacy. Tony Benn

I was afraid of being a failure, of not having the best time or of being chicken. But every year I get older I think, What was I fearing last year?' You forget. And then you move on. Sandra Bullock

Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don't fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgement, repeated every day. Jim Rohn

We have to provide more visibility, more certainty to the investors and reduce the cost of failure. Emmanuel Macron

I find fault with my children because I like them and I want them to go places - uprightness and strength and courage and civil respect and anything that affects the probabilities of failure on the part of those that are closest to me, that concerns me - I find fault. Branch Rickey

It's about not having doubt in your mind and staying focused and not having any preconceived notion about failure. It's just looking forward and staying positive. Freya Tingley

In taking stock of ourselves, we should not forget that fear plays a large part in the drama of failure. That is the first thing to be dropped. Fear is a mental deficiency susceptible of correction, if taken in hand before it gains an ascendency over us. Fear comes with the thought of failure. Douglas Fairbanks

The most effective leaders are actually better at guarding against danger when they acknowledge it that it exists. Cowards, in contrast, cling to the hope that failure will never happen and may be sloppy in the face of danger - not because they don't acknowledge that it exists, but because they are just too afraid of it to look it in the eye. Simon Sinek

Given the extent of the exposures of major banks around the world to A.I.G., and in light of the extreme fragility of the system, there was a significant risk that A.I.G.'s failure could have sparked a global banking panic. Ben Bernanke

A traveller must buy his own experience, and success or failure depends mainly on personal idiosyncrasies. Isabella Bird

If you're 40 years old and you've never had a failure, you've been deprived. Gloria Swanson

Failure is ultimately very liberating. Once you come out the other side of it, you just might have faced one of your biggest fears and lived. The other side of failure is a big elimination of fear of failure. Trust me, that is an amazing gift. Julie Wainwright

You always pass failure on your way to success. Mickey Rooney

I can't say I'm not grateful to have journalists writing about me as a genius. But I know it's not true. I'm not confused. I understand that success comes through a lot of failure and a lot of very embarrassing failure. People want to create the next Facebook, but they are too afraid to create the next Facemash. Eric Ries

It is not because the truth is too difficult to see that we make mistakes... we make mistakes because the easiest and most comfortable course for us is to seek insight where it accords with our emotions - especially selfish ones. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

It feels bad when a film doesn't work; everyone puts in a lot of effort to make a movie. The positive side to failure - they make me work harder. Shahid Kapoor

When we're in game worlds, I believe that many of us become the best version of ourselves: the most likely to help at a moment's notice. The most likely to stick with a problem as long as it takes. To get up after failure and try again. Jane McGonigal

I have my way of dealing with lows in my career: I just go on a holiday. Coping with a failure of a film is like coping with a break-up. It's sad and heart-breaking, and it's not like I got over it right after my holiday; it took me some time. Alia Bhatt

Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another. Napoleon Hill

To me, the failure of liberalism - the tradition I come from - was not recognizing there has to be justice across the generations. Richard Lamm

The failure of Lehman Brothers demonstrated that liquidity provision by the Federal Reserve would not be sufficient to stop the crisis; substantial fiscal resources were necessary. Ben Bernanke

We keep score in life because it matters. It counts. It matters. Too many people opt out and never discover their own abilities because they fear failure. They don't understand commitment. Pat Summitt

Being a pathfinder is to be willing to risk failure and still go on. Gail Sheehy

If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate. Thomas J. Watson

One of the things I definitely think of as a driver of me is fear. And it's fear of failure, fear of being overtaken. Jocko Willink

A passionate belief in your business and personal objectives can make all the difference between success and failure. If you aren't proud of what you're doing, why should anybody else be? Richard Branson

I'm living life as best I can - but I'm not exempt from failure and making bad choices. LeAnn Rimes

Poverty leads to hardship and failure. Irwin Redlener

Every time you go out there to do something, you wonder if you can do it. There's no assured success. There's no secret recipe for success. Every time you go out there, you go out there with the possibility of great failure. Mel Gibson

Right from my childhood, I have believed in a Supreme Power. I don't know whether it has form, or it is formless. I am a high school dropout. How come life has given me so much? It's not my intelligence, it's not my abilities. This understanding makes me scared even in success. I don't own my success. Neither do I own my failure. Pawan Kalyan

We will fiercely challenge those forces within the education establishment who impede innovation in our schools and who protect and defend inequality and institutional failure. Campbell Brown

If you fall during your life, it doesn't matter. You're never a failure as long as you try to get up. Evel Knievel

Failure to deport aliens who are convicted for criminal offenses puts whole communities at risk - especially immigrant communities in the very sanctuary jurisdictions that seek to protect the perpetrators. Jeff Sessions

What is indisputable is the fact that unbelief is the force that gives birth to all of our bad behavior and every moral failure. It is the root. Tullian Tchividjian

When I was 18, I couldn't wait to move away. I was like: 'If I ever have to come back here, I'll kill myself.' Glasgow seemed like failure and death to me back then, but not any more. Laura Fraser

Different parts of the world have different attitudes to failure. Arguably, it may take more courage to be an entrepreneur in Sydney, or Paris, or London, or Japan, or Singapore... but an entrepreneur sees the world for what it could be, not what it is. Guy Kawasaki

Remember that failure is an event, not a person. Zig Ziglar

I see people around me with very unhappy love lives, who may have held out for that perfect somebody. And the failure to achieve that brings along a lot of bitterness which is very unattractive; therefore they're probably less likely to achieve it. David Thewlis

Failure is a word unknown to me. Muhammad Ali Jinnah

I'm sure not afraid of success and I've learned not to be afraid of failure. The only thing I'm afraid of now is of being someone I don't like much. Anna Quindlen

Most people don't really do too many things because they're afraid they'll fail. There are people failing all the time, all around you. And nobody is going to notice your failure. Your failure is not going to be so spectacular that people write news stories about it. Your failure will be boring. Kumail Nanjiani

Every entrepreneur knows how agonizingly difficult it is to make the decision to give it your all, knowing that failure is inevitable; the successful ones know that the only way to get back up is through learning from that failure. Fabrizio Moreira

That sense of failure, I don't know where people put it who don't write songs and aren't able to emote physically. It must go somewhere. Sting

Why should anybody be interested in some old man who was a failure? Ernest Hemingway

When people have a willpower failure, it's because they haven't anticipated a situation that's going to come along. Charles Duhigg

I lived with this tremendous fear of failure because my father was a playwright and a director, and I think he did a couple of things as a child as an actor as well, and he... he failed, basically. Ben Affleck

I've probably earned the right to screw up a few times. I don't want the fear of failure to stop me from doing what I really care about. Emma Watson

The reality of most software development is that the consequences of failure are simply nonexistent. Dan Kaminsky

There are some defeats more triumphant than victories. Michel de Montaigne

The vast majority of large scale change efforts fail. Which means that the probability that you have actually experienced a failure, and your people know that and are pessimistic, therefore, about trying something again, is very high. John P. Kotter

Solyndra's failure isn't a reason for the government to give up on alternative energy, any more than the failure of Pets.com during the Internet bubble means that venture capital should steer clear of tech projects. James Surowiecki

I like the possibility of failure. I don't want to be in a comfortable zone. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

The threat posed by Bank of America isn't just financial - it's a full-blown assault on the American dream. Where's the incentive to play fair and do well, when what we see rewarded at the highest levels of society is failure, stupidity, incompetence and meanness? If this is what winning in our system looks like, who doesn't want to be a loser? Matt Taibbi

Within the U.S., the Obama presidency will be mainly measured by the success or failure of his economic policies. And here, I fear, the monstrous stimulus package with which this administration stumbled out of the gate will prove to be Obama's Waterloo. Camille Paglia

Treat failure as a lesson on how not to approach achieving a goal, and then use that learning to improve your chances of success when you try again. Failure is only the end if you decide to stop. Richard Branson


We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse. Rudyard Kipling

Success is never final, but failure can be. Bill Parcells

My biggest failure is 'Metal Gear.' It's my biggest failure and my biggest success. Hideo Kojima

However things may seem, no evil thing is success and no good thing is failure. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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

I grew up playing sports. There is a clear line between success and failure. Tiki Barber

Whenever you have a failure or setback, you need to take a step back and find out what you can learn from the scenario. What did you do to contribute to that failure? This way, you can make sure you don't repeat that pattern. Jillian Michaels

Failure at some point in your life is inevitable, but giving up is unforgivable. Joe Biden

There is no failure except in no longer trying. Elbert Hubbard

Vietnam was a palpable failure. And of course, in retrospect, it was even more clearly a disaster and a failure than maybe people understood at the time. Robert Dallek

Basically, I still have the privacy that all celebrities crave, except for those celebrities who feel that privacy reflects some kind of failure on their part. Albert Brooks

Fear seems to have many causes. Fear of loss, fear of failure, fear of being hurt, and so on, but ultimately all fear is the ego's fear of death, of annihilation. To the ego, death is always just around the corner. In this mind-identified state, fear of death affects every aspect of your life. Eckhart Tolle

In hindsight, everything in my life looks a little rosy. But the reality is that with, say, 'Swingers,' when we finished, it was considered a total failure. Doug Liman

The failure in Ohio to have adequate voting capacity for the people who were registered and eligible to vote was an absolute denial of their right to vote. Carol Moseley Braun

Failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day. Jim Rohn

We do not know, in most cases, how far social failure and success are due to heredity, and how far to environment. But environment is the easier of the two to improve. John B. S. Haldane

The offshoring of American jobs by global corporations and the deregulation of the U.S. financial system have resulted in American economic failure. Paul Craig Roberts

Like success, failure is many things to many people. With Positive Mental Attitude, failure is a learning experience, a rung on the ladder, a plateau at which to get your thoughts in order and prepare to try again. W. Clement Stone

We're born with success. It is only others who point out our failures, and what they attribute to us as failure. Whoopi Goldberg

Success is never final, failure is never fatal. It's courage that counts. John Wooden

Failure comes only when we forget our ideals and objectives and principles. Jawaharlal Nehru

The most important of my discoveries have been suggested to me by my failures. Humphry Davy

In high school, in sport, I had a coach who told me I was much better than I thought I was, and would make me do more in a positive sense. He was the first person who taught me not to be afraid of failure. Mike Krzyzewski

It is a changing world because of the newcomers who keep arriving and who leave us behind. Trying to keep pace with them is doomed to inglorious failure, especially as the pace has quickened so much. Hans Jonas

Failure is never fatal. But failure to change can and might be. John Wooden

All actors should experience public failure. Olivia Wilde

Failure? Scared to death of it. Ryan Seacrest

Risk management systems and controls may discourage or limit certain revenue-generating opportunities. Failure to ensure the independence of these functions from the revenue generators and risk takers has been shown to be dangerous, and this is something for which the board is accountable. Jerome Powell

War is tragedy. The great war stories are tragedies. It's the failure of diplomacy. 'War and Peace,' 'A Farewell to Arms,' 'For Whom the Bell Tolls.' Those are some of the greatest tragedies. David Mamet

AIG's failure revealed systemic problems in the OTC derivatives market that went well beyond the failure of a single market participant. Jerome Powell

