Failure quotes
931 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside failure — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"People in their handlings of affairs often fail when they are about to succeed. If one remains as careful at the end as he was at the beginning, there will be no failure."
"Most of my conscious efforts have ended in embarrassing failure."
"Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect - simply a confession of failures."
"Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion."
"We have more ability than will power, and it is often an excuse to ourselves that we imagine that things are impossible."
"In a world flagrant with the failures of civilization, what is there particularly immortal about our own?"
"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."
"Stem cells are probably going to be extremely useful. But it isn't a given, and even if it were, I don't think the end justifies the means. I am not against stem cells, I think it's great. Blanket objection is not very reasonable to me-any effort to control scientific advances is doomed to fail. You cannot stop the human mind from working."
"Gaily bedight, A gallant knight, In sunshine and in shadow, Had journeyed long, Singing a song, In search of Eldorado. But he grew old— This knight so bold— And o’er his heart a shadow— Fell as he found No spot of ground That looked like Eldorado. And, as his strength Failed him at length, He met a pilgrim shadow— ‘Shadow,’ said he, ‘Where can it be— This land of Eldorado?’ ‘Over the Mountains Of the Moon, Down the Valley of the Shadow, Ride, boldly ride,’ The shade replied,— ‘If you seek for Eldorado!"
"Don't make excuses, make good."
"The disappointment of manhood succeeds the delusion of youth."
"The reward of suffering is experience"
"I do believe, as my father once said, that "No matter how hard the loss, defeat might serve as well as victory to shake the soul and let the glory out.""
"There are two kinds of people in the world: those who make excuses and those who get results. An excuse person will find any excuse for why a job was not done, and a results person will find any reason why it can be done. Be a creator, not a reactor."
"Never consider the possibility of failure; as long as you persist, you will be successful."
"We climb to heaven most often on the ruins of our cherished plans, finding our failures were successes."
"If you cry ''Forward'' you must be sure to make clear the direction in which to go. Don't you see that if you fail to do that and simply call out the word to a monk and a revolutionary, they will go in precisely opposite directions?"
"Every calamity is a spur and a valuable hint."
"Wherever there is failure, there is some giddiness, some superstition about luck, some step omitted, which, Nature never pardons."
"They say President Wilson has blundered. Perhaps he has, but I notice he usually blunders forward."
