Motivational Quotes

Failure

I am often confronted by the necessity of standing by one of my empirical selves and relinquishing the rest. Not that I would not. If I could, be... a great athlete and make a million a year, be a wit, a born -- vivant and a lady killer,as well as a philosopher, a philanthropist ... and saint. But the thing is simply impossible. The millionaire's work would run counter to the saint s; the bon-vivant and the philanthropist would trip each other up; the philosopher and the lady killer could not well keep house in the same tenement of clay. Such different characters may conceivably, at the outset of life. Be alike possible for a man. But to make any one of them actual,the rest must more of less be suppressed. So the seeker of his truest, strongest, deepest self must review the list carefully and pick out on which to stake his salvation. All other selves thereupon become unreal, but the fortunes of this self are real. Its failure are real failures, its triumphs real triumphs carrying shame and gladness with them.

- James, William

Best Quotes about Failure

Don't be discouraged by a failure. It can be a positive experience. Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterwards carefully avoid.

John Keats

If thou art a man, admire those who attempt great things, even though they fail.

Seneca

From time to time, life as a leader can look hopeless. To help you, consider a man who lived through this: Failed in business at age 31. Defeated for the legislature at 32. Again failed in business at 34. Sweetheart died at 35. Had a nervous breakdown at 36. Defeated in election at 38. Defeated for Congress at 43. Defeated for Congress at 46. Defeated for Congress at 48. Defeated for Senate at 55. Defeated for Vice President at 56. Defeated for Senate at 58. Elected President at age 60. This man was Abraham Lincoln.

When you stand at the edge of the cliff, jump to fly, not to fall.

Men do not fail; they give up trying.

Root, Elihu

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

Hubbard, Elbert

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

Pitino, Rick

It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.

Gore Vidal

Some defeats are only installments to victory.

Riis, Jacob

10.

Failures to heroic minds are the stepping stones to success.

Haliburton, Thomas C.

11.

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.

Robertson, Frederick W.

12.

Every worthwhile accomplishment, big or little, has its stages of drudgery and triumph; a beginning, a struggle and a victory.

13.

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

Wooden, John

14.

The boy who is going to make a great man must not make up his mind merely to overcome a thousand obstacles, but to win in spite of a thousand repulses and defeats.

Roosevelt, Theodore

15.

I cannot give the formula for success, but I can give you the formula of failure -- which is try to please everybody.

Swope, Herbert B.

16.

If at first you don't succeed, find out if the loser gets anything.

Bill Lyon

17.

The man who tries to do something and fails is infinitely better than he who tries to do nothing and succeeds.

Jones, Lloyd

18.

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

Rohn, Jim

19.

The only people who never fail are those who never try.

Chase, Ilka

20.

We are all failures -- at least, all the best of us are.

Barrie, Sir James M.

21.

No matter how far you have gone on a wrong road, turn back.

Proverb, Turkish

22.

It is for want of application, rather than of means that people fail,

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

23.

People don't fail, they give up

24.

If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

25.

Everything ultimately fails, for we die, and that is either the penultimate failure or our most enigmatical achievement.

Dahlberg, Edward

26.

James, William

27.

If you are bitten by a snake, what's the best thing to do? Remain calm, separate the poison from the rest of your body, suck the poison out. Worst thing to do: get upset, chase and kill snake. Same when someone strikes out at you verbally. Remain calm, don't try to strike back at the other person. Don't let the poison spread throughout your system.

28.

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

Ziglar, Zig

29.

If you're willing to fail interestingly, you tend to succeed interestingly.

Edward Albee

30.

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.

Skinner, B(urrhus) F(rederic)

31.

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.

Sivananda, Sri Swami

32.

Every person who has become successful has simply formed the habit of doing things that failures dislike doing and will not do.

33.

I don't measure a man's success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom.

Patton, George S.

34.

Failure is not an option.

Movie, Apollo 13

35.

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

Bloch, Arthur

36.

Past failures are guideposts to success.

37.

The glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time you fall.

38.

Failure is nature's plan to prepare you for great responsibilities.

Hill, Napoleon

39.

We often say that the biggest job we have is to teach a newly hired employee to fail intelligently... to experiment over and over again and to keep on trying and failing until he learns what will work.

Kettering, Charles F.

40.

What is defeat? Nothing but education. Nothing but the first step to something better.

Phillips, Wendell

41.

An inventor fails 999 times, and if he succeeds once, he's in. He treats his failures simply as practice shots.

42.

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.

Marcus, Greil

43.

The most important of my discoveries has been suggested to me by my failures.

Davy, Sir Humphrey

44.

You don't drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there.

Cole, Edwin Louis

45.

To fail is a natural consequence of trying, To succeed takes time and prolonged effort in the face of unfriendly odds. To think it will be any other way, no matter what you do, is to invite yourself to be hurt and to limit your enthusiasm for trying again.

Viscott, David

46.

I would prefer even to fail with honor than win by cheating.

Sophocles

47.

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

Vauvenargues, Marquis De

48.

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.

Kettering, Charles F.

49.

You cannot explain failure any more than you can argue with success.

Clarke, J. Richard

50.

You will never stub your toe standing still. The faster you go, the more chance there is of stubbing your toe, but the more chance you have of getting somewhere.

Kettering, Charles F.