Never walk away from failure. On the contrary, study it carefully and imaginatively for its hidden assets. Michael Korda

Those who refuse to liberalise and globalise are doomed to failure. Yuval Noah Harari

The Tea Party people say they're angry about socialism, but maybe they're really angry about capitalism. If there's a sense of being looked down upon, it's that sense of failure that's built into a system that assures everyone they can make it to the top, but then reserves the top for only a tiny fraction of the strivers. Gail Collins

Mental health is an area where people are embarrassed. They don't want to talk about it because somehow they feel they're a failure as a parent or, you know, they're embarrassed for their child or they want to protect their child, lots of very good reasons, but mental health, I feel, is something that you have to talk about. Anna Wintour

In the future, financial firms of any type whose failure would pose a systemic risk must accept especially close regulatory scrutiny of their risk-taking. Ben Bernanke

While it's important to accept failure and not let it bog you down, it's also perfectly acceptable to get upset about it as long as you remember that failure is a stepping stone in your journey that is getting you to where you need to be. John Rampton

To be a programmer is to develop a carefully managed relationship with error. There's no getting around it. You either make your accommodations with failure, or the work will become intolerable. Ellen Ullman

What is more comforting to the terrorists around the world: the failure to pass the 9/11 legislation because we lacked a majority of the majority,' or putting aside partisan politics to enact tough new legislation with America's security foremost in mind? Rahm Emanuel

Don't think of it as failure. Think of it as time-released success. Robert Orben

Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it. Thomas Sowell

How important is failure - yes, failure - to the health of a thriving, innovative business? So important that Ratan Tata, chairman of India's largest corporation, gives an annual award to the employee who comes up with the best idea that failed. Naveen Jain

The traditional religious right's failure to restore public-school prayer or pass an antiabortion constitutional amendment has likely helped fuel the spread of the more extreme dominionist school. Jon Meacham

I was pretty bad. When I first was diagnosed with kidney failure, my function - the function of my kidney was less than 8 percent. Natalie Cole

You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down. Mary Pickford

I've become a professional failure - in order to pay the mortgage I have to remain unemployed. Luckily, a disaster always seems to befall me at exactly the right moment. Toby Young

In reality, I am more a professor, one who reflects and mediates on spiritual questions. Practical governance is not my strong point, and this is certainly a weakness. But I do not see myself as a failure. For eight years, I carried out my work. Pope Benedict XVI

Already from your own cells scientists can grow skin, cartilage, noses, blood vessels, bladders and windpipes. In the future, scientists will grow more complex organs, like livers and kidneys. The phrase 'organ failure' will disappear. Michio Kaku


How one handles success or failure is determined by their early childhood. Harold Ramis

If we don't succeed we run the risk of failure. Dan Quayle

My roots allow me to let go of the fear of failure. Sissy Spacek

The greatest challenge to most innovation centers around the world is many nations' punitive attitudes towards failure. In most of the world, if your first business fails, no one will work with you again. But, trial and error is the genesis of innovation. Jay Samit

Don't be afraid of missing opportunities. Behind every failure is an opportunity somebody wishes they had missed. Lily Tomlin

Some teachers feel that if they ask for emotional help, they're a failure. But teaching is a team sport. Erin Gruwell

It's fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure. Bill Gates

I don't think anybody whose ever been divorced can tell you divorce is easy or fun or feels like anything other than a tremendous failure. Sharon Stone

I don't take it very seriously. You shouldn't let your success get to your head or failure get to your heart. This is most commonly said. But people don't really practise it. I don't see myself as a celebrity; it has not sunk in. I just see myself as someone doing a nine-to-six job like a techie. Rakul Preet Singh

I'm bound to fail when I write in Italian, but unlike my sense of failure in the past, this doesn't torment or grieve me. Jhumpa Lahiri

Failure is authentic, and because it's authentic, it's real and genuine, and because of that, it's a pure state of being. Douglas Coupland

If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative. Woody Allen

I always feel like a vague failure in L.A. - it always makes me feel like I should somehow be different than I am. And I don't know why. Greta Gerwig

Our best successes often come after our greatest disappointments. Henry Ward Beecher

I don't know if it's a failure of imagination on my part, but I'm not going to be writing about Paris in the 1800s. I feel like it would come off as just ludicrously uninformed, even if I did a lot of research. Maria Semple

The difference between a score in the 90s and a century is often reflected as the difference between failure and success. It may be illogical, but in cricket, a century has its own magic. Geoffrey Boycott

Success and failure go hand in hand. Sangram Singh

Failure is not an option. Everyone has to succeed. Arnold Schwarzenegger

Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure. Benjamin Disraeli

A street full of electric light is a sign of civic failure and is an insulting injury to the soul. Shutting out the night is as disastrous as shutting out the light. Michael Leunig

As an outside; don't worry about failure, because failure will take care of itself. Focus on success. Henry Cavill

I don't want to feel like a failure to my daughter. She's the best thing I've ever done. Buffy - pretty great and all, but Charlotte's way better. Sarah Michelle Gellar

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

I find rejection or failure to be a really interesting and valuable experience. Brian Grazer

The Bush Administration's failure to be consistently involved in helping Israel achieve peace with the Palestinians has been both wrong for our friendship with Israel, as well as badly damaging to our standing in the Arab world. Barack Obama

What you find when you live in the United States, you live in the West, is that when somebody fails, it's never their fault. They always like to blame somebody other than themselves for a failure. Stephen A. Schwarzman

The season of failure is the best time for sowing the seeds of success. Paramahansa Yogananda

Mistakes are the portals of discovery. James Joyce

It's not a failure if a marriage or partnership ends after a certain number of years. I think, in general, we expect too much of partners. We can't fulfil a person's every single need and, after ten years or so, many relationships wear out. If we were more philosophical about it, we wouldn't try to blame the other person or be bitter. Deborah Moggach

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure. Colin Powell

I want to swim in both directions at once. Desire success, court failure. Alan Rickman

The thing I always say to people is this: 'If you avoid failure, you also avoid success.' Robert Kiyosaki

Not failure, but low aim is sin. Benjamin E. Mays

I don't want the fear of failure to stop me from doing what I really care about. Emma Watson

Man is not made for defeat. Ernest Hemingway

By the time I was a young man, I lived with two deep struggles: I longed to become a cricketer, and I performed miserably in school. Cricket and tennis were all that I lived for. In India, this was a formula for failure. Ravi Zacharias

There are only really a few stories to tell in the end, and betrayal and the failure of love is one of those good stories to tell. Sean Lennon

Some parents believe that competition helps prepare children to succeed. Others fear that their children will not be able to handle failure. Bill Dedman

Those on the downside of rising economic inequality generally do not want government policies that look like handouts. They typically do not want the government to make the tax system more progressive, to impose punishing taxes on the rich, in order to give the money to them. Redistribution feels demeaning. It feels like being labeled a failure. Robert J. Shiller

The failure of the system to deal quickly was attributable to Nixon's lying, stonewalling and refusal to come clean. So it took 26 months for the final truth to be known. Bob Woodward

I constantly experience failure in that my work is never as good as I want it to be. So I live with failure. Jeremy Irons

Pure unadulterated success is not as funny as failure. Will Arnett

My feeling, based on my own experience, is that aiming for grandiosity is the fastest route to failure. James Altucher

Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street. Zig Ziglar

If something's important enough, you should try. Even if you - the probable outcome is failure. Elon Musk

Since the global financial crisis and recession of 2007-2009, criticism of the economics profession has intensified. The failure of all but a few professional economists to forecast the episode - the aftereffects of which still linger - has led many to question whether the economics profession contributes anything significant to society. Robert J. Shiller

I hate how box-office failures are blamed on an actress, yet I don't see a box-office failure blamed on men. Ellen Page

With improvisation, I just do it. It might be a total failure but then you just throw the dice again. Christian Marclay

For my first show at 'SNL', I wrote a Bill Clinton sketch, and during our read-through, it wasn't getting any laughs. This weight of embarrassment came over me, and I felt like I was sweating from my spine out. But I realized, 'Okay, that happened, and I did not die.' You've got to experience failure to understand that you can survive it. Tina Fey

Discipline is based on pride, on meticulous attention to details, and on mutual respect and confidence. Discipline must be a habit so ingrained that it is stronger than the excitement of the goal or the fear of failure. Gary Ryan Blair

Get used to dealing with failure as long as it doesn't hurt people around you, as long as it doesn't hurt you physically, or it doesn't hurt you so much that you can't pick yourself up. Dean Kamen

Failure is an enigma. You worry about it, and it teaches you something. James Dyson

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

I'm not going to get somewhere and say, 'OK, I'm done.' Success is never final; I'll just keep on going. The same way as failure never being fatal. Just keep going. I'm going to the stars and then past them. Conor McGregor

War is failure of diplomacy. John Dingell

To begin to think with purpose, is to enter the ranks of those strong ones who only recognize failure as one of the pathways to attainment. James Allen

The tragedy of life is often not in our failure, but rather in our complacency; not in our doing too much, but rather in our doing too little; not in our living above our ability, but rather in our living below our capacities. Benjamin E. Mays

Success is usually the culmination of controlling failure. Sylvester Stallone


We are feeble, weak and impoverished because of our failure to pray. God is restrained in doing because we are restrained by reason of our non-praying. All failures in securing heaven are traceable to lack of prayer or misdirected petition. Edward McKendree Bounds

Failure is simply the non-presence of success. But a fiasco is a disaster of mythic proportions. Orlando Bloom

It would be great to be able to pass on to someone all of the successes, the failures, and the knowledge that one has had. To help someone, avoid all the fire, pain and anxiety would be wonderful. Sylvester Stallone

I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying. Michael Jordan

People in their handlings of affairs often fail when they are about to succeed. If one remains as careful at the end as he was at the beginning, there will be no failure. Lao Tzu

All the world loves a good loser. Kin Hubbard

I employ case studies of failure into my courses, emphasizing that they teach us much more than studies of success. It is not that success stories cannot serve as models of good design or as exemplars of creative engineering. They can do that, but they cannot teach us how close to failure they are. Henry Petroski

When people read 'Breitbart' every single day and convince themselves that Barack Obama is a foreign terrorist, that is not a problem of government. That is a problem of community failure, and we have to recognize that. J. D. Vance

I really do think that putting expectations on a holiday is setting yourself up for failure. Delilah

Well, I think that there's a very thin dividing line between success and failure. And I think if you start a business without financial backing, you're likely to go the wrong side of that dividing line. Richard Branson

Success is not the absence of failure; it's the persistence through failure. Aisha Tyler

Is anarchism possible? The failure of attempts to attain freedom does not mean the cause is lost. Johann Most

The very reasons sometimes that you make a film are the reasons for its failure. Sydney Pollack

During my sojourn in ironclad atheism, the primary arsenal leveled against Christianity had been its failure on empirical grounds. Surely, enlightened reason offered a more coherent cosmos. Surely, Occam's razor cut the faithful free from blind faith. There is no proof of God; therefore, it is unreasonable to believe in God. Paul Kalanithi

Like Lyndon Johnson, President Obama understands that timidity in a time of troubles is a prescription for failure. Robert Dallek

