For narcissists, setbacks are not opportunities to learn; they’re problems caused by somebody else who got in their way or sabotaged their plans.
Jeffrey Kluger (b. 1954) American journalist, author
The Narcissist Next Door, ch. 1 (2014)
(Source)
Quotations about:
failure
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.
Donn Pearce (1928-2017) American novelist, screenwriter
Cool Hand Luke (1967) [with Frank Pierson]
(Source)
The line actually occurs twice in the movie. It's initially voiced by the Captain, the warden of the prison where Luke is sent to. While the line shows up in the final revision of the script (sc. 313) as above, Strother Martin actually speaks it in the movie without the indefinite article "a" before "failure":
What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.
The second time the line shows up -- spoken by Luke, at the end of the movie, mocking the Captain -- it is both scripted (sc. 432) and filmed with the article intact.
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British statesman and author
(Spurious)
(Source)
Variant: "Success is never final and failure never fatal. It’s courage that counts."
Not found in Churchill's canon. There are precursors to elements of this quotation, but the earliest version substantially like it is found in a 1938 Budweiser beer print advertisement:
Men with the spirit of youth pioneered our America ... men with vision and sturdy confidence. They found contentment in the thrill of action, knowing that success was never final and failure never fatal. It was courage that counted. Isn’t opportunity in America today greater than it was in the days of our grateful forefathers?
More discussion about this quotation:
Also attributed to Abraham Lincoln and John Wooden. Preacher Robert Schuller used Success is Never Ending, Failure is Never Final as the title of a 1990 book.
There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart’s desire. The other is to get it.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Man and Superman, Act 4 [Mendoza] (1903)
(Source)
See Wilde, eleven years earlier. More discussion quote: There Are Only Two Tragedies. One Is Not Getting What One Wants, and the Other Is Getting It – Quote Investigator.
In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Irish poet, wit, dramatist
Lady Windermere’s Fan, Act 3 [Dumby] (1892)
(Source)
More discussion of this quote: There Are Only Two Tragedies. One Is Not Getting What One Wants, and the Other Is Getting It – Quote Investigator.
Nice guys finish last.
Leo Durocher (1905-1991) American professional baseball player, manager, coach ["Leo the Lip"]
(Paraphrase)
The full quote was reported by in the column by Frank Graham, "Leo Doesn't Like Nice Guys," New York Journal-American (6 Jul 1946). When, as Brooklyn Dodgers manager, asked by a reporter if he were a nice guy:
Nice guys! Look over there. Do you know a nicer guy than Mel Ott? Or any of the other Giants? Why they’re the nicest guys in the world! And where are they? In seventh place! The nice guys over there are in seventh place. Well let them come and get me. The nice guys are all over there. In seventh place.
As the anecdote was retold (even when Graham's column was reprinted in Baseball Digest in the fall of that year), the references to "seventh place" began morphing into "last place" and "in the second division," eventually settling on the shorter version cited above. While Durocher originally denied he'd said the shorter version, he eventually lay claim to it, and used it as the title of his 1975 autobiography.
More discussion of this quotation:
Life is like fording a river, stepping from one slippery stone to another, and you must rejoice every time you don’t lose your balance, and learn to laugh at all the times you do.
Merle Shain (1935-1989) Canadian journalist and author
(Attributed)
The conflict between what one is and who one is expected to be touches all of us. And sometimes, rather than reach for what one could be, we choose the comfort of the failed role, preferring to be the victim of circumstance, the person who didn’t have a chance.
Merle Shain (1935-1989) Canadian journalist and author
(Attributed)
The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1963) German poet
“The Beholder [Der Schauende]”, The Book of Images [Buch der Bilder], Second Book, Part 2 (1902) (paraphrase)
This looks to be a paraphrase from a couplet in the poem (also known as "The Man Watching"):
Sein Wachstum ist: der Teifbesiegte
von immer Größerem zu sein.
[Source]
Which translates variously as:
His growth is: to be the deeply defeated
by ever greater things.
[tr. Snow (1991)]
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.
[tr. Bly]
His growth is this: to be defeated
by ever greater forces.
[tr. Barrows and Macy]
I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.
Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.
So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.
Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it.
Make your mistakes, next year and forever.
It is not impossibilities which fill us with deepest despair, but possibilities which we have failed to realize.
Robert Mallet (1915-2002) French novelist, poet, playwright, academician
Apostilles: ou, L’Utile et le Futile (1972)
More strategies fail because they are overripe than because they are premature.
Kenichi Ohmae (b. 1943) Japanese management consultant, writer
The Mind of the Strategist (1982)
(Source)
When you get right down to it, one of the most important tasks of a manager is to eliminate his people’s excuse for failure.
