Quotes about failure (1462 quotes, page 15)

“I never planned ahead for anything in my life -- not for my exams, not when I had to buy clothes for an occasion -- I always do things at the last moment. So when I got the captaincy, I kept doing what I always did. I never thought about success, failure, future or past.”

Mashrafe Mortaza (1983) Bangladeshi international cricketer and politician

http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/26113613/espn-world-fame-100-2019#mashrafe-bin-mortaza

Clothes , Success , Past , Future

“There's no better guarantee of failure than convincing yourself that success is impossible...”

Max Tegmark book Our Mathematical Universe

Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality (2014)

Success

“Ours is a culture where we wear our ability to get by on very little sleep as a kind of badge of honor that symbolizes work ethic, or toughness, or some other virtue—but really, it’s a total profound failure of priorities and of self-respect.”

Timothy Ferriss book Tools of Titans

Self-confidence , Sleep

“Today, on this day that is so extraordinarily important for me, I want to say just a few more personal words than usual.
I want to ask for your forgiveness.
For the fact that many of the dreams we shared did not come true. And for the fact that what seemed simple to us turned out to be tormentingly difficult. I ask forgiveness for not justifying some hopes of those people who believed that at one stroke, in one spurt, we could leap from the gray, stagnant, totalitarian past into the light, rich, civilized future. I myself believed in this, that we could overcome everything in one spurt.
I turned out to be too naive in something. In some places, problems seemed to be too complicated. We forced our way forward through mistakes, through failures. Many people in this hard time experienced shock.”

Boris Yeltsin (1931–2007) 1st President of Russia and Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR

1990s, Farewell speech (1999)

Forgiveness , Time , Light , Past

“For more than three decades the Americans had been gradually sliding into isolationism and industrial decline. Space, he thought ruefully, they should have gone into space. He'd never understood the strange paralysis of will that had seemed to grip their brilliant early efforts. Or perhaps it was simply a failure of imagination, of vision.”

William Gibson Burning Chrome

"Red Star, Winter Orbit"
Burning Chrome (short story anthology, 1986)

Imagination , Effort

“If success is a catalyst for failure because it leads to the “undisciplined pursuit of more,” then one simple antidote is the disciplined pursuit of less. Not just haphazardly saying no, but purposefully, deliberately, and strategically eliminating the nonessentials.”

Greg McKeown (author) book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Popular Quotes, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, Journal Articles

Success

“One lesson of history is that every gain has its potential loss. The highest human achievements carry the danger of pride, and pride can lead blindly to disaster, just as failure can fortify the determination and so lead slowly towards triumph.”

Geoffrey Blainey (1930) Australian historian

The Great Seesaw: A New View of the Western World, 1750-2000 (1988)

Loss , History

“Show me a good and gracious loser, and I'll show you a failure.”

Knute Rockne (1888–1931) American college football player and college football coach (1888-1931)

Attribution to Rockne sometime in the 1920s mentioned in Safire's Political Dictionary (2008) by William Safire, p. 401, but there is no definite mention of this yet located prior to the 1980s; in The Yale Book of Quotations by Fred R. Shapiro, a similar remark is credited to Arnold "Red" Auerbach, based on a 1965 citation in the Mansfield News Journal [Ohio]: "Show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser."
Disputed

“I have no right to risk. No, that's not quite correct. I have no right to failure.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

And I don't trust myself anymore. I don't know what's happened to my edge. Lost it in a strange land.
Vorkosigan Saga, Barrayar (1991)

“If you wanna have that confident persona, the one that you guys taught me, you gotta forget the failure.”

Torrie Wilson (1975) American professional wrestler

WWE Hall of Fame induction (2019)

Self-confidence , Confidence , Forgetting , Guy

“There are two kinds of failures: those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought.”

Laurence J. Peter (1919–1990) Canadian eductor

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

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Success , Perseverance , People

“It is on our failures that we base a new and different and better success.”

H. Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) British physician, writer, and social reformer

Success

“The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism

Life

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

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

Success , Effort , Hope

“It’s always easy to blame others. You can spend your entire life blaming the world, but your successes or failures are entirely your own responsibility. You can try to stop time, but it’s a complete waste of energy.”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Aleph (2011)

World , Time , Success , Life

“Defeat means that we lose a particular battle or war. Failure does not allow us to go on fighting.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), The Defeated Ones

War , Fight

“The individual who takes advantage of the power he has to impose exclusively the interests to his advantage, is a failure absolutely devoid of courage and value.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) L'individuo che approfitta del potere che ha per imporre esclusivamente gli interessi a suo vantaggio, è un fallito assolutamente privo di coraggio e valore.
Source: prevale.net

Courage

“But failure is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign that you are alive and growing.”

Buzz Aldrin (1930) American astronaut

https://twitter.com/TheRealBuzz/status/1072303630835953664

“When there is no penalty for failure, failures proliferate.”