A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success. Elbert Hubbard

For diabetes in particular, we know there's a relationship between lack of glucose regulation and complications like blindness and kidney failure. So if you were diabetic and you knew that you could get your glucose in a tight, normal range just by adjusting your lifestyle, wouldn't that be great? Eric Topol

Because of my intense hopes for the youth of China, I feel very keenly my responsibility for their future success or failure. The fate of China lies in their hands. The responsibility for organizing and training them to become worthy citizens of China, able to undertake the tasks of Resistance and Reconstruction, is mine; I cannot evade it. Chiang Kai-shek

Pride is ugly. It says, 'If you succeed, I am a failure.' Ezra Taft Benson

Boys with a 'failure to launch' are invisible to most girls. With poor social skills, the boys feel anger at their fear of being rejected and self-loathing at their inability to compete. Warren Farrell

Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul. Douglas MacArthur

Enjoy failure and learn from it. You can never learn from success. James Dyson

There's always failure. And there's always disappointment. And there's always loss. But the secret is learning from the loss, and realizing that none of those holes are vacuums. Michael J. Fox

Tragedy in life normally comes with betrayal and compromise, and trading on your integrity and not having dignity in life. That's really where failure comes. Tom Cochrane

The guns and the bombs, the rockets and the warships, are all symbols of human failure. Lyndon B. Johnson

While I've had plenty of ups and downs, dealt with my share of failure, and struggled through emotionally difficult periods, I'm fundamentally an optimist. Brad Feld

We all struggle with our failure to communicate and our failure to reach beyond fear to love people. Mira Sorvino

Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure. George Eliot

I'd rather be a failure at something I love than a success at something I hate. George Burns

You'll never convince me there is a hopeless situation or there is any finality in any success or any failure. Carlos Ghosn

I've had great success and I've had catastrophic failure. It's really how you handle the rough stuff that defines you, I think. Peter Berg

As long as there are people in education making excuses for failure, cursing future generations with a culture of low expectations, denying children access to the best that has been thought and written, because Nemo and the Mister Men are more relevant, the battle needs to be joined. Michael Gove

Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. Mark Skousen

Children love and want to be loved and they very much prefer the joy of accomplishment to the triumph of hateful failure. Do not mistake a child for his symptom. Erik Erikson

If you learn from defeat, you haven't really lost. Zig Ziglar

The man who has done his level best... is a success, even though the world may write him down a failure. B. C. Forbes

It's a European Union of economic failure, of mass unemployment and of low growth. Nigel Farage

The failure to invest in youth reflects a lack of compassion and a colossal failure of common sense. Coretta Scott King

George W. Bush is history's president, a man for whom the long-term success or failure of democracy in Iraq will determine his place in history. Andrew Breitbart

Failure is always an option. Adam Savage

I wanted to give an honest insight into a consuming Tour. It's turned out pretty interesting because there aren't many books out there documenting someone's failure. Bradley Wiggins

Our educational system is not preparing people for the 21st Century. Failure is an essential part of entrepreneurship. If you work hard, you can get an 'A' pretty much guaranteed, but in entrepreneurship, that's not how it works. Eric Ries

Sloth is the failure to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done - like the kamikaze pilot who flew seventeen missions. John Ortberg

No man can be a failure if he thinks he's a success; If he thinks he is a winner, then he is. Robert W. Service

For every failure, there's an alternative course of action. You just have to find it. When you come to a roadblock, take a detour. Mary Kay Ash

I've really thought a lot about why other companies fail or succeed. I had to be a student of failure and find out why things went off the rails. I did that at a fairly deep level, and it's still something I do. Ed Catmull

So while I will never minimize the costs involved in military action, I am convinced that a failure to act in Libya would have carried a far greater price for America. Barack Obama

I do think the biggest problem newspapers have is loss of trust, and I feel that's a result of failure to speak truth to power. Craig Newmark

Success represents the 1% of your work which results from the 99% that is called failure. Soichiro Honda

I'm finding that success is way more time-consuming than failure ever was. Emma Donoghue

Success comes when people act together; failure tends to happen alone. Deepak Chopra

A hatred of failure has always been part of my nature. J. Paul Getty

The more times I was turned down, the more I believed I was getting closer to making it. A lot of people in Korea say that failure is the mother of success, so I believed that more times I failed, the more likely I was to succeed. Rain

The person interested in success has to learn to view failure as a healthy, inevitable part of the process of getting to the top. Joyce Brothers

The dream is real, my friends. The failure to realize it is the only unreality. Toni Cade Bambara

Yes, 'Aagadu' was a failure. I was dejected for a couple of months, since there was a lot at stake. Mahesh Babu

I have always been pushed by the negative. The apparent failure of a play sends me back to my typewriter that very night, before the reviews are out. I am more compelled to get back to work than if I had a success. Tennessee Williams

I think I've always been somebody, since the deaths of my father and brother, who was afraid to hope. So, I was more prepared for failure and for rejection than for success. Amy Tan

My work ethic came from my parents and my fear of failure. I came from a small, predominantly black school and I didn't want to let them down. Jerry Rice

We failed, but in the good providence of God apparent failure often proves a blessing. Robert E. Lee

It's very important to learn quick lessons from your failures, very important to recognize symptoms of failure pretty early, and it is very, very important to not to be attached too much to the idea - you have to know when to give up an idea. N. R. Narayana Murthy

Jobs for every American is doomed to failure because of modern automation and production. We ought to recognize it and create an income-maintenance system so every single American has the dignity and the wherewithal for shelter, basic food, and medical care. I'm talking about welfare for all. Without it, you're going to have warfare for all. Jerry Brown

There is no such thing as failure. There are only results. Tony Robbins

Success and failure are emotional and physiological experiences. We need to deal with them in a way that is present and calm. Chade-Meng Tan

Among all the tests President Obama faced in his first term, his biggest failure was climate change. Jeff Goodell

Case studies of failure should be made a part of the vocabulary of every engineer so that he or she can recall or recite them when something in a new design or design process is suggestive of what went wrong in the case study. Henry Petroski

Bare hands grip success better than kid gloves. Be thorough in all things, no matter how small or distasteful! The man who counts his hours and kicks about his salary is a self-elected failure. Charles M. Schwab

It's failure, really, that you grow by, although nobody likes to experience it. Nick Nolte

There was a failure to recognize the deep problems in AI; for instance, those captured in Blocks World. The people building physical robots learned nothing. Marvin Minsky


Primarily affecting low-information voters and members of the mainstream media, Obama Worship Syndrome attributes impossible capabilities to Obama's political opponents, finds excuses for every Obama failure in everyone around him and praises the president as the finest politician - nay, human being - of our time. Ben Shapiro

For me, the path of failure exceeded by far the joys of success. My plight was hopeless. Dominick Dunne

All wars signify the failure of conflict resolution mechanisms, and they need post-war rebuilding of faith, trust and confidence. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

I felt a failure because I couldn't sustain myself from what I earned from my writing. My day jobs were what mattered, and it was hard to even get those because universities wouldn't hire me as a real writer. Sandra Cisneros

Modesty means admitting the possibility of error, subsuming the self for the good of the whole, remaining open to surprise and the gifts that only failure can bring. There are many ways to practice it. Try taking up golf. Or making your own bagels. Or raising a teenager. Nancy Gibbs

My father was not a failure. After all, he was the father of a president of the United States. Harry S Truman

Failure saves lives. In the airline industry, every time a plane crashes the probability of the next crash is lowered by that. The Titanic saved lives because we're building bigger and bigger ships. So these people died, but we have effectively improved the safety of the system, and nothing failed in vain. Nassim Nicholas Taleb

When you experience a failure as a leader, don't hide it - talk about it. Your missed opportunity will encourage others to take risks. Naveen Jain

They who have conquered doubt and fear have conquered failure. James Allen

When you say 'failure,' that seems really dramatic, but a lot of failure is just really depressing and mundane. I remember the first time I ever played a concert in Italy. I played a venue that held 900 people, and I think five people showed up. It wasn't a big, 'John Carter of Mars' type failure. It wasn't dramatic; it was just depressing. Moby

Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough. Og Mandino

We may be personally defeated, but our principles never! William Lloyd Garrison

In our business, things look like a failure until they're not. It's pretty binary transitions. Satya Nadella

We dissect failure a lot more than we dissect success. Matthew McConaughey

There could be no honor in a sure success, but much might be wrested from a sure defeat. Ann Landers

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. Tony Robbins

We feel a lot of pressure about looking silly or appearing weak, whatever that means, or being a failure. You have to keep in your head: what's the worst that can happen? Michael Fassbender

I have tried every diet to lose weight. When you restrict yourself, you're setting yourself up for failure. Octavia Spencer

If you try to do your best there is no failure. Mike Farrell

Never tell anyone outside my staff that the Submarine Force and the First Air Fleet were responsible for the failure at Midway. The failure at Midway was mine. Isoroku Yamamoto

The very nature of finance is that it cannot be profitable unless it is significantly leveraged... and as long as there is debt, there can be failure and contagion. Alan Greenspan

We all learn lessons in life. Some stick, some don't. I have always learned more from rejection and failure than from acceptance and success. Henry Rollins

The one phrase you can use is that success has a thousand fathers, and failure is an orphan. Alan Price

At the end of the day, you are solely responsible for your success and your failure. And the sooner you realize that, you accept that, and integrate that into your work ethic, you will start being successful. As long as you blame others for the reason you aren't where you want to be, you will always be a failure. Erin Cummings

True leaders don't invest in buildings. Jesus never built a building. They invest in people. Why? Because success without a successor is failure. So your legacy should not be in buildings, programs, or projects; your legacy must be in people. Myles Munroe

What I try to get physically healthy people to understand is that they're going to die someday. There is no way out. And dying isn't failure, but not living is, so make use of your time. Don't keeping waiting. Bernie Siegel

Philanthropic colonization is a failure. National colonization will succeed. Theodor Herzl

The reason was the failure of both Japan and China to understand each other and the inability of America and the European powers to sympathize, without prejudice, with the peoples of East Asia. Hideki Tojo

In America, there's a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world. Barack Obama

We need to accept that we won't always make the right decisions, that we'll screw up royally sometimes - understanding that failure is not the opposite of success, it's part of success. Arianna Huffington

Regard every suggestion that your life may be a failure, that you are not made like those who succeed, and that success is not for you, as a traitor, and expel it from your mind as you would a thief from your house. Orison Swett Marden

Before I was married, I didn't consider my failure to manage even basic hand tools a feminist inadequacy. I thought it had more to do with being Jewish. The Jews I knew growing up didn't do 'do-it-yourself.' When my father needed to hammer something he generally used his shoe, and the only real tool he owned was a pair of needle-nose pliers. Ayelet Waldman

The time I had waited probably made the difference between success and failure. Anna Neagle

People in the business will stay with you through drugs and alcohol and divorces and insanity and everything else, but you have a failure, pal, and they don't want to know nothing about you! Don Johnson

A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying. B. F. Skinner

Success is more dangerous than failure, the ripples break over a wider coastline. Graham Greene

Success unshared is failure. John Paul DeJoria

Every company needs to have a skunkworks, to try things that have a high probability of failing. You try to minimize failure, but at the same time, if you're not willing to try things that are inherently risky, you're not going to make progress. Nolan Bushnell