Robert Townsend (1920-1998) American business executive and author
Further Up the Organization (1984)
It occurs to me that there is a proper balance between not asking enough of oneself and asking or expecting too much. It may be that I set my sights too high and so repeatedly end a day in depression. Not easy to find the balance, for it one does not have wild dreams of achievement, there is no spur even to get the dishes washed. One must think like a hero to behave like a merely decent human being.
May Sarton (1912-1995) Belgian-American poet, novelist, memoirist [pen name of Eleanore Marie Sarton]
Journal of a Solitude, “February 4th” (1973)
(Source)
If I had to name my disability, I would call it an unwillingness to fall. On the one hand, this is perfectly normal. I do not know anyone who likes to fall. But, on the other hand, this reluctance signals mistrust of the central truth of the Christian gospel: life springs from death, not only at the last but also in the many little deaths along the way. When everything you count on for protection has failed, the Divine Presence does not fail. The hands are still there — not promising to rescue, not promising to intervene — promising only to hold you no matter how far you fall. Ironically, those who try hardest not to fall learn this later than those who topple more easily. The ones who find their lives are the losers, while the winners come in last.
Barbara Brown Taylor (b. 1951) American minister, academic, author
Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith, Part 3, ch. 17 (2006)
(Source)
Three Failures denote uncommon strength. A weakling has not enough grit to fail thrice.
Minna Antrim (1861-1950) American epigrammatist, writer
At the Sign of the Golden Calf (1905)
(Source)
A garden is always a series of losses set against a few triumphs, like life itself.
May Sarton (1912-1995) Belgian-American poet, novelist, memoirist [pen name of Eleanore Marie Sarton]
At Seventy: A Journal, “Wednesday, June 23rd” (1973)
(Source)
Every man is in some sort a failure to himself. No one ever reaches the heights to which he aspires.
In retrospect, though many were guilty, none was innocent. The purpose of political activity is to provide peace and prosperity; and in this every statesman failed, for whatever reason. This is a story without heroes, and perhaps even without villains.
A. J. P. Taylor (1906-1990) British historian, journalist, broadcaster [Alan John Percivale Taylor]
The Origins of the Second World War, ch. 1 (1961)
(Source)
NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING. Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what’s going to work. Every time out it’s a guess — and, if you’re lucky, an educated one.
William Goldman (1931-2018) American screenwriter, novelist
Adventures in the Screen Trade, ch. 1 (1983)
(Source)
It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all — in which case, you fail by default.
Joanne "Jo" Rowling (b. 1965) British novelist [writes as J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith]
“The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination,” Commencement Address, Harvard (5 Jun 2008)
(Source)
We can all learn from our failures. What I’ve learned is how much it hurts to fail.
Ashleigh Brilliant (b. 1933) Anglo-American writer, epigramist, cartoonist
Pot-Shots, #3959
Failure isn’t about a lack of “natural intelligence,” whatever that is. Instead, failure is born from a messy combination of bad circumstances: high anxiety, low motivation, gaps in background knowledge. Most of all, we fail because, when the moment comes to confront our shortcomings and open ourselves up to teachers and peers, we panic and deploy our defenses instead.
Ben Orlin (b. c. 1988) American math teacher, author
“What It Feels Like to Be Bad at Math,” Slate (29 Apr 2013)
(Source)
Originally posted on his blog: What It Feels Like to Be Bad at Math – Math with Bad Drawings.
I don’t know whether my life has been a success or a failure But not having any anxiety about becoming one instead of the other, and just taking things as they come along, I’ve had a lot of extra time to enjoy life.
Arthur "Harpo" Marx (1888-1964) American comedian, actor, mime, musician [b. Adolph Marx]
Harpo Speaks!, ch. 1, opening words (1961) [with Rowland Barber]
(Source)
Where religions fail, cults appear.
Daniel Bell (1919-2011) American sociologist, writer, editor, academic
The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, ch. 4 (1976)
I’ve always said that in politics, your enemies can’t hurt you, but your friends will kill you.
Ann Richards (1933-2006) American politician [Dorothy Ann Willis Richards]
“Sadder but Wiser,” interview with Paul Burka, Texas Monthly (Apr 1994)
(Source)
Referring to appointees whose failures had caused her political problems as governor.
Is there any stab as deep as wondering where and how much you failed those you love?
Florida Scott-Maxwell (1883-1979) American-British playwright, author, psychologist
The Measure of My Days (1968)
(Source)
Dear George:
Remember, no man is a failure who has friends.
Thanks for the wings!