George Will (1941) American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author

“Opinion: Biden’s Afghanistan policy shows the world a wobbly, impulsive U.S.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/27/bidens-afghanistan-policy-shows-world-wobbly-impulsive-us/ The Washington Post, (Aug. 27, 2021)
2021s

Penalty

“If you can't detect failures, you are unable to recover from them. That's an obvious principle you need.”

Joe Armstrong (1950–2019) British computer scientist

Faults, Scaling and Erlang concurrency

“The only cure for failure is to plan all the way to the very end of the journey.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Way

“I can't speak for everybody, and I don't want to say it for an entire culture, but for me, coming from an immigrant family, it's very difficult to go find your voice, which requires a lot of failure.”

Lulu Wang (1983) Asian-American filmmaker

As quoted in "Lulu Wang’s The Farewell lays bare the textured lives of immigrant families" in Dazed (31 May 2019) https://www.dazeddigital.com/film-tv/article/44666/1/lulu-wang-the-farewell-interview-awkwafina

Family

“NATO's failure to seriously examine its own role in what it euphemistically calls "uncertain times" should be more alarming to Americans and Europeans than its one-sided criticisms of Russia and China, whose contributions to the uncertainty of our times pale by comparison.”

Medea Benjamin (1952) American political activist and author

Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, What Planet Is NATO Living On? It's No Longer Useful to This One Salon https://www.salon.com/2021/02/25/what-planet-is-nato-living-on-because-its-no-longer-useful-on-this-one/, (24 February 2021)

Time

“There are only two forces in the world that simplify organizations: one is failure, the other is leadership.”

Greg McKeown (author) book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Popular Quotes, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, Twitter

World

“Most of us are good "starters" but poor "finishers" of everything we begin. Moreover, people are prone to give up at the first signs of defeat. There is no substitute for persistence. Failure cannot cope with Persistance.”

Napoleon Hill book Think and Grow Rich

Think and Grow Rich (1938) p. 86

People

“Most of us go through life as failures, because we are waiting for the "time to be right" to start doing something worthwhile. The time will never be "just right."”

Napoleon Hill book Think and Grow Rich

Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.
Think and Grow Rich (1938)

Time , Waiting , Life

“Procrastination is one of the most common causes of failure.... Procrastination stands within the shadow of every human being, waiting his opportunity to spoil one's chances of success.”

Napoleon Hill book Think and Grow Rich

Think and Grow Rich (1938)

Chance , Waiting , Success

“Jihad is the signature tune of Islamic history. If today’s Muslim rulers are reluctant to sound that note, it is often because they are concerned about the consequences of failure.”

M.J. Akbar (1951) journalist, author

Source: Akbar, M. J - The shade of swords_ Jihad and the conflict between Islam and christianity-Routledge (2008)

History

“With carefully nourished resentment, a man can go through his life blaming someone or something else for his failures. This enables him to be a failure and to feel morally superior to the world at the same time.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

Source: "Private Clubs and the Sour Pleasures of Resentment" https://www.theepochtimes.com/private-clubs-and-the-sour-pleasures-of-resentment_3956322.html, The Epoch Times (August 19, 2021).

World , Time , Life , Feeling

“Even before I became a certified tree doctor, I had transplanted more than 100 giant trees, mostly between 500 and 1,000 years old, and I can say that I never had one failure.”

Konami Tsukamoto (1949) Japanese tree doctor

Source: Nippon.com Profile/Article by Julian Ryall - Woman Arborist Heals Trees, Parks, Souls https://www.nippon.com/en/people/e00096/ - 9 May 2016 - Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20211107072427/https://www.nippon.com/en/people/e00096/

Tree

“Surely the human race is at last reaching the stage of adulthood — that adulthood of character which does not depend upon physical age at all — so that it is deliberately embracing responsibility for its own development and government, and trying to face up to the causes of its failures?”

Vera Stanley Alder (1898–1984) British artist

Source: Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950), Introduction p. I - XII

Dependency , Adulthood , Age

“An accurate history should not only record the periods of glory but the moments of degeneration, of the missed opportunities, and of the failure to forge national unity at crucial junctures in time. It should draw lessons for the future generations from costly errors in the past.”

Subramanian Swamy (1939) Indian politician

2015-Present
Source: Foreword by Subramanian Swamy in Atri, N., & Sagar, M. A. (2017). Brainwashed republic.

Drawing , History , Time , Past

“Security is like Tetris: You're successes disappear but your failures pile up.”

Mikko Hyppönen (1969) Finnish computer security expert

Source: Keynote address, https://www.youtube.com/c/cebitau/videos CeBIT Australia, October 2019

Success

“If you're going to create, create a lot. Creativity is not like playing the slot machines, where failure to win means you go home broke. With creativity, if you don't win, you're usually no worse off than if you hadn't played.”

Scott Adams book The Joy of Work

Source: Books, The Joy of Work (1998)

Home

“Nigeria needs to be rescued urgently. What we see in our country is massive failure of our leaders.”

Oby Ezekwesili (1963) Nigerian accountant, politician, human rights activist, convener of bring back our girls (Chibok girls) and pres…

Source: https://independent.ng/2019debate-30-powerful-quotes-from-oby-ezekwesili-reactions-to-questions/ Oby Ezekwesili's reaction to 2019 Debate.

