“Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure.”

Recreation (1919)

Book VII, 7.68-[3]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book VII

Engaged Buddhism, Social Change and World Peace (2014)

British Telecom advertisement (1993), part of which was used in Pink Floyd's Keep Talking (1994) and Talkin' Hawkin'<nowiki/> (2014)
Context: For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen. Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible. Mankind's greatest achievements have come about by talking, and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn't have to be like this. Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future. With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.

As quoted in Days with Bernard Shaw (1949) by Stephen Winsten
1940s and later

Nobel lecture (1973)

"On Medical Education" (1870) http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE3/MedEd.html
1870s
Context: I can assure you that there is the greatest practical benefit in making a few failures early in life. You learn that which is of inestimable importance — that there are a great many people in the world who are just as clever as you are. You learn to put your trust, by and by, in an economy and frugality of the exercise of your powers, both moral and intellectual; and you very soon find out, if you have not found it out before, that patience and tenacity of purpose are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness.

Chapter 3, John Jerome, His Thoughts and Ways (1886)