Failure Quotes

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Confucius:
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

Norman Vincent Peale:
Never talk defeat. Use words like hope, belief, faith, victory.

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

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

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

Napoleon Hill:
Failure is nature’s plan to prepare you for great responsibilities.

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

Napoleon Hill:
Persistence is to the character of man as carbon is to steel.

Napoleon Hill:
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:
When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal.

Napoleon Hill:
Opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.

Charley “Tremendous” Jones:
Everyone has a success mechanism and a failure mechanism. The failure mechanism goes off by itself. The success mechanism only goes off with a goal. Every time we write down and talk about a goal we push the button to start the success mechanism.

Robert Schuler:
Failure doesn’t mean that you’re a failure – it just means that you haven’t succeeded yet.

Brian Tracy:
Failure is a prerequisite for great success. If you want to succeed faster, double your rate of failure.

Brian Tracy:
Remember, you only have to succeed the last time.

Brian Tracy:
Most people achieved their greatest success one step beyond what looked like their greatest failure.

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

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

Brian Tracy:
It is not failure itself that holds you back; it is the fear of failure that paralyzes you.

Zig Ziglar:
Failure is an event, never a person; an attitude, not an outcome.

Zig Ziglar:
Success doesn’t make you and failure doesn’t break you.

Louis E. Boone:
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.

Robert C. Gallagher:
Even if you fall on your face, you’re still moving forward.

Samuel Beckett:
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

Robert Silliman Hillyer:
Perfectionism is a dangerous state of mind in an imperfect world. The best way is to forget doubts and set about the task at hand. If you are doing your best, you will not have time to worry about failure.

Michael Eisner:
Recovering from failure is often easier than building from success.

Roger Von Oech:
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.

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

Thomas Edison:
Many of life’s failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

Johnetta Cole:
Show me someone content with mediocrity and I’ll show you someone destined for failure.

Dowden:
Sometimes a noble failure serves the world as faithfully as a distinguished success.

Quentin Crisp:

If at first you don’t succeed, failure may be your style.

Henry David Thoreau:
If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.

Mary Pickford:
If you have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another chance for you. What we call failure is not the falling down but the staying down.

Derek Bok:
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.

Vince Lombardi:
In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.

Vincent Lombardi:
Once you agree upon the price you and your family must pay for success, it enables you to ignore the minor hurts the opponent’s pressure, and the temporary failures.

Vince Lombardi:
The real glory is being knocked to your knees and then coming back. That’s real glory. That’s the essence of it.

Anthony J. D’Angelo:
In order to succeed you must fail, so that you know what not to do the next time.

Anonymous:
In order to succeed, you must first be willing to fail.

Tony Robbins:
I’ve come to believe that all my past failures and frustrations were actually laying the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living I now enjoy.

Ella Fitzgerald:
Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.

Stephen Covey:
Many people seem to think that success in one area can compensate for failure in other areas. But can it really? True effectiveness requires balance.

Struther Burt:
Men are failures, not because they are stupid, but because they are not sufficiently impassioned.

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

Abraham Lincoln:
Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.

Abraham Lincoln:
The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.

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

Bob Dylan:
A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.

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

Robert Browning:
A minute’s success pays the failure for years.

Kahlil Gibran:
A shy failure is nobler than an immodest success.

English proverb:
A stumble may prevent a fall.

Helen Keller:
All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.

Charles Franklin Kettering:
An inventor fails 999 times, and if he succeeds once, he’s in. He treats his failures simply as practice shots.

Charles Franklin Kettering:
Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.

Charles Franklin Kettering:
One fails forward toward success.

Darrell Royal:
As long as a person doesn’t admit he is defeated, he is not defeated – he’s just a little behind and isn’t through fighting.

George Horace Lorimer:
Because a fellow has failed once or twice, or a dozen times, you don’t want to set him down as a failure till he’s dead or loses his courage – and that’s the same thing.

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

John Charles Salak:
Failures are divided into two classes – those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought.

H. Ross Perot:
Failures are like skinned knees, painful but superficial.

Japanese Proverb:
Fall seven times, stand up eight.

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

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

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

Denis Waitley:
When you make a mistake or get ridiculed or rejected, look at mistakes as learning experiences, and ridicule as ignorance. Look at rejection as part of one performance, not as a turn down of the performer.

William Durant, founder of General Motors:
Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget about everything except what you’re going to do now – and do it.

Duke Ellington:
Gray skies are just clouds passing over.

B. C. Forbes:
History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats.

Thomas Watson:
The way to succeed is to double your failure rate.

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

Frank McKinney:
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.

Author unknown:
There is no failure. Only feedback.

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

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

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

George Elliot:
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 Gordon, Lord Byron:
They never fail who die in a great cause.

Doug Larson:
To err is human; to admit it, superhuman.

Edward Simmons:
The difference between failure and success is doing a thing nearly right and doing it exactly right.

B. R. Hayden:
The first proof of a person’s incapacity to achieve is their endeavoring to fix the stigma of failure on others.

Franklin Field:
The great dividing line between success and failure can be expressed in five words: “I did not have time”.

Robert Green Ingersoll:
The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.

Anonymous:
The harder you fall, the higher you bounce.

William Faulkner:
The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.

