When I have one martini, I feel bigger, wiser, taller. When I have a second, I feel superlative. When I have more, there's no holding me.
William FaulknerRead
All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the base of our splendid failure to do the impossible.
Interpretation
What this quote means
We often fall short of our ideal goals, but our efforts in striving for them are commendable.
This quote by William Faulkner suggests that while achieving perfection may be impossible, the attempt to reach our dreams and aspirations is valuable in itself. It encourages us to recognize that our 'splendid failures' in pursuing lofty ambitions are worthy of praise, as they reflect our commitment and courage to dream big and strive for greatness.
Themes
FailureSuccessDreamsPerfectionEffort
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used as a motivational statement during a team meeting to inspire team members who are facing setbacks.
More from William Faulkner
All quotes →I feel like a wet seed wild in the hot blind earth.
William FaulknerRead
When grown people speak of the innocence of children, they dont really know what they mean. Pressed, they will go a step further and say, Well, ignorance then. The child is neither. There is no crime which a boy of eleven had not envisaged long ago. His only innocence is, he may not be old enough to desire the fruits of it...his ignorance is, he does not know how to commit it...
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Maybe times are never strange to women: it is just one continuous monotonous thing full of the repeated follies of their menfolks.
William FaulknerRead
He had a word, too. Love, he called it. But I had been used to words for a long time. I knew that that word was like the others: just a shape to fill a lack; that when the right time came, you wouldn't need a word for that any more than for pride or fear....One day I was talking to Cora. She prayed for me because she believed I was blind to sin, wanting me to kneel and pray too, because people to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too.
William FaulknerRead
Ever since then I have believed that God is not only a gentleman and a sport; he is a Kentuckian too.
William FaulknerRead
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I never knew a man come to greatness or eminence who lay abed late in the morning.
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