Quotes about failure

Those who have failed miserably are often the first to see God's formula for success.

— Erwin W. Lutzer

You can't be a winner and be afraid to lose.

— Charles Lynch

Many a man never fails because he never tries.

— Norman Macewan

Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.

— Og Mandino

When we can begin to take our failures seriously, it means we are ceasing to be afraid of them. It is of immense importance to learn to laugh at ourselves.

— Katherine Mansfield

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.

— Greil Marcus

Many a man has finally succeeded only because he has failed after repeated efforts. If he had never met defeat he would never have known any great victory.

— Orison Swett Marden

There is no failure for the man who realizes his power, who never knows when he is beaten; there is no failure for the determined endeavor; the unconquerable will. There is no failure for the man who gets up every time he falls, who rebounds like a rubber ball, who persists when everyone else gives up, who pushes on when everyone else turns back.

— Orison Swett Marden

You cannot measure a man by his failures. You must know what use he makes of them. What did they mean to him. What did he get out of them.

— Orison Swett Marden

Remember your past mistakes just long enough to profit by them.

— Dan Mckinnon

He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great.

— Herman Melville

We stumble and fall constantly even when we are most enlightened. But when we are in true spiritual darkness, we do not even know that we have fallen.

— Thomas Merton

He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid.

— Arthur Miller

The world itself is pregnant with failure, is the perfect manifestation of imperfection, of the consciousness of failure.

— Henry Miller

All honor to him who shall win the prize. The world has cried for a thousand years. But to him who tries and fails and dies, I give great honor and glory and tears.

— Joaquin Miller

Failure is not an option.

— Apollo 13 Movie

Losing is a part of winning.

— Dick Munro

Failure comes only when we forget our ideals and objectives and principles.

— Jawaharlal Nehru

Everyone should fail in a big way at least once before reaching forty.

— Al Neuharth

Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.

— Richard M. Nixon

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

— George S. Patton

Failures are like skinned knees, painful but superficial.

— H. Ross Perot

The wise man realistically accepts as part of life and builds a philosophy to meet them and make the most of them. He lives on the principle of nothing attempted, nothing gained and is resolved that if he fails he is going to fail while trying to succeed.

— Wilferd A. Peterson

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

— Wendell Phillips

The world is divided into two categories: failures and unknowns.

— Francis Picabia

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

— Rick Pitino

To make no mistakes is not in the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes the wise and good learn wisdom for the future.

— Plutarch

If one does not fail at times, then one has not challenged himself.

— Dr. Porsche

When someone is going downhill everyone likes to give them a kick.

— Proverb

Do not look where you fell, but where you slipped.

— African Proverb

Everyone pushes a falling fence.

— Chinese Proverb

The great question is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with failure.

— Chinese Proverb

Who has never tasted what is bitter does not know what is sweet.

— German Proverb

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

— Turkish Proverb

If you're not big enough to lose, you're not big enough to win

— Walter Reuther

Failure is not fatal; victory is not success.

— Tony Richardson

Some defeats are only installments to victory.

— Jacob Riis

There is no such thing as failure. There are only results.

— Anthony Robbins

If we don't see a failure as a challenge to modify our approach, but rather as a problem with ourselves, as a personality defect, we will immediately feel overwhelmed.

— Anthony Robbins

I've come to believe that all my past failure and frustration were actually laying the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living I now enjoy.

— Anthony Robbins

Most people fail in life because they major in minor things.

— Anthony Robbins

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.

— Frederick W. Robertson

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

— Knute Rockne

Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don't fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.

— Jim Rohn

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

— Jim Rohn

You always pass failure on the way to success.

— Mickey Rooney

All human beings have failings, all human beings have needs and temptations and stresses. Men and women who live together through long years get to know one another's failings; but they also come to know what is worthy of respect and admiration in those they live with and in themselves. If at the end one can say, This man used to the limit the powers that God granted him; he was worthy of love and respect and of the sacrifices of many people, made in order that he might achieve what he deemed to be his task, then that life has been lived well and there are no regrets.

