Nothing fails like success because we don't learn from it. We learn only from failure.
Interpretation
Success can lead us to complacency, preventing further growth, while failure teaches us valuable lessons.
This quote by Kenneth E. Boulding suggests that achievement may create a false sense of confidence that hinders further learning and development. In contrast, it is through failure that we truly gain insights and understanding, allowing us to improve and advance in our endeavors. Success can make us less reflective, while failures encourage contemplation and adaptation.
In practice
In a motivational speech about resilience, one could say this quote to emphasize the importance of learning from setbacks.
As long as man was small in numbers and limited in technology, he could realistically regard the earth as an infinite reservoir, an infinite source of inputs and an infinite cesspool for outputs. Today we can no longer make this assumption. Earth has become a space ship, not only in our imagination but also in the hard realities of the social, biological, and physical system in which man is enmeshed.
Economics has been incurably growth-oriented and addicted to everybody growing richer, even at the cost of exhaustion of resources and pollution of the environment.
Mathematics brought rigor to Economics. Unfortunately, it also brought mortis.
Are we to regard the world of nature simply as a storehouse to be robbed for the immediate benefit of man? ... Does man have any responsibility for the preservation of a decent balance in nature, for the preservation of rare species, or even for the indefinite continuance of his race?
And may at last my weary age Find out the peaceful hermitage, The hairy gown and mossy cell, Where I may sit and rightly spell Of every star that heaven doth shew, And every herb that sips the dew, Till old experience to attain To something like prophetic strain.
You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don't do too many things wrong.
We should not bear it with bad grace if the answer to our prayer is long delayed. Rather, let us, because of this, show great patience and resignation. For He delays for this reason: that we may offer Him a fitting occasion of honoring us through His divine providence.
Time and experience have taught me that fame and money very rarely go to the worthy, by the way - hence we shouldn't ever be too impressed by either of those impostors. Value folk for who they are, how they live and what they give - that's a much better benchmark.
Intelligent or not, we all make mistakes and perhaps the intelligent mistakes are the worst, because so much careful thought has gone into them.
Dreams are often most profound when they seem the most crazy.
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