Quotes on Failure

Beside every great success are the seeds of enormous failure. In every failure, there's the opportunity seeds of great success. They're not miles apart. So if they're that close together, and if you're really working, you're always gonna have that likelihood that something's not going to work.

When your failures surround you, and all the open doors have closed, look up. There’s a door that never closes, a way, when all the other ways have failed you.

The man who meets with a failure attributes this failure rather to the ill will of another than to fate.

One of the arguments I make for the failure of the euro is that, at the time it was being constructed, there was a 'neo-liberal' ideology which said that all we need to do to make this thing work is to get deficits low, keep inflation low, and take down barriers, and then everything would be fine.

An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field.

The failure of Lehman Brothers demonstrated that liquidity provision by the Federal Reserve would not be sufficient to stop the crisis; substantial fiscal resources were necessary.

In fiction workshops, we tend to focus on matters of verisimilitude largely because such issues are so much easier to talk about than the failure of imagination.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; . . . who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

One is always more vexed at losing a game of any sort by a single hole or ace, than if one has never had a chance of winning it.

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

One of the common failings among honorable people is a failure to appreciate how thoroughly dishonorable some other people can be, and how dangerous it is to trust them.

The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure.

When a marriage founders, this may well be cause for tremendous sadness, but it's not a failure of spirit or character. People change, their goals and dreams alter, their ideas of themselves grow, or they just meet someone they like better.

Be honest about how you approach failure. Don't just be critical of yourself, because that can be self-serving. Approach it honestly, assess your performance, and assess the areas where you have fallen short. Correct them and move on. Don't dwell on it. Don't hold on to it.

The depth of darkness to which you can descend and still live is an exact measure of the height to which you can aspire to reach.

Success is often achieved by those who don't know that failure is inevitable.

If Liberia has failed, then, it is no evidence of the failure of the Negro in government. It is merely evidence of the failure of slavery.

Don't settle for average. Bring your best to the moment. Then, whether it fails or succeeds, at least you know you gave all you had. We need to live the best that's in us.

Whoever admits that he is too busy to improve his methods, has acknowledged himself to be at the end of his rope. And that is always the saddest predicament which any one can get into.

The truth of the matter is that there's nothing you can't accomplish if: (1) You clearly decide what it is that you're absolutely committed to achieving, (2) You're willing to take massive action, (3) You notice what's working or not, and (4) You continue to change your approach until you achieve what you want, using whatever life gives you along the way.

PITY, n. A failing sense of exemption, inspired by contrast.