Love, Clarence.Frank Capra 1897-1991) Italian-American film director, producer, writer [b. Francesco Rosario Capra]
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) [with Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett]
(Source)
The great majority of men are bundles of beginnings. There is not one who has not felt the sacred fire of virtue many a time kindling up within him. He resolved to read, he resolved to give, he solved to abstain, to speak well, to think in a train, to serve God, to imitate Christ. Something he did toward realizing his purpose — but it was most unlucky time — some very unseasonable circumstances occurred and the good purpose was postponed. Who is there here who does not remember his defeats?
Back of every mistaken venture and defeat is the laughter of wisdom, if you listen. We go forward by failure. Every blunder behind us is giving a cheer for us and only those who are willing to fail shall taste the dangers and splendors of life. To be a good loser is to learn how to win. The real coward is he who sees no glory in failure.
Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) American poet, biographer
Incidentals (1904)
[A man who] counts the pain of the state as his own glory; as if, indeed, your consulate were not the reason for that conspiracy and through which the republic was torn apart when it possessed you as its protector.”
[… qui civitatis incommodum in gloriam suam ponit. Quasi vero non illius coniurationis causa fuerit consulatus tuus et idcirco res publica disiecta eo tempore quo te custodem habebat.]
Sallust (c. 86-35 BC) Roman historian and politician [Gaius Sallustius Crispus]
Invectiva in Ciceronem [Invective Against Cicero], sec. 3 [tr. @setentiq (2020)] (Spurious)
(Source)
In reference to the Catiline conspiracy. Most scholars believe this was not Sallust's work, but that of a 1st Century rhetorician, likely the one who penned the provoking Invective against Sallust, ostensibly by Cicero.
Alt. trans.:
- "[He] who caused the state injury to augment his own glory. As though your consulship were not the cause of that conspiracy! That is the reason the state was torn apart at that time with you as its guardian." [tr. Novokhatko (2009)]
- "[A] man who makes disaster to his country the means of his own glorification, was sent as a protector to this city and its citizens, and not as its executioner. As if, forsooth, your consulship was not the cause of that conspiracy, and as if the reason why the commonwealth was not rent asunder at that time was because it had you for a protector." [tr. Loeb ed. (1921), sec. 2]
CHARLIE ANDERSON: I wanna say somethin’. I’ve known since the train that we weren’t liable to find him. It was just a hair of a chance that we got Sam back. I knew that. Maybe I knew even before we left home, but somehow I just had to try! And if we don’t try, we don’t do. And if we don’t do, why are we here on this earth?
Success covers a multitude of blunders, and the want of it hides the greatest gallantry and good conduct.
Horatio Nelson (1758-1805) British admiral
Letter to Andrew Hamond (1797)
(Source)
Often misattributed to George Bernard Shaw.
To find someone who will love you through success and failure is to discover how little life has to do with either.
Robert Brault (b. c. 1945) American aphorist, programmer
(Attributed)
To be a writer is to accept failure as a profession — which of us is Dante or Shakespeare? — and could they return, wouldn’t they fall at once to revising, knowing they could make the work better? In our own dwarfed way, we are trying for something like perfection, knowing it is unachievable (except of course that trying and failing is a better way of living than not trying).
John Ciardi (1916-1986) American poet, writer, critic
In Vince Clemente, “‘A Man Is What He Does With His Attention’: A Conversation with John Ciardi,” Poesis, Vol. 7 #2 (1986)
(Source)
A successful career has been full of great blunders.
Charles Buxton (1823-1871) English brewer, philanthropist, writer, politician
Notes of Thought, #482 (1873)
(Source)
Every now and then, in the course of great events, the elements of tradition and innovation ally themselves and each one’s weakness supplements the other and together they achieve the perfect debacle.
Murray Kempton (1917-1997) American journalist.
“The Genius of Mussolini,” New York Review of Books (7 Oct 1982)
(Source)
Reprinted in Rebellions, Perversities, and Main Events (1994).
It isn’t easy for an author to remain a pleasant human being: both success and failure are usually of a crippling kind.
Graham Greene (1904-1991) English novelist [Henry Graham Greene]
“The Poker-Face,” The Spectator (15 Oct 1943)
(Source)
Reprinted in The Lost Childhood and Other Essays (1951).
Nothing is more humiliating than seeing fools succeed where one has failed.
[Rien n’est humiliant comme de voir les sots réussir dans les entreprises où l’on échoue.]
Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) French writer, novelist
Sentimental Education, Part 1, ch. 5 (1869) [tr. Baldick (1964)/Wall (2004)]
(Source)
Alt. trans.:
- "Nothing is more humiliating than to see idiots succeed in enterprises we have failed in."