Country

“I often think my life has been a failure. But whenever I drop into a theater and hear women laugh at one of my films, I think, well, if I brightened their day before they went home and did the dishes, maybe my life wasn't wasted, after all.”

Cary Grant (1904–1986) British-American film and stage actor

Source: As quoted in "They Changed Their Careers and Became Famous; Cary a Failure?" https://www.newspapers.com/clip/87358421/the-boston-globe/ by Jack Harrison Pollack, Parade (November 16, 1969), p. 7; and The Filmgoer's Book of Quotes (1978) by Leslie Halliwell, p.229

Home , Thinking , Life , Women

“Failure is only the opportunity more intelligently to begin again. There is no disgrace in honest failure; there is disgrace in fearing to fail.”

Henry Ford book My Life and Work

Source: 1920s, My Life and Work (1922), pp. 19–20. Quoted in Samuel Crowther, "Henry Ford's Problem," The Magazine of Business, vol. 52 (1927), p. 182

Fear , Intelligence

“With all its horrors and all its failures, life was bearable where there were hot showers.”

Larry Niven (1938) American writer

Source: A Gift From Earth (1968), Chapter 3, "The Car" (p. 53)

Life

“Failure is a frequent stop on the road to success.”

Jay Samit (1961) American businessman

Future Proofing You (2021)

Success

“Fear kills more dreams than failure ever will.”

Jay Samit (1961) American businessman

Future Proofing You (2021)

Fear , Dreams

“Conquerors live by conquest; the first failure is a signal for the conquered to rise against them.”

Jack Williamson book Star Bridge

Source: Star Bridge (1955), Chapter 6, “Flight” (p. 78)

“The real lessons of life are learned by recognizing and coming to terms with being human. It is how we stand up to failure and duress which really marks our progress in life. Sometimes one of the most important lessons is to learn to just let go of the past.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

Learning , Past , Life

“If Great Britain lost her Empire and India and her share in world trade and her sea power, she would be like a vast whale stranded in one your Scottish bays, which swam in upon the tide and then was left to choke and rot upon the sands. We should be like a great shop emporium in a district from which prosperity has for ever departed. We least of all peoples and races can afford to fail. Failure to us does not mean merely that we shall not improve. It means that we shall be ruined and frozen out.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Source: Rectorial address ("The present decline of Parliamentary government in Great Britain") to Edinburgh University (5 March 1931), quoted in The Times (6 March 1931), p. 19

Sea , People , World

“Stick to it, boy,
Through the thick and the thin of it!
Work for the joy
That is born of the din of it.
Failures beset you,
But don't let them fret you;
Dangers are lurking,
But just keep on working.
If it's worthwhile and you're sure of the right of it,
Stick to it, boy, and make a real fight of it!”

Edgar Guest (1881–1959) American writer

Stick to It, first stanza.
Source: The Passing Throng (1923)

Boy , Joy , Fight

“No use weepin' when the milk is spilled,
No use growlin' when your hopes are killed,
No use kickin' when the lightnin' strikes
Or the floods come along an' wreck your dykes;
Only thing for a man right then
Is to grit his teeth an' start again.For it's how life is an' the way things are
That you've got to face if you travel far;
An' the storms will come an' the failures, too,
An' plans go wrong spite of all you do;
An' the only thing that will help you win,
Is the grit of a man and a stern set chin.”

Edgar Guest (1881–1959) American writer

Source: When Day is Done (1921), No Use Sighin' , stanzas 3 and 4.

Life , Help , Hope , Way

“Only failure is immoral.”

George Lincoln Rockwell (1918–1967) American politician, founder of the American Nazi Party

undated

“When you embark on success ensure you aren't embarking on failure.”

- Goa

Success

“In the spiritual path there are constant failures and set-backs. Repeated endeavour, constant vigilance and undaunted perseverance are needed.”

Swami Sivananda (1887–1963) Indian philosopher

Sayings of Swami Sivanada (1947)

Perseverance

“My failure is a window for your success.”

Ron English (1959) American artist

Ron English's Fauxlosophy: Volume 2 (2022)

Success

“We are bound to encounter many failures, difficulties, pains, trials, temptations and disappointments. Whatever it is, we are called to be courageous, striving continuously because Jesus is with us always. He will never abandon us.”

John Wong Soo Kau (1968) Malaysian Archbishop

Archbishop John: True Happiness Is in Serving and Giving, Not Wealth https://www.borneotoday.net/archbishop-john-true-happiness-is-in-serving-and-giving-not-wealth/ (2018)

Courage , Pain , Disappointment

“The archival record backs up the testimony of the survivors. Neither crop failure nor bad weather caused the famine in Ukraine.”

Anne Applebaum (1964) journalist

Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine (2017) quoted at "Ukraine in the Flames of the 1917 Revolution" (Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, September 13, 2017) https://huri.harvard.edu/news/ukraine-flames-1917-revolution

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