Franklin D. Roosevelt:
It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.

Theodore Roosevelt:
The only man who never makes mistakes is the man who never does anything.

Anthony J. D’Angelo:
The only real failure in life is one not learned from.

Charles Austin Beard.:
When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.

Elbert Green Hubbard:
When on the brink of complete discouragement, success is discerning that the line between failure and success is so fine that often a single extra effort is all that is needed to bring victory out of defeat.

Alexander Graham Bell:
When one door closes another door opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.

Orson Welles:
When you are down and out something always turns up – and it’s usually the noses of your friends.

Les Brown:
When you are down on your back, if you can look up, you can get up.

Ward Cleaver:
When you make a mistake, admit it. If you don’t, you only make matters worse.

P. J. O’Rourke:
Never fight an inanimate object.

Richard H. Nelson:
Never let yesterday use up today.

Unknown Author:
Never make the same mistake twice or you’ll never get around to all of them.

Longinus:
In some attempts, it is glorious even to fail.

Nikki Giovanni:
It is the response to error that counts.

Anonymous:
It is wise to keep in mind that no success or failure is necessarily final.

Robert H. Schuller:
It takes but one positive thought when given a chance to survive and thrive to overpower an entire army of negative thoughts.

David Feherty:
It’s how you deal with failure that determines how you achieve success

Portuguese Proverb:
Stumbling is not falling.

George S. Patton:
Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.

George S. Patton:
You’re never beaten until you admit it.

Douglas Macarthur:
It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.

Dwight Eisenhower:
No one can defeat us unless we first defeat ourselves.

Mike Ditka:
Success is never permanent, and failure is never final.

Dell Crossword:
Success is not permanent. The same is also true of failure.

T. S. Eliot:
Success is relative. It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things.

Conrad Hilton:
Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.

Dr. Marcus Bach:
Success, or failure, very often arrives on wings that seem mysterious to us.

John Keats:
Failure is in a sense the highway to success, as each discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true.

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

John C. Maxwell:
Failure is not fatal. Only failure to get back up is.

Malcom S. Forbes:
Failure is success if we learn from it.

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

Lao Tzu:
Failure is the foundation of success, and the means by which it is achieved.

Henry Ford:
Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.

Sir James Matthew Barrie:
Failure is the path of least resistance.

Roger Crawford:
Being challenged in life is inevitable, being defeated is optional.

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

James A. Michener:
Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.

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

Josephus Daniels:
Defeat never comes to any man until he admits it.

Robert Galvin:
Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out.

John Wooden:
Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.

H. Stanley Judd:
Don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t waste energy trying to cover up failure. Learn from your failures and go on to the next challenge. It’s OK to fail. If you’re not failing, you’re not growing.

Sir Lewis Morris:
How far high failure overleaps the bounds of low success.

Thomas A. Edison:
I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.

Bill Cosby:
I don’t know the key to success but the key to failure is to try to please everyone.

Reggie Jackson:
I feel that the most important requirement in success is learning to overcome failure. You must learn to tolerate it, but never accept it.

Katherine Mansfield:
I have made it a rule of my life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy – you can’t build on it; it’s only good for wallowing in.

Michael Jordan:
If it turns out that my best wasn’t good enough, at least I won’t look back and say that I was afraid to try; failure makes me work even harder.

Michael Jordan:
I have missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot and missed. And I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I have also succeeded.

Lou Holtz:
I think everyone should experience defeat at least once during their career. You learn a lot from it.

George Burns:
I’d rather be a failure in something that I love than a success in something that I hate.

H. Duane Black:
If at first you don’t succeed, think how many people you’ve made happy.

John Maxwell:
To move forward today, you must learn to say good-bye to yesterday’s hurts, tragedies and baggage.

Samuel McChord Crothers:
Try as hard as we may for perfection, the net result of our labors is an amazing variety of imperfectness. We are surprised at our own versatility in being able to fail in so many different ways.

Henry Van Dyke:
Use what talent you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best.

F. Scott Fitzgerald:
Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over.

J. M. Barrie:
We are all failures – at least, all the best of us are.

John Burdone Sanderson Haldane:
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.

James E. Burke:
We don’t grow unless we take risks. Any successful company is riddled with failures.

Henry David Thoreau:
We were born to succeed, not to fail.

Benjamin Disraeli:
What we anticipate seldom occurs, what we least expected generally happens.

Anonymous:
The only real failure in life is the failure to try.

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

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

Thomas Paine:
The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.

Edwin Percy Welles:
The saddest failures in life are those that come from not putting forth the power and will to succeed.

Benjamin Disraeli:
The secret of success is constancy to purpose.

Edgar A. Guest:
The timid and fearful first failures dismay

But the stout heart stays trying by night and by day

He values his failures as lessons that teach

The one way to get to the goal he would reach.

Anonymous:
The two hardest things to handle in life are failure and success.

James Dale Davidson:
When you subsidize poverty and failure, you get more of both.

Red Sanders:
Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.

Mickey Rooney:
You always pass failure on the way to success.

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

Robert Kennedy:
Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.

Napoleon:
You become strong by defying defeat and by turning loss into gain and failure to success.

Beverly Sills:
You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.

Mary Pickford:
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.

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