— Eleanor Roosevelt

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

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

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.

— Theodore Roosevelt

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. In this life we get nothing save by effort.

— Theodore Roosevelt

Men do not fail; they give up trying.

— Elihu Root

Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.

— Babe Ruth

Failures are divided into two classes -- those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought.

— John Charles Salak

If there exists no possibility of failure, then victory is meaningless.

— Robert H. Schuller

Failure doesn't mean you are a failure... it just means you haven't succeeded yet.

— Robert H. Schuller

Turn your scars into stars

— Robert H. Schuller

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

— Seneca

The surest way to fail is not to determine to succeed.

— Richard Brinsley Sheridan

There is something good in all seeming failures. You are not to see that now. Time will reveal it. Be patient.

— Sri Swami Sivananda

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.

— Sri Swami Sivananda

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.

— B(urrhus) F(rederic) Skinner

We learn from failure much more than from success; we often discover what we will do by finding our what we will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.

— Samuel Smiles

It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they much oftener succeed through failures. Precept, study, advice, and example could never have taught them so well as failure has done.

— Samuel Smiles

Defeat should never be a source of discouragement, but rather a fresh stimulus.

— Bishop Robert South

It is inevitable that some defeat will enter even the most victorious life. The human spirit is never finished when it is defeated... it is finished when it surrenders.

— Ben Stein

If you have tried to do something and failed, you are vastly better off than if you had tried to do nothing and succeeded. You must never regret what might have been. The past that did not happen is as hidden from us as the future we cannot see.

— Richard Martin Stern

Our business in this world is not to succeed, but to continue to fail, in good spirits.

— Robert Louis Stevenson

Why is it so painful to watch a person sink? Because there is something unnatural in it, for nature demands personal progress, evolution, and every backward step means wasted energy.

— J. August Strindberg

The only time you don't fail is the last time you try anything -- and it works.

— William Strong

Not many people are willing to give failure a second opportunity. They fail once and it's all over. The bitter pill of failure is often more than most people can handle. If you're willing to accept failure and learn from it, if you're willing to consider failure as a blessing in disguise and bounce back, you've got the potential of harnessing one of the most powerful success forces.

— Joseph Sugarman

The man who fails because he aims astray or because he does not aim at all is to be found everywhere.

— Frank Swinnerton

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

— Herbert B. Swope

Men are born to succeed, not to fail.

— Henry David Thoreau

It doesn't matter where you are coming from. All that matters is where you are going.

— Brian Tracy

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

— Source Unknown

There is no such thing as accidental failure. All failure is at least half imposed.

— Source Unknown

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

— Source Unknown

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

— Source Unknown

Failure is not the worst thing in the world -- the very worst is not to try

— Source Unknown

Failure is the path of least persistence

— Source Unknown

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.

— Source Unknown

Even a tombstone says good things about a fellow who's down.

— Source Unknown

A hard fall means a high bounce... if you're made of the right material.

— Source Unknown

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

— Source Unknown

Success is the proper utilization of failure.

— Source Unknown

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.

— Source Unknown

If you've never failed you've never tried.

— Source Unknown

Just because you've lost doesn't necessarily mean you've failed.

— Source Unknown

Past failures are guideposts to success.

— Source Unknown

People don't fail, they give up

— Source Unknown

Silicon Valley is a graveyard. Failure is Silicon Valley's greatest strength.

— Source Unknown

Remember that your failures are the seeds of your most glorious successes. Be sad if you must, but don't despair.

— Source Unknown

You're on the road to success when you realize that failure is only a detour.

— Source Unknown

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

— Source Unknown

You can always tell who the pioneers are because they have arrows in their back and are lying face down in the dirt.

— Source Unknown

You can fail so very often. But you are not a failure until you give up.

— Source Unknown

When you fall, don't get up empty handed

— Source Unknown

Your failures won't hurt you until you start blaming them on others.

— Source Unknown

To reprove small faults within due vehemence, is as absurd as if a man should take a great hammer to kill a fly on his friend's forehead.

— Source Unknown

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

— Marquis De Vauvenargues