- "There is nothing so humiliating to see as blockheads succeed in undertakings in which we ourselves fail." [Ranout ed. (1922)]
- "There is nothing so humiliating as to see blockheads succeed in undertakings in which we fail." [tr. Bouvard ed. rev. (2003)]
I distrust Great Men. They produce a desert of uniformity around them and often a pool of blood too, and I always feel a little man’s pleasure when they come a cropper.
E. M. Forster (1879-1970) English novelist, essayist, critic, librettist [Edward Morgan Forster]
“What I Believe,” The Nation (16 Jul 1938)
(Source)
Every man is in some sort a failure to himself. No one ever reaches the heights to which he aspires.
It was better, he thought, to fail in attempting exquisite things than to succeed in the department of the utterly contemptible.
I’m working at trying to be a good Christian, and that’s serious business. It’s like trying to be a good Jew, a good Muslim, a good Buddhist, a good Shintoist, a good Zoroastrian, a good friend, a good lover, a good mother, a good buddy — it’s serious business. It’s not something where you think, Oh, I’ve got it done. I did it all day, hotdiggety. The truth is, all day long you try to do it, try to be it, and then in the evening if you’re honest and have a little courage you look at yourself and say, Hmm. I only blew it eighty-six times. Not bad.
Maya Angelou (1928-2014) American poet, memoirist, activist [b. Marguerite Ann Johnson]
“The Art of Fiction,” Paris Review, #116, Interview with George Plimpton (1990)
(Source)
In reality, the likelihood of reaching the pinnacle of capitalist society today is only marginally better than were the chances of being accepted into the French nobility four centuries ago, though at least an aristocratic age was franker, and therefore kinder, about the odds. It did not relentlessly play up the possibilities open to all, … and so, in turn, did not cruelly equate an ordinary life with a failed one.
Alain de Botton (b. 1969) Swiss-British author
The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, ch. 9 “Entrepreneurship” (2009)
(Source)
I define anxiety as experiencing failure in advance.
Better to love amiss than nothing to have loved.
George Crabbe (1754-1832) English poet, writer, surgeon, clergyman
Tales in Verse, Tale 14 “The Struggles of Conscience” (1812)
See Tennyson (1849).
The tragedy of life is not that man loses, but that he almost wins.
Heywood Broun (1888-1939) American journalist, author
“Sport for Art’s Sake,” Vanity Fair (Sep 1921)
(Source)
Reprinted in Pieces of Hate, and Other Enthusiasms (1922).
If you bungle raising your children I don’t think whatever else you do well matters very much.
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929-1994) First Lady of the United States (1961-1963), book editor, celebrity
Interview with Sander Vanocur, NBC News (1 Oct 1960)
(Source)
Mahomet made the people believe that he would call a hill to him, and from the top of it offer up his prayers for the observers of his law. The people assembled. Mahomet called the hill to come to him, again and again; and when the hill stood still he was never a whit abashed, but said, “If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill.”
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
Essays, “Of Boldness” (1625)
You couldn’t get hold of the things you’d done and turn them right again. Such a power might be given to the gods, but it was not given to women and men, and that was probably a good thing. Had it been otherwise, people would probably die of old age still trying to rewrite their teens.
Stephen King (b. 1947) American author
The Stand (1978)
And therefore it was a good answer that was made by one who, when they showed him hanging in a temple a picture of those who had paid their vows as having escaped shipwreck, and would have him say whether he did not now acknowledge the power of the gods — “Aye,” asked he again, “but where are they painted that were drowned after their vows?” And such is the way of all superstition, whether in astrology, dreams, omens, divine judgments, or the like; wherein men, having a delight in such vanities, mark the events where they are fulfilled, but where they fail, though this happen much oftener, neglect and pass them by.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
Novum Organum, Book 1, Aphorism 46 (1620)
(Source)
Confidence doesn’t come from knowing you’re right — it comes from being okay with failing.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Mike Monteiro, Design Is a Job (2012)
There is freedom waiting for you,
On the breezes of the sky,
And you ask “What if I fall?”
Oh but my darling,
What if you fly?
Science, my lad, has been built upon many errors; but they are errors which it was good to fall into, for they led to the truth.
[La science, mon garçon, est faite d’erreurs, mais d’erreurs qu’il est bon de commettre, car elles mènent peu à peu à la vérité.]
Jules Verne (1828-1905) French novelist, poet, playwright
Journey to the Center of the Earth, ch. 31 (1864) [tr. Malleson (1877)]
(Source)
Alt. trans.: "Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth."
He that succeeds in the world loves it. He that fails in it hates it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (1831)