With engineering, I view this year's failure as next year's opportunity to try it again. Failures are not something to be avoided. You want to have them happen as quickly as you can so you can make progress rapidly. Gordon Moore

Fact: From quitting smoking to skiing, we succeed to the degree we try, fail, and learn. Studies show that people who worry about mistakes shut down, but those who are relaxed about doing badly soon learn to do well. Success is built on failure. Martha Beck

The clearest explanation for the failure of any marriage is that the two people are incompatible; that is, that one is male and the other female. Anna Quindlen

I firmly believe that unless one has tasted the bitter pill of failure, one cannot aspire enough for success. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

There is no loneliness greater than the loneliness of a failure. The failure is a stranger in his own house. Eric Hoffer

The first thing successful people do is view failure as a positive signal to success. Brendon Burchard

I guess I'm motivated by the fear of failure to some degree and knowing what can happen when you don't do things the way you need to do them to have success. Nick Saban

If I were not African, I wonder whether it would be clear to me that Africa is a place where the people do not need limp gifts of fish but sturdy fishing rods and fair access to the pond. I wonder whether I would realize that while African nations have a failure of leadership, they also have dynamic people with agency and voices. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

If you're doing your best, you won't have any time to worry about failure. H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

America traditionally represents the greatest possibility of someone's going from nothing to something. Why? In theory, if not practice, the government stays out of the way and lets individuals take risks and reap rewards or accept the consequences of failure. We call this capitalism - or, at least, we used to. Larry Elder

'Catch-22' was a huge failure, and it rubbed off on everybody connected to it. I had a bunch of lean years where I had to do things, a lot of which I wasn't wildly enthusiastic about. Alan Arkin

Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another steppingstone to greatness. Oprah Winfrey

Don't fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have. Louis E. Boone

Failure's a natural part of life. John Malkovich

'The White Woman on the Green Bicycle' is a love story mapped onto an unfolding political tragedy: that of the failure of the Independence era in Trinidad. Monique Roffey

I do public appearances. I'm bluff, hearty, goofy. I wear loud clothes, and I read the funny bits. I occasionally get taken to task for one thing or another, and I acknowledge my fault, my flaw, my failure, and I move on. Nick Harkaway

True, foolish risks can lead to difficult consequences. But having said that, don't be so scared of failure and disappointment that you fail to dream. Robin S. Sharma

I assume everything I do in life is gonna be a failure, and then if it turns up roses, then I'm psyched. Jonah Hill

Failure to accord credit to anyone for what he may have done is a great weakness in any man. William Howard Taft

Lincoln made mistakes. Roosevelt made mistakes. Eisenhower made mistakes. The Battle of the Bulge was the biggest intelligence failure in American military history, much bigger than any in Vietnam or now. We didn't know that the Soviets were moving 400,000 or 500,000 troops. We missed it. Rudy Giuliani


Y'know, the real reason why I was such a failure in the sense of being unable to make any sort of a living was because I was really not motivated. I had no motivation. Paul Twitchell

I feel as if I've been so inured to failure, because I fail more than I succeed. As with any kind of fiction, I throw out so many pages; I get rejected so many times. Lauren Groff

Foreign aid is neither a failure nor a panacea. It is, instead, an important tool of American policy that can serve the interests of the United States and the world if wisely administered. Lee H. Hamilton

The paradox is that when we model future designs on past successes, we are inviting failure down the line; when we take into account past failures and anticipate potential new ways in which failure can occur, we are more likely to produce successful designs. Henry Petroski

You can't please everyone, but I've always felt you cannot ultimately lose if you give everything you try 110%. You'll always learn something useful, even from a failure, that can be applied to the next challenge or project. Mark Ryan

Ambitious failure, magnificent failure, is a very good thing. Guy Kawasaki

I've experienced success, I've experienced failure, I've been a world champion, I've fought all over the world; I think I've experienced enough that I won't get in front of a million people and get gunshy. Eddie Alvarez

Failure is a part of success. Hank Aaron

One of the arguments I make for the failure of the euro is that, at the time it was being constructed, there was a 'neo-liberal' ideology which said that all we need to do to make this thing work is to get deficits low, keep inflation low, and take down barriers, and then everything would be fine. Joseph Stiglitz

There are people who say that you can't experiment... That condemns you to failure. Jose Mujica

I would replace most foreign aid with a tax credit for businesses to invest. I think U.S. bureaucrats giving foreign bureaucrats money is a guaranteed failure. And we've had about 50 years' experience at failing with foreign aid. Newt Gingrich

The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same. Colin R. Davis

Fear of failure, it's the greatest motivational tool. It drives me and drives me and drives me. Jerry West

Greatly begin. Though thou have time, but for a line, be that sublime. Not failure, but low aim is crime. James Russell Lowell

You are capable of more than you know. Choose a goal that seems right for you and strive to be the best, however hard the path. Aim high. Behave honorably. Prepare to be alone at times, and to endure failure. Persist! The world needs all you can give. E. O. Wilson

The power of fear of failure, with will to win, is an incredible force. I don't think we should be worried about having a fear of failure; I think it's quite natural. If you surveyed any top businessman or any top athlete, I bet if they were truthful, they would all say they've got a fear of losing and a fear of failure. John Caudwell

I'm scared of failure so much more than any of the other girls I compete against that I work so much harder than they possibly could. I'm totally down with spiders and frogs and heights and snakes - everything; I'm cool with it. Ronda Rousey

I don't look at football as a violent, barbaric sport. It's a very spiritual sport, especially for someone facing the challenges during a game: the fear of failure, the fear of getting too big an ego, of making a mistake and everybody criticizing you. Troy Polamalu

Mass transportation is doomed to failure in North America because a person's car is the only place where he can be alone and think. Marshall McLuhan

I've always embraced failure as a noble pursuit. It allows you to be anti whatever anyone wants you to be, and to break all the rules. Malcolm Mclaren

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 is due to our stretching to the challenges of life. Failure comes when we shrink from them. John C. Maxwell

Laziness is a secret ingredient that goes into failure. But it's only kept a secret from the person who fails. Robert Half

Failure is good. It's fertilizer. Everything I've learned about coaching, I've learned from making mistakes. Rick Pitino

There is a huge difference between failing and failure. Failing is trying something that you learn doesn't work. Failure is throwing in the towel and giving up. True success comes from failing repeatedly and as quickly as possible, before your cash or your willpower runs out. Jay Samit

Failure is your invention. Sophia Amoruso

Ambition is the last refuge of the failure. Oscar Wilde

Restlessness is discontent and discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure. Thomas A. Edison

Something is wanting, and something must be done, or we shall be involved in all the horror of failure, and civil war without a prospect of its termination. Henry Knox

If those committed to the quest fail, they will be forgiven. When lost, they will find another way. The moral imperative of humanism is the endeavor alone, whether successful or not, provided the effort is honorable and failure memorable. E. O. Wilson

I feel to invite women everywhere to rise to the great potential within you. I do not ask that you reach beyond your capacity. I hope you will not nag yourselves with thoughts of failure. I hope you will not try to set goals far beyond your capacity to achieve. I hope you will simply do what you can do in the best way you know. Gordon B. Hinckley

Even people who despise ego and aspire to humility, who plan to be humble once they are successful, are worried that actually enacting those beliefs would sentence them to a life of obscurity or weakness or failure. Ryan Holiday

It is not a disgrace to fail. Failing is one of the greatest arts in the world. Charles Kettering

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

There's no right or wrong, success or failure. Miley Cyrus

Trump's biggest failure as a political leader is that he sees the worst in people, and he encourages the worst in people. J. D. Vance

Sound character provides the power with which a person may ride the emergencies of life instead of being overwhelmed by them. Failure is... the highway to success. Og Mandino

Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure. Thomas A. Edison

In Iraq we must succeed. Failure is not an option. Zbigniew Brzezinski

All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is this: Act as if it were impossible to fail. That is the talisman, the formula, the command of right about face which turns us from failure to success. Dorothea Brande

Unless we practice conservation, those who come after us will have to pay the price of misery, degradation, and failure for the progress and prosperity of our day. Gifford Pinchot

The only person who needs to know about failure is yourself. John Connolly

I've learned to think in terms of having a long career. Actors can have very long careers that last until the day we die, but there will be moments when you'll feel like you're a failure or when you're disappointed in yourself. Bryce Dallas Howard

While the public school rewards failure by throwing more government money at failing school systems, the voucher system does the opposite. Fabrizio Moreira

It's difficult because we tend to overrate the pain of failure. We fear it too much. That's research that emerges from psychology. We think it's going to be worse than it really is. And, I think, as we get a bit older, really after we leave school or college, we quickly stop experimenting. Tim Harford

In 1999, I was in St. Louis with Martin Luther King III as we led protests against the state's failure to hire minority contractors for highway construction projects. We went at dawn on a summer day with over a thousand people and performed acts of civil disobedience. Al Sharpton


In theory, I absolutely love to work from home, in all its warmth and comfort, but have reluctantly been forced to confess that it's a total failure. Robert Rinder

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. Winston Churchill

I was raised in the '70s, and I've worked with people I love, and I've been on sets with my parents, with people who run a set and require of actors a sense of liberty and freedom and exploration and failure into brave achievement. Laura Dern

I teach students that what people say about failure in politics is mostly wrong. People always told me, 'They'll praise you on your way up and kick you on your way down.' That wasn't my experience. I can't walk down the street in Toronto without someone coming up and saying hello. Michael Ignatieff

You make mistakes. Mistakes don't make you. Maxwell Maltz

When you believe in your dream and your vision, then it begins to attract its own resources. No one was born to be a failure. Myles Munroe

Mohammed was not an apparent failure. He was a dazzling success, politically as well as spiritually, and Islam went from strength to strength to strength. Karen Armstrong

The attributes for entrepreneurs cut both ways. You need the ability to ignore inconvenient facts and see the world as it should be and not as it is. This inspires people to take huge leaps of faith. But this blindness to facts can be a liability, too. The characteristics that help entrepreneurs succeed can also lead to their failure. Eric Ries

The entrepreneurial life is one of challenge, work, dedication, perseverance, exhilaration, agony, accomplishment, failure, sacrifice, control, powerlessness... but ultimately, extraordinary satisfaction. David S. Rose

I think that the failure of newspaper competition in a community is a very serious handicap to the dissemination of the knowledge that the citizens need to participate in a democracy. Walter Cronkite

We know there is no such thing as freedom without the risk of failure. Rick Perry

Any critic is entitled to wrong judgments, of course. But certain lapses of judgment indicate the radical failure of an entire sensibility. Susan Sontag

The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure. John C. Maxwell

I have never described the time I was in Doctor Who as anything except a kind of ecstatic success, but all the rest has been rather a muddle and a disappointment. Compared to Doctor Who, it has been an outrageous failure really - it's so boring. Tom Baker

I used to feel an obligation to invent things. I felt I was a failure because I didn't do massive great novels about Australia or the outback or something. I just don't feel that any more. Helen Garner

Educational institutes can no longer be prizes in church politics or furnish berths for failure in other walks of life. E. Franklin Frazier

