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)
Quotations about:
failure
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
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?”
[Taque recte respondit ille, qui, cum suspensa tabula in templo ei monstraretur eorum qui vota solverant, quod naufragii periculo elapsi sint, atque interrogando premeretur, anne tum quidem Deorum numen agnosceret, quaesivit denuo, At ubi sunt illi depicti qui post vota nuncupata perierint?]
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
Instauratio Magna [The Great Instauration], Part 2 “Novum Organum [The New Organon],” Book 1, Aphorism # 46 (1620) [tr. Spedding (1858)]
(Source)
The reference is to Diagoras, in Cicero, De Natura Deorum, 3.37, or to Diogenes the Cynic, in Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, 6.59.
(Source (Latin)). Alternate translations:
It was well answered by him who was shown in a temple the votive tablets suspended by such as had escaped the peril of shipwreck, and was pressed as to whether he would then recognise the power of the gods, by an inquiry; "But where are the portraits of those who have perished in spite of their vows?"
[tr. Wood (1831)]
And so he made a good answer, who, when he was shown, hung up in the temple, the votive tablets of those who had fulfilled their vows after escaping from shipwreck, and was pressed with the question, "Did he not then recognize the will of the gods?" asked, in his turn, "But where are the pictures of those who have perished, notwithstanding their vows?"
[tr. Johnson (1859)]
So when someone was shown a votive tablet in a temple dedicated, in fulfilment of a vow, by some men who had escaped the danger of shipwreck, and was pressed to say whether he would now recognise the divinity of the gods, he made a good reply, when he retorted: "Where are the offerings of those who made vows and perished?"
[tr. Silverthorne (2000)]
A man was shown a picture, hanging in a temple, of people who had made their vows and escaped shipwreck, and was asked ‘Now do you admit the power of the gods?’ He answered with a question: ‘Where are the pictures of those who made their vows and then drowned?’ It was a good answer!
[tr. Bennett (2017)]
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)
Pain nourishes my courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave. You can’t be brave if you’ve only had wonderful things happen to you.
Mary Tyler Moore (1936-2017) American actress, producer, and social advocate
Interview, McCall’s, Vol. 108 (1980)
(Source)
A man may fall many times but he won’t be a failure until he says that someone pushed him.
Elmer G. Letterman (1897-1982) American insurance broker, salesman, author
(Attributed)
If you don’t have confidence, you’ll always find a way not to win.
Carl Lewis (b. 1961) American Olympic athlete
(Attributed)
Life often seems like a long shipwreck, of which the debris are friendship, glory, and love; the shores of existence are strewn with them.
Germaine de Staël (1766-1817) Swiss-French writer, woman of letters, critic, salonist [Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein, Madame de Staël, Madame Necker]
Reflections on Suicide [Réflexions sur le suicide], Sec. 1 (1813) [tr. De Finod]
No one really starts anything new, Mrs Nemur. Everyone builds on other men’s failures. There is nothing really original in science. What each man contributes to the sum of knowledge is what counts.
Daniel F. Keyes (1927-2014) American author
Flowers for Algernon (novel) (1966)
An inventor fails 999 times, and if he succeeds once, he’s in. He treats his failures simply as practice shots.
Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958) American inventor, engineer, researcher, businessman
(Attributed)
The pat on the back, the arm around the shoulder, the praise for what was done right, and the sympathetic nod for what wasn’t, are as much a part of golf as life itself.
Gerald R. Ford (1913-2006) American politician, US President (1974-77) [b. Leslie Lynch King, Jr.]
Speech, Dedication of the World Golf Hall of Fame, Pinehurst, North Carolina (12 Sep 1974)
The only time you don’t want to fail is the last time you try a thing.
Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958) American inventor, engineer, researcher, businessman
“Don’t Be Afraid to Stumble,” The Rotarian (Jan 1952)
(Source)
This was a favorite phrase of Kettering's, and many versions exist or are attributed.
- "The only time you mustn't fail is the last time you try." (The Rotarian (May 1953))
- "The only time you don't want to fail is the last time you try."
- "The only time you can't afford to fail is the last time you try."
- "The only time you don't fail is the last time you try something, and it works."
Life is dull without a challenge. If your try fails, what does that matter? All life is failure in the end. The thing is to get some sport out of trying.
Francis Chichester (1901-1972) English aviator and sailor
Comment (1967)
After single-handedly circumnavigating the globe.
We haven’t got a plan, so nothing can go wrong!
Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan (1918-2002) Anglo-Irish comedian, writer, actor
(Attributed)
Variants:
- "We don't have a plan, so nothing can go wrong!"
- "We haven't any plan, so nothing can go wrong!"
The last quality, perseverance, I particularly respect: it is the very hinge of all virtues. — On looking over the world, the cause of nine parts in ten of the lamentable failures which occur in men’s undertakings & darken and degrade so much of their history, lies not in the want of talents or the will to use them, but in the vacillating and desultory mode of using them — in flying from object to object, in starting away at each little disgust, and thus applying the force which might conquer any one difficulty to a series of difficulties so large that no human force can conquer them. The smallest brook on earth, by continual running, has hollowed out for itself a considerable valley to flow in: the wildest tempest, by its occasional raging, over-turns a few cottages, uproots a few trees, and leaves after a short space no mark behind it. Commend me therefore to the Dutch virtue of perseverance! Without it all the rest are little better than fairy gold, which glitters in your purse, but when taken to the market proves to be — slate or cinders.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
Letter to John Carlyle (15 Mar 1822)
(Source)
Every great improvement has come after repeated failures. Virtually nothing comes out right the first time. Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.
