“Most people fail in life not because they aim too high and miss, but because they aim too low and hit.”
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Les Brown 24
American politician 1945Related quotes
“3769. One may as much miss the Mark, by aiming too high, as too low.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
Attributed without citation in Ken Robinson, The Element (2009), p. 260. Widely attributed to Michelangelo since the late 1990s, this adage has not been found before 1980 when it appeared without attribution in E. C. McKenzie, Mac's giant book of quips & quotes.
Disputed
Variant: The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.
“Do not aim low, you will miss the mark. Aim high and you will be on a threshold of bliss.”
Source: Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom, p. 177
The Inn Album, iv.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“I will commit not the terrible crime of aiming too low.”
Source: The Greatest Salesman in the World (1968), Ch. 15 : The Scroll Marked VIII, p. 91.
Context: I will commit not the terrible crime of aiming too low. I will do the work that a failure will not do. I will always let my reach exceed my grasp.
“Those who have achieved all their aims probably set them too low.”
Die 7 Geheimnisse der Dirigenten-Legende in Bild, 4. April 2008