Women, like men, should try to do the impossible. And when they fail, their failure should be a challenge to others. Amelia Earhart

Successful entrepreneurs find the balance between listening to their inner voice and staying persistent in driving for success - because sometimes success is waiting right across from the transitional bump that's disguised as failure. Naveen Jain

You can't be afraid of failure and you can't be afraid of success, because either one gets in the way of your work. Dave Van Ronk

After Mitt Romney's defeat, the RNC released its official assessment of what happened - a failure to reach younger voters, nonwhite voters, women - but was met with a counter-narrative that, in fact, it was Romney's failure to be conservative enough that led to a depressed Republican base. Kristen Soltis Anderson

I'm proof against that word failure. I've seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best. George Eliot

I think failure is nothing more than life's way of nudging you that you are off course. My attitude to failure is not attached to outcome, but in not trying. It is liberating. Most people attach failure to something not working out or how people perceive you. This way, it is about answering to yourself. Sara Blakely

Part of being a man is learning to take responsibility for your successes and for your failures. You can't go blaming others or being jealous. Seeing somebody else's success as your failure is a cancerous way to live. Kevin Bacon

The enemy of human happiness as well as the cause of poverty and starvation is not the birth of children. It is the failure of people to do with the earth what God could teach them to do if only they would ask and then obey, for they are agents unto themselves. Henry B. Eyring

This is true enough, but success is the next best thing to happiness, and if you can't be happy as a success, it's very unlikely that you would find a deeper, truer happiness in failure. Michael Korda

As a small business owner, you may not have the luxury to throw good money after bad, but if you can ascertain the 'why' of the failure, you can draw some significance from it and then turn it into something that clients will buy. Michael E. Gerber

I hate failure and that divorce was a Number One failure in my eyes. It was the worst period of my life. Neither Desi nor I have been the same since, physically or mentally. Lucille Ball

The most tragic paradox of our time is to be found in the failure of nation-states to recognize the imperatives of internationalism. Earl Warren

I love when me and my friends don't know how to make something - there's that risk of failure, which should be there. If it's guaranteed not to fail, it's something you already know how to do. Spike Jonze

In corporations, the penalty for repeated failure on known tasks is being reassigned to other tasks or asked to leave the company. Steve Blank

I believe that, in an ideal world, writers would feel free to write what matters to them without having to consider success, failure, the market, etc. Claire Messud

There's a difference between a failure and a fiasco... a fiasco is a disaster of mythic proportions. Orlando Bloom

Creative risk taking is essential to success in any goal where the stakes are high. Thoughtless risks are destructive, of course, but perhaps even more wasteful is thoughtless caution which prompts inaction and promotes failure to seize opportunity. Gary Ryan Blair

The probability of failure doesn't matter to me. Vinod Khosla

If you look at great human civilizations, from the Roman Empire to the Soviet Union, you will see that most do not fail simply due to external threats but because of internal weakness, corruption, or a failure to manifest the values and ideals they espouse. Cory Booker

I like to do matrices. One option per line, different facets for each column. Salary, location, happiness index, failure index, and all that. Marissa Mayer

Yes - I am usually overweight. I have had to be interested in diet because of being diabetic for 30 years and having kidney failure. Sue Townsend

Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war. Donald Trump

In the business world today, failure is apparently not an option. We need to change this attitude toward failure - and celebrate the idea that only by falling on our collective business faces do we learn enough to succeed down the road. Naveen Jain

If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style. Quentin Crisp

At first I wasn't sure that I had the talent, but I did know I had a fear of failure, and that fear compelled me to fight off anything that might abet it. Gordon Parks

I've achieved everything I've wanted to achieve, so I'm not scared of failure. I never gave up, however bad the injuries got. Darcey Bussell

I've loved every minute I've spent in television. And I've had much more failure, as traditionally measured, than success in television. I've done four shows, and only one of them was the 'West Wing.' Aaron Sorkin


Movies are not novels, and that's why, when filmmakers try to adapt novels, particularly long or complex novels, the result is almost always failure. It can't be done. Paul Auster

Relying on nothing but scientific knowledge to produce an engineering solution is to invite frustration at best and failure at worst. Henry Petroski

No one ought to be under any illusion that Cheney privately thinks himself a failure. Barton Gellman

Failure seldom stops you. What stops you is the fear of failure. Jack Lemmon

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. Calvin Coolidge

I never feel any pressure about a film. What is meant to happen will happen. I have seen failure as well as success several times. Akshay Kumar

In tennis, it is not the opponent you fear, it is the failure itself, knowing how near you were but just out of reach. Andy Murray

The average member of the public thinks of 'business' as an impersonal corporate entity owned by the very rich and managed by overpaid executives. There is an almost total failure to appreciate that 'business' actually embraces - in one way or another - most Americans. Lewis F. Powell, Jr.

Testing leads to failure, and failure leads to understanding. Burt Rutan

Do not wallow in your failure. Spend some time grieving, learn from it, and then move on. Constantly replaying what went wrong will not benefit you. Get involved in another company, another cause, another relationship. Julie Wainwright

We can't leave everything to the free market. In fact, climate change is, I would argue, the greatest single free-market failure. This is what happens when you don't regulate corporations and you allow them to treat the atmosphere as an open sewer. Naomi Klein

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. Winston Churchill

My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them. Jack Kerouac

Nothing helps make a leader more approachable than admitting your struggles, screw-ups and behind-the-scenes thinking on hard calls. If the leader makes this a priority, the whole company will be more open and methodical learning from failure. Scott Weiss

In Britain, by contrast, we still think that class plays a part in determining a person's life chances, so we're less inclined to celebrate success and less inclined to condemn failure. The upshot is that it's much easier to be a failure in Britain than it is in America. Toby Young

You have to be able to accept failure to get better. LeBron James

I was never afraid of failure after that because, I think, coming that close to death you get kissed. With the years, the actual experience of course fades, but the flavor of it doesn't. I just had a real sense of what choice do I have but to live fully? Debra Winger

An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail. Edwin Land

Failure happens all the time. It happens every day in practice. What makes you better is how you react to it. Mia Hamm

I even get inspired by movies that aren't very good, because there's always something good in movies that are collectively thought of as a failure. There's good in everything, I find. Steven Spielberg

The lessons I learned from my mother and her friends have guided me through death, birth, loss, love, failure, and achievement, on to a Fulbright scholarship and Harvard Business School. They taught me to believe that anything was possible. They have proven to be the strongest family values I could ever have imagined. Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

You want to ensure people can do it right 99 percent of time. When we have to fire one of our surgical trainees, it is never because they don't have the physical skills but because they don't have the moral skills - to practise and admit failure. Atul Gawande

There is a no-man's land in our politics: on the one hand, bounded by what we know to be true, and on the other hand, bounded by what the media says is politically correct. And that's where Donald Trump lives. And it's our failure to admit what we all know to be true in the guise of political correctness that fuels the Trump candidacy. Dick Morris

It's your own fear of failure that stops you from doing things. Anupam Kher

Once you start a working on something, don't be afraid of failure and don't abandon it. People who work sincerely are the happiest. Chanakya

Inability to make decisions is one of the principal reasons executives fail. Deficiency in decision-making ranks much higher than lack of specific knowledge or technical know-how as an indicator of leadership failure. John C. Maxwell

My greatest sense of accomplishment has come from having two amazing sons, but it's also a paradox in that the times when I felt like the biggest failure have been times when I felt like, as a parent, I wasn't making the right decisions or succeeding in the way that I should. Michael Franti

Having the positive belief that it will all be O.K. just means that you hustle and make it work because failure is not even an option in your own mind. Natalie Massenet

Sociologists well understand that chaos at home causes violent behavior, educational failure and social alienation among children. Yet, many of us in America stay far, far away from this topic. That in itself is a national scandal. Bad parenting is gravely harming this nation. Bill O'Reilly

The most irresistible charm of youth is its bubbling enthusiasm. Youth sees no darkness ahead - no defile that has no outlet - it forgets that there is such a thing as failure in the world and believes that mankind has been waiting all these centuries for him to come and be the liberator of truth and energy and beauty. Orison Swett Marden

If you don't accept failure as a possibility, you don't set high goals, you don't branch out, you don't try - you don't take the risk. Rosalynn Carter

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a godly person. Yet when I look at the yesterdays of my life, what I see, mostly, is a broken, irregular path littered with mistakes and failure. I have had temporary successes and isolated moments of closeness to God, but I long for the continuing presence of Jesus. Mike Yaconelli

President Obama's astonishing failure to secure an orderly transition in Iraq has unnecessarily put at risk the victories that were won through the blood and sacrifice of thousands of American men and women. Mitt Romney

In school, we learn that mistakes translate into bad grades. This unfortunate lesson gets burned into our brains, and we go through life shunning challenges that might end in failure. Mark Frauenfelder

The Bay of Pigs became a metaphor for feckless folly and failure. Pat Buchanan

Failure too is a form of death. Graham Greene

Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be. John Wooden

All I can do will only ever be a faint image of what I see and my success will always be less than my failure or perhaps equal to the failure. Alberto Giacometti

Failure worries me; nobody wants to fail. There is a fear that one day, films will not come my way, or if someone doesn't watch your film, that is a worrying point. It is unpredictable in the industry. Alia Bhatt

I felt like a failure for so long because I wasn't able to access myself in the way I knew I would have if I was going to make music that mattered. I knew I was going to have to learn how to be honest. John Grant

I don't think one should attribute the success and failure of a film to a single actor. When you decide to do a film, you weigh the pros and cons before taking a call. Only when you run out of patience, get insecure, and feel your career is heading nowhere do you sign anything that comes your way. Rakul Preet Singh

I fell off my pink cloud with a thud. Elizabeth Taylor

My story as an artist has been about trial and error. It's been about artist development, character building, struggle, happiness and failure, family, and music. Anderson Paak

An investment said to have an 80% chance of success sounds far more attractive than one with a 20% chance of failure. The mind can't easily recognize that they are the same. Daniel Kahneman

Your ability to adapt to failure, and navigate your way out of it, absolutely 100 percent makes you who you are. Viola Davis

Feeling is the consciousness of the resulting conditions - of success, failure, equilibrium, compromise or balance, in this continuous rivalry of ideas. James Mark Baldwin

Young players need freedom of expression to develop as creative players... they should be encouraged to try skills without fear of failure. Arsene Wenger

Without exposure to potential failure, there is no risk. Brennan Manning

I used to think that divorce meant failure, but now I see it more as a step along the path of self-realization and growth. Alana Stewart

I have a lack of fear, whereas in the past the fear of failure was a powerful motivator. Anyway, I have great expectations for the future, but I just don't know if I'm the monarch of all I survey. Sylvester Stallone

Spend enough time around success and failure, and you learn a reverence for possibility. Dale Dauten

I already had high blood pressure. I have hypertension. And I think the chemo was just too much for my kidneys. And they went into failure. And that was September 12th of 2008. And the doctor rushed me right to the hospital. Natalie Cole


I just felt that 'Golden Balls' was the right thing to do. I didn't care if people thought I was a failure. Jasper Carrott

Low standards are a tactic that takes pressure off teachers' unions by accepting mediocrity and failure for kids. Jeb Bush

I've accepted that I was a failure in politics. I was not qualified for the job. Amitabh Bachchan

Divorce is never a pleasant experience. You look upon it as a failure. But I learned to be a different person once we broke up. Sometimes you learn more from failure than you do from success. Michael Crawford

I read less and less. I have not forgiven books for their failure to tell me the truth and make me happy. Mason Cooley

Failure's not a bad thing. It builds character. It makes you stronger. Billy Dee Williams

It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression. Eric Hoffer

I was in kidney failure. I ended up having a kidney transplant on my 21st birthday. Amy Purdy

A joke is a way to say, 'I'm going to do something funny now. If I don't get a laugh at the end, I'm a failure.' Penn Jillette

What America does best is produce the ability to accept failure. Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. Henry Ford

Success is not a good teacher, failure makes you humble. Shah Rukh Khan

Most leadership strategies are doomed to failure from the outset. As people have been noting for years, the majority of strategic initiatives that are driven from the top are marginally effective - at best. Peter Senge

Where do we enroll in Life 101? Where are the classes dealing with the loss of a job, the death of a loved one, the failure of a relationship? Unfortunately, those lessons are mostly learned through trial by fire and the school of hard knocks. Les Brown

I have always believed that it's important to show a new look periodically. Predictability can lead to failure. T. Boone Pickens

YouTube began as a failed video-dating site. Twitter was a failed music service. In each case, the founders continued to try new concepts when their big ideas failed. They often worked around the clock to try to overcome their failure before all their capital was spent. Speed to fail gives a startup more runway to pivot and ultimately succeed. Jay Samit

It's not that we fly by the seat of our pants. We're not afraid of failure. Craig Ferguson

Failure. It doesn't exist. 'Failure' is just what happens when we lose perspective. Donna Brazile

I've always believed that it's important to show a new look periodically. Predictability can lead to failure. T. Boone Pickens

Lacking the direct test of success or failure, the voter tends to turn, not to those politicians whose measures have the best chance of success, but to those with the ability to 'sell' their propaganda. Without grasping logical chains of deduction, the average voter will never be able to discover the error that the ruler makes. Murray Rothbard

Failure doesn't mean you are a failure it just means you haven't succeeded yet. Robert H. Schuller

Our system provides for a winner to take office on January 20th, and he is expected to take command of the ship of state. Failure to do so, characterized by hesitation and indecision, will harm the national interest. Richard V. Allen

We will all fail in life, but nobody has to be a failure. Failing at a thing doesn't make you a failure. You are only a failure when you quit trying. Joyce Meyer

I think that big, sort of theatrical relaunches tend to set you up for failure and hype. Tina Brown

I've had my share of struggle. I believe, never take success to your head or failure to your heart. Randeep Hooda

It's probably foolish to expect relationships to go on forever and to say that because something only lasts 10 years, it's a failure. James Taylor

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

The only reason my work seems to be eclectic up to a certain period is because I was a failure as an actor. Hugh Grant

The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it: so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it. Elbert Hubbard

The banking collapse was caused, more than anything, by bad government policy and the total failure of bad regulation, rather than by greed. Nigel Farage

I was always told that music isn't a 'realistic' path to take, and like a normal human being, I doubted myself over and over because I was afraid of failure. Alessia Cara

Success is a public affair. Failure is a private funeral. Rosalind Russell

Having in my life been bitten by the jaws of both victory and defeat, I must rush to add that success is to failure as butter pecan ice cream is to death. Rupert Holmes

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Steve Jobs

Failure isn't an option. I've erased the word 'fear' from my vocabulary, and I think when you erase fear, you can't fail. Alicia Keys

We've all experienced those days when we feel like an absolute failure. It's a normal feeling when things don't go as exactly planned. And, when we feel like that, it's challenging to think of yourself as a successful individual. John Rampton

One of the things that happens that's challenging within the democratic process is that people say, 'Look at this failure, so we should totally change this whole thing.' And then you add in tons of bureaucratic process and checks and balances, and all of a sudden, it doesn't work that well. Reid Hoffman

If there exists no possibility of failure, then victory is meaningless. Robert H. Schuller

Entrepreneurs are risk takers, willing to roll the dice with their money or reputation on the line in support of an idea or enterprise. They willingly assume responsibility for the success or failure of a venture and are answerable for all its facets. Victor Kiam

There is no such thing as darkness; only a failure to see. Malcolm Muggeridge

You will be a failure, until you impress the subconscious with the conviction you are a success. This is done by making an affirmation which 'clicks.' Florence Scovel Shinn

No matter how vast, how total, the failure of man here on earth, the work of man will be resumed elsewhere. War leaders talk of resuming operations on this front and that, but man's front embraces the whole universe. Henry Miller

Start-ups make so many mistakes that the challenge to identify the root cause of a failure is tough. But believing in your own plan is probably the worst. Eric Ries

I liked drawing and painting, because the only failure would be to listen to the doubters who wanted me to stop drawing and painting because 'you aren't going to make a living doing that.' I liked looking in art books at the work of painters. Billy Childish

My reputation grows with every failure. George Bernard Shaw

Often the difference between a successful man and a failure is not one's better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on his ideas, to take a calculated risk, and to act. Maxwell Maltz

Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor. Truman Capote

Burnout is grist to the mill. I write every day, for most of the day, so it's just about turning into metaphor whatever's going on in my life, in the world, and in my head. Every nightmare, every moment of grief or joy or failure, is a moment I can convert into cash via words. Grant Morrison

My life has been nothing but a failure. Claude Monet

I've had a lot of disappointments. I think my biggest disappointment is the failure of elected officials to make good on their promises in regards to the environment or anything else, really. I have very little faith in politicians. Paul Watson

I've never been a jealous person, and I've never felt built up by someone else's failure - that's a cheap thrill. Matthew McConaughey

There is only one failure in life possible, and that is not to be true to the best one knows. George Eliot

Success and failure are equally disastrous. Tennessee Williams

If you've gone into a marriage and you haven't been clear about how you're going to handle money, how you want to raise kids, who is going to work or stay home or what have you, then you've set yourself up for failure. Phil McGraw

The only TV I would be interested in exploring would be live television. There's no substitute for a team of artists performing at their peak live when failure is possible. It's a high-wire act. That excites me. Francis Ford Coppola

Call it the Tiger Mom effect: In the business world today, failure is apparently not an option. Naveen Jain

There's a spectrum of those moments of connection and the moments we fail to connect, going from super-large successes to failures. Success would be love, I guess, and failure could still be love, but the bad side; and loss. Aimee Bender

It is incredibly important to set goals for your business, as if you have no direction for your business, your online business will be a failure. Fabrizio Moreira

Beside every great success are the seeds of enormous failure. In every failure, there's the opportunity seeds of great success. They're not miles apart. So if they're that close together, and if you're really working, you're always gonna have that likelihood that something's not going to work. Peter Guber

By virtually any measure, the record of the Republican Majority is an appalling failure. Sheila Jackson Lee

Indecision and delays are the parents of failure. George Canning

If China stood on an equal basis with other nations, she could compete freely with them in the economic field and be able to hold her own without failure. But as soon as foreign nations use political power as a shield for their economic designs, then China is at a loss how to resist or to compete successfully with them. Sun Yat-sen

I don't want success to affect me to that extent that I change or failure to that extent that I get sad, bitter and negative. Arjun Kapoor

The woman is a gentle, loving bond who encourages, consoles, builds, reconciles, and makes all things new and vibrant. The woman is strength in time of suffering, courageous in failure, intuitive in time of danger. A woman is ingenuous when all fails, resourceful in times of want, and a true helpmate for man. Mother Angelica

Failure doesn't exist. It's only a change of direction. Alejandro Jodorowsky

Twenty million more have Chronic Kidney Disease, where patients experience a gradual deterioration of kidney function, the end result of which is kidney failure. Xavier Becerra

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. Thomas A. Edison

Honesty is about the scars. It's about the blemishes. But it's more than just bragging about failure, which could be a form of ego. It's about truly helping people. James Altucher


A failure is a man who has blundered, but is not able to cash in the experience. Elbert Hubbard

People think when you have a, quote, 'bank failure,' that that is the end of the bank. And it isn't necessarily. Michele Bachmann

Learning starts with failure; the first failure is the beginning of education. John Hersey

While entrepreneurs spend a lot of effort trying to avoid failure, sometimes the lessons one learns from those missteps can be invaluable. Lewis Howes

Fear of failure has always been my best motivator. Douglas Wood

Do not let your ambitions become a sanctuary for your failures. Bryant H. McGill

I love language, and I love the failure of language. Nate Lowman

If I didn't have children, I think my life would be a failure. Yann Martel

Most of us spend the first six days of each week sowing wild oats; then we go to church on Sunday and pray for a crop failure. Fred Allen

Sadness is a super important thing not to be ashamed about but to include in our lives. One of the bigger problems with sadness or depression is there's so much shame around it. If you have it you're a failure. You are felt as being very unattractive. Mike Mills

Most organizations don't fall apart as a result of one big blow. Most relationships don't end because of one grand argument. Most lives don't fall to pieces due to one sad event. No, I suggest to you that sustained failure happens as the consequence of small, daily acts of neglect that stack up over time to lead to a blow up - and break down. Robin S. Sharma

We're very good at talking about the individual in American politics and excellent at talking about the government. But we have little ability to even acknowledge everything that exists in the middle, and given how influential politics is on every other part of our life, I think that failure of discourse is pretty corrosive to our overall culture. J. D. Vance

In my view, the first requirement for success for an entrepreneur is to dream big. The second aspect that prevents entrepreneurs from succeeding is fear of failure. Naveen Jain

Whenever a chef cooks for his own ego rather than his guests, he/she set themselves up for ridicule and failure. In the end, it's the service industry. Our goal is to make our guests happy through our cooking. Johnny Iuzzini

Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership. Colin Powell

My great fear has always been complete and utter failure. Hence, you see, all the dispossessed people in my fiction, and why I try to earn as much money as I can. It's a defense. I don't enjoy it or do anything with it. Peter Ackroyd

Appearances are not truth. But every politician knows that his or her image, as well as his or her actions, can make the difference between failure and success. Mimi Kennedy

If the whole process of learning from failure means discarding stuff that's not working, but in fact, our natural reaction is to keep going, to throw more money behind it, to throw more emotional energy behind it... that's a real problem. Tim Harford

Every large brand has franchisees and stores that don't make it. It's unfortunate, and Cold Stone did everything it could to support its franchisees, but some failure rate is part of the business. Doug Ducey

The federal government has been a proven failure in picking winners and losers in the energy sector. Mike Pompeo

The consequence of the Bay of Pigs failure wasn't an acceptance of Castro and his control of Cuba but, rather, a renewed determination to bring him down by stealth. Robert Dallek

To err is human, but it feels divine. Mae West

Failure is the key to success; each mistake teaches us something. Morihei Ueshiba

Life is bigger than cinema. Cinema is just a part of life, so I never take success or failure seriously. Pawan Kalyan

About the only problem with success is that it does not teach you how to deal with failure. Tommy Lasorda

Government doesn't have a high tolerance for failure. John Hickenlooper

You must accept that you might fail; then, if you do your best and still don't win, at least you can be satisfied that you've tried. If you don't accept failure as a possibility, you don't set high goals, you don't branch out, you don't try - you don't take the risk. Rosalynn Carter

No man is a failure who is enjoying life. William Feather

Every failure is a step to success. William Whewell

You get so afraid of failure and so afraid of losing and so afraid of not being the best that it's not a natural drive - it's born out of fear of failure. Which helps in Hollywood. Gabrielle Union

There is no innovation and creativity without failure. Period. Brene Brown

There is not a fiercer hell than the failure in a great object. John Keats

The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail. Napoleon Hill

Nixon's grand mistake was his failure to understand that Americans are forgiving, and if he had admitted error early and apologized to the country, he would have escaped. Bob Woodward

It's not about the failure, it's about learning from the failures. Failure itself cannot be celebrated. Satya Nadella

If your current get-rich project fails, take what you learned and try something else. Keep repeating until something lucky happens. The universe has plenty of luck to go around; you just need to keep your hand raised until it's your turn. It helps to see failure as a road and not a wall. Scott Adams

My dad encouraged us to fail. Growing up, he would ask us what we failed at that week. If we didn't have something, he would be disappointed. It changed my mindset at an early age that failure is not the outcome, failure is not trying. Don't be afraid to fail. Sara Blakely

Sometimes the best gain is to lose. George Herbert

Is the proposed operation likely to succeed? What might the consequences of failure? Is it in the realm of practicability in terms of material and supplies? Chester W. Nimitz

Adam Smith's huge failure was the fact that he did not foresee the industrial revolution. P. J. O'Rourke

An open-minded and diverse population that readily shares information, encourages experimentation, accepts failure and dispenses with formality and hierarchy is what makes Silicon Valley the successful hub that it is. Vivek Wadhwa

Failure is only postponed success as long as courage 'coaches' ambition. The habit of persistence is the habit of victory. Herbert Kaufman

I think some parents now look at a youngster failing as the final thing. It's a process, and failure is part of the process. I would like it if the teacher and the parents would connect more. I think that used to be, but we're losing a little bit of that right now. Mike Krzyzewski

Ilaiyaraaja is my most favourite music director. His music was my lullaby, his music was my food, his music was my childhood, his music was my first love, his music was my failure, his music was my first kiss, my first love failure, my success... he is in my blood. Dhanush

Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again. Richard Branson

Never be afraid to fail. Failure is only a stepping stone to improvement. Never be overconfident because that will block your improvement. Tony Jaa


If you're so afraid of failure, you will never succeed. You have to take chances. Mario Andretti

Even as far back as when I started acting at 14, I know I've never considered failure. Jennifer Lawrence

Our failure as a society to properly acknowledge and confront the psychological, social, and political effects of white privilege has perpetuated racial inequality and race-based political resentments. Tim Wise

Failure is a word that I simply don't accept. John H. Johnson

If you have a level of expectation in your life that you have to be a quote-unquote star, whatever that means, you might be setting yourself up for failure. Bryan Cranston

Show me a good and gracious loser and I'll show you a failure. Knute Rockne

I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure - which is: Try to please everybody. Herbert Bayard Swope

Boston has carried the practice of hypocrisy to the n-th degree of refinement, grace, and failure. Lincoln Steffens

A fictionalised memoir of my father would be a failure as a novel. Richard Flanagan

Ideology, politics and journalism, which luxuriate in failure, are impotent in the face of hope and joy. P. J. O'Rourke

Failure is impossible. Susan B. Anthony

In the 1940s, traveling for an African was a complicated process. All Africans over the age of sixteen were compelled to carry 'Native passes' issued by the Native Affairs Department and were required to show that pass to any white policeman, civil servant, or employer. Failure to do so could mean arrest, trial, a jail sentence or fine. Nelson Mandela

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

All human actions are equivalent and all are on principle doomed to failure. Jean-Paul Sartre

This dullness of vision regarding the importance of the general welfare to the individual is the measure of the failure of our schools and churches to teach the spiritual significance of genuine democracy. Henry A. Wallace

If a building looks better under construction than it does when finished, then it's a failure. Douglas Coupland

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

You don't go into anything contemplating failure, because if you did, you wouldn't make it. Simon Cowell

Failure's inevitable. It happens all the time in a complex economy. And how did the economy produce all these amazing things that we have around us, computers and cell phones and so on? Well, the process was trial and error. There were a bunch of ideas, and the good ones grew and prospered, and the bad ones were pretty ruthlessly weeded out. Tim Harford

The largest single reason for disappointing travel experiences is the failure to plan properly. Michael Frome

Failure is nature's plan to prepare you for great responsibilities. Napoleon Hill

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

One of the common failings among honorable people is a failure to appreciate how thoroughly dishonorable some other people can be, and how dangerous it is to trust them. Thomas Sowell

But while success and failure depend on conditions, the mind neither waxes nor wanes. Bodhidharma

Success isn't permanent and failure isn't fatal. Mike Ditka

For some time, I thought Apollo 13 was a failure. I was disappointed I didn't get to land on the moon. But actually, it turned out to be the best thing that could have happened. Jim Lovell

No matter how well things are going, failure and disaster are just around the corner. So celebrate the good, but be ready for the bad. Vivek Wadhwa

My motto is more, 'If you want to find something new, look for something new!' There is a certain amount of risk in this attitude, as even the slightest failure tends to be resounding, but you are so happy when you succeed that it is worth taking the risk. Yves Chauvin

I was taught you don't tell your secrets to strangers - certainly not secrets that expose error, weakness, failure. My generation, like its predecessors, was taught that since our achievements received little notice or credit from white America, we were not to discuss our faults, lapses, or uncertainties in public. Margo Jefferson

In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure. Bill Cosby

There's a silly notion that failure's not an option at NASA. Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough. Elon Musk

Suffering, failure, loneliness, sorrow, discouragement, and death will be part of your journey, but the Kingdom of God will conquer all these horrors. No evil can resist grace forever. Brennan Manning

Innovation demands risk-taking - which, in turn, entails redefining failure, stripping away its power to inhibit. Lynne Doughtie

The very phrase 'Oscar night' used to accelerate my pulse. For one thing - dating myself - it meant Bob Hope. He always had good, strong jokes, that faultless delivery, and always a new joke about his own films' failure - once again - to be honored. Dick Cavett

I'm hopeful. I know there is a lot of ambition in Washington, obviously. But I hope the ambitious realize that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure. George W. Bush

You have to look at the history of the Middle East in particular. It has been one of failure and frustration, of feudalism and tribalism. Alexander Haig

I - and I still consider myself, I'm sorry to tell you, a Marxist and a Communist, but I couldn't help noticing how all the best Marxist analyses are always analyses of a failure. Slavoj Zizek

Everyone should be commended for allowing people to make disasters, to make failures - you've just got to be sure that it's a magnificent failure and that, by creating a magnificent failure, you plant the seed. Malcolm Mclaren

Divorce is so common and accepted in America that beating myself up over it may sound ridiculous. But I was raised to believe that divorce wasn't an option; to me, divorce equaled failure. I wasn't able to change that equation until I found myself in the right relationship. Trisha Yearwood

As soon as I did my first five minutes of stand-up I knew that I would rather be a failure at comedy than a success in marketing. Jimmy Carr

The Communist bloc of old was a study in the failure of failure. Losers in the Soviet economy were the people at the end of the long lines for consumer goods. Worse losers were the people who had spent hours getting to the head of the line, only to be told that the goods were unavailable. P. J. O'Rourke

So many amongst us live in the past rather than loving the present and building a brilliant future. Some people stay stuck for years over something they did or a failure they've experienced. Sad. A life is a terrible thing to waste. Robin S. Sharma

Believe it or not, Christianity is not about good people getting better. If anything, it is good news for bad people coping with their failure to be good. Tullian Tchividjian

There can be no failure to a man who has not lost his courage, his character, his self respect, or his self-confidence. He is still a King. Orison Swett Marden

George Orwell's science-fiction classic 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' wasn't a failure because the future it predicted failed to come to pass. Rather, it was a resounding success because it helped us prevent that future. Robert J. Sawyer

When an action is once done, it is right or wrong for ever; no accidental failure of its good or evil fruits can possibly alter that. William Kingdon Clifford

I realized that I was afraid to really, really try something, 100%, because I had never reached true failure. Trent Reznor

Honesty is the fastest way to prevent a mistake from turning into a failure. James Altucher

A life which does not go into action is a failure. Arnold J. Toynbee

Every time I act on a fear, I feel disappointed in myself. I have a lot of fear. If I can quit all fear in my life and all guilt, then I tend to be much, much more living up to my standards. I've never seen a person fail if they didn't fear failure. Sebastian Thrun

The draconian spirit that seeks to enhance penalties and to lower the age at which juveniles will be tries as adults, is part of the 'whole cloth' of three strikes. Our failure to address the depair of our inner-city youth is only delayed by our over-confidence in a stance that is 'tougher than thou.' Greg Boyle

At least I have the modesty to admit that lack of modesty is one of my failings. Hector Berlioz

Without failure there is no sweetness in success. There's no understanding of it. Glenn Beck

One of the reasons people stop learning is that they become less and less willing to risk failure. John W. Gardner


Failure has gone to his head. Wilson Mizner

A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it. Ambrose Bierce

Being human means you will make mistakes. And you will make mistakes, because failure is God's way of moving you in another direction. Oprah Winfrey

Revolutionaries were depressed and close to emotional breakdown; after the failure, they left successively. Sun Yat-sen

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. Thomas A. Edison

Success is often achieved by those who don't know that failure is inevitable. Coco Chanel

There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man's lack of faith in his true Self. William James

Success and failure are equally surprising. Daryl Hall

In our tabulation of psychoanalytic results, we have classed those who stopped treatment together with those not improved. This appears to be reasonable; a patient who fails to finish his treatment, and is not improved, is surely a therapeutic failure. Hans Eysenck

The failure of academic feminists to recognize difference as a crucial strength is a failure to reach beyond the first patriarchal lesson. In our world, divide and conquer must become define and empower. Audre Lorde

It is wise to keep in mind that neither success nor failure is ever final. Roger Babson

'Pressure' is a word that is misused in our vocabulary. When you start thinking of pressure, it's because you've started to think of failure. Tommy Lasorda

Love is such a powerful subject matter because it comes in so many different shapes and sizes. It's about timing, fate, failure, redemption. Jim Sturgess

Because of the failure of the federal government to enforce federal law, we now have 'banks too big to fail,' unregulated Internet monopoly, and the evisceration of a dispersed and independent media. Paul Craig Roberts

One thing I do believe is I'm a believer in the presence of God. I believe that God is close. Whether it's in joy, pain or personal failure, I believe that God is close. That much I feel in my life. David Gregory

Whether in success or in failure, I'm proud of every single movie I've ever directed. Steven Spielberg

Overhead will eat you alive if not constantly viewed as a parasite to be exterminated. Never mind the bleating of those you employ. Hold out until mutiny is imminent before employing even a single additional member of staff. More startups are wrecked by overstaffing than by any other cause, bar failure to monitor cash flow. Felix Dennis

Ignorance is the failure to discriminate between the permanent and the impermanent, the pure and the impure, bliss and suffering, the Self and the non-Self. Patanjali

There is much to be said for failure. It is much more interesting than success. Max Beerbohm

I think you have to try and fail, because failure gets you closer to what you're good at. Louis C. K.

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. Ralph Waldo Emerson

I emphasize that virtually every engineering calculation is ultimately a failure calculation, because without a failure criterion against which to measure the calculated result, it is a meaningless number. Henry Petroski

The failure of world leaders to act on the critical issue of global warming is often blamed on economic considerations. David Suzuki

It's only a risk if you think there's a chance of failure. Kimbal Musk

While it is important for people to see your promise you must also remember that hope is the keeper of both happiness and disappointment, the father of both progress and failure. Bryant H. McGill

Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will. Suzy Kassem

A lot of suffering is just getting rid of dross in yourself, and lingering and hanging in the darkness is often - I say this against myself - a failure of imagination, to imagine the door into the light. John O'Donohue

The way most people fail is in not keeping up the heart. Lady Gregory

My biggest fear is doing the same things 10 years from now. That would be a failure. It's something you have to constantly reassess, and asking yourself what you are going to do next makes it a good, long full journey. George Clooney

If you get into a Broadway show and it doesn't work, you're a failure. And if it does work, you may be stuck for who knows how long. It just doesn't sound great to me! Betty White

If you're the type of person who has to fulfill your dreams, you've gotta be resourceful to make sure you can do it. I came out to California when I was 21, thinking my New York credentials would take me all the way. I came back home a year later all dejected and a failure. Vin Diesel

There is no middle ground in Hollywood; you're a failure or you're a success. That mentality is wild. Javier Bardem

Once you can accept failure, you can have fun and success. Rickey Henderson

Don't be afraid of failure; be afraid of petty success. Maude Adams

A failure to act is a terrible, stunning legacy for any leader. But far worse when it is the president of the United States. And that's the point driven home by Romney's selection of Ryan, who dared to lead when Obama did not. Mark McKinnon

I thank God for my failures. Maybe not at the time but after some reflection. I never feel like a failure just because something I tried has failed. Dolly Parton

If anyone has seen success and failure on a global stage, it's my friend Steve Forbes. Peter Diamandis

Obama's failure to close Guantanamo is yet another instance where the rhetoric of democratic and constitutional rights proved not useful for his international relations, relations which are always pursued in ways that continue to link and fortify securitarian power with the opening of new markets. Judith Butler

Try not to say, 'I'm a failure.' Instead, ask, 'What can I do better? What did I do wrong?' Then re-approach. Jillian Michaels

The worst time was 1983. Love and life and everything went wrong. I reached absolute rock bottom. I saw the Minotaur at the bottom of the abyss. I learnt of the harshness of the world and its impartiality to human failure. Ben Okri

Confidence is contagious, but so is failure. Even the Yankees will lose if you persuade them that they will. Rosabeth Moss Kanter

While 'The Owner's Manual' is not a formula for guaranteed success by any means, we're confident it will help reduce the failure rate of most startups that use our Customer Development process. Steve Blank

I wouldn't call Loopt a failure. It didn't turn out like I wanted, for sure, but it was fun, I learned a lot, and I made enough money to start investing, which led me to my current job. I don't regret it at all. Sam Altman

The main failure of education is that it has not prepared people to comprehend matters concerning human destiny. Norman Cousins

If you can't admit a failure, you're not an entrepreneur. You are not a good business person. There's nothing brilliant about what you are doing. Mark Cuban

Today, everybody is more or less conscious of the total failure of the Cuban revolution to produce wealth, to produce a better standard of living for the Cubans. With the exception of small radical parties, Latin Americans know that it's a brutal dictatorship and the longest in Latin American history. Mario Vargas Llosa

If it's a good work of adaptation, the book should remain a book and the film should remain a film, and you should not necessarily read the book to see the film. If you do need that, then that means that it's a failure. That is what I think. Marjane Satrapi

Losing is no disgrace if you've given your best. Jim Palmer

Failure is an amazing data point that tells you which direction not to go. Payal Kadakia

The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows. Buddha

I find writing very difficult. It's hard and it hurts sometimes, and it's scary because of the fear of failure and the very unpleasant feeling that you may have reached the limit of your abilities. Tony Kushner

Due to the failure of politics, which has become a process of middle-management, art has become one of the last open spaces to question core beliefs and to design a viable future. Art becomes an open space where we can ask fundamental questions about ourselves. Antony Gormley

There is no failure except in no longer trying. There is no defeat except from within, no really insurmountable barrier save our own inherent weakness of purpose. Kin Hubbard

You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space. Johnny Cash

The most resilient companies foster a pervasive culture of innovation at all levels of the organization - one that values risk-taking, embraces experimentation and considers failure an inevitable part of thinking boldly. Lynne Doughtie

The more control you have over your life, the more responsible you feel for your own success - or failure. Arthur C. Brooks

Everyone understands the European Union is a failure. It has not kept any of its promises - in particular about prosperity, security - and, worst of all, has put us under a guardianship. Marine Le Pen

You can be discouraged by failure, or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes, make all you can. Because, remember that's where you'll find success - on the far side of failure. Thomas J. Watson

I was learning the craft; I didn't study writing in school. Rejection was my motivation, and failure is what taught me. Pierce Brown

Sometimes we never see what failure is and often fail to recognize it. Naveen Jain

There has been a failure to grasp how competing narratives fight for the attention of angry young Muslims, and we have grossly underestimated the appeal of the jihadist brand. Maajid Nawaz

In Arab capitals, the failure of the United States to stop Iran's nuclear program is understood as American weakness in the struggle for dominance in the Middle East, making additional cooperation from Arab leaders on Israeli-Palestinian issues even less likely. Elliott Abrams

I looked long and carefully at the picture of a stag painted by Landseer - the style was good, and the brush was handled with fine effect; but he fails in copying Nature, without which the best work will be a failure. John James Audubon

Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer, decentralized form of money, as durable as the Internet itself. Remember, the Internet - or DARPA, as it was originally called - was created as a fail-safe, global network with no 'single point of failure.' If one part goes down, data takes another route, and nothing is lost. Max Keiser

With everything that is complex, we learn. If you don't learn, then it's an utter and abject failure. If you do learn, and you're able to apply that to the next situation, then you take away a measure of success. Ben Carson

Cheerfully fessing up to our failures turns crazy mind off, humility and compassion on. I learned this in a karate dojo that had a strange tradition. Everyone there loved recounting failure stories, and after an evening of smacking one another, we'd sit and have a beer while the students swapped tales of martial arts disaster. Martha Beck

The only real failure in life is one not learned from. Anthony J. D'Angelo

If my child had prejudice in his head, I'd be ashamed. I would see it as my failure as a parent. Salman Rushdie


We all have anxiety about things. We all have little insecurities, but eventually you have to face your fears if you want to be successful, and everybody has some fear of failure. Nick Saban

There are a whole host of psychological phenomenon humans have developed to protect ourselves from the sting of failure, from holding ourselves less accountable for our failures than we do other people, to letting our fear paralyze us and keep us from even trying. Fabrizio Moreira

Every great work, every big accomplishment, has been brought into manifestation through holding to the vision, and often just before the big achievement, comes apparent failure and discouragement. Florence Scovel Shinn

I think if you look at the failure of journalism in the modern age, then I don't want to be called a journalist. Shane Smith

For me, it's always a failure of the imagination. I have that anxiety that time is passing, that everything is ultimately fleeting and impermanent. I better take advantage of every single moment. Jason Silva

Destiny: A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure. Ambrose Bierce

Your personal life, your professional life, and your creative life are all intertwined. I went through a few very difficult years where I felt like a failure. But it was actually really important for me to go through that. Struggle, for me, is the most inspirational thing in the world at the end of the day - as long as you treat it that way. Skylar Grey

Belief in the supernatural reflects a failure of the imagination. Edward Abbey

Your attitude towards failure determines your altitude after failure. John C. Maxwell

I think it's one of the main negative emotional ingredients that fuels show business, because there's so much at stake and the fear of failure looms large. Garry Shandling

Risk is to do something that 99 percent of the time would be a failure. Ferran Adria

I mean, I love L.A. - I love living here. But I wish that we could make things without the need to hit a home run every single time. It's a unique thing to Hollywood that if you don't do that every time, then you're considered a failure. But it's like, 'Well, are you making movies to be successful? Or are you making movies to learn something?' Kristen Stewart

Failure to curb temperature increases will impact all countries, Ireland included, but with the most immediate and drastic effects being felt, in many instances, by the most vulnerable countries and communities. Enda Kenny

When you learn to keep fighting in the face of potential failure, it gives you a larger skill set to do what you want to do in life. It gives you vision. But you can't acquire it if you're afraid of keeping score. Pat Summitt

When I was growing up, Brandy was TV star, reality star, a pop star, a Cover girl, Grammy winner, had her own Brandy doll, and was the first African American to play Disney princess Cinderella. Most importantly, she is a survivor. Many only judge and remember a person's most recent failure. Niecy Nash

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

My citizen activism is a direct outgrowth of a classical and fiscally conservative training in economics at Harvard. It is a perspective rooted in one of the most important concepts in economics - the need for government intervention in the presence of a market failure. Peter Navarro

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

I honestly think it is better to be a failure at something you love than to be a success at something you hate. George Burns

I don't lose any sleep at night over the potential for failure. I cannot even spell the word. James Mattis

Coming to terms with the fact that my marriage was a failure was devastating and very difficult. I blamed myself for a lot of things. It took me a very long time to get over it. Sarah McLachlan

Failure to take note of the fact that the character of twentieth-century humanity differs from that of humanity in the fifteenth century, let alone before and at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, is to sleep through the process of world evolution. Rudolf Steiner

Since so many romantic comedies vary little in their storyline, the success or failure of such movies depends largely on whether we believe in the relationship of the protagonists. Mariella Frostrup

If you're constantly pushing yourself higher, higher, the law of averages - not to mention the myth of Icarus - predicts that you will at some point fall. And when you do, I want you to know this, remember this: There is no such thing as failure. Oprah Winfrey

I've been through a lot in my career, and the failure that I've gone through makes me really appreciate the moments of success much more. Jake Arrieta

Every individual suffers from the fear of failure, but you can change your destiny only when you overcome it. Anupam Kher

Admitting failure is quite cleansing, but never - pleasurable. Michael Morpurgo

Failure to prepare is preparing to fail. Mike Murdock

Success or failure in business is caused more by the mental attitude even than by mental capacities. Walter Scott

Engineering is achieving function while avoiding failure. Henry Petroski

The failure of Obamacare, I think, rests solely on the shoulders of Democrats. They created the program. They pushed it through. They made this legislation happen, and they need to own the failure of it. Sarah Huckabee Sanders

I have probably purchased fifty 'hot tips' in my career, maybe even more. When I put them all together, I know I am a net loser. Charles Schwab

Don't come home a failure. Ty Cobb

It's a failure of imagination if you can only write what you know - we have to be able to imagine different worlds. Dee Rees

Failure doesn't kill you... it increases your desire to make something happen. Kevin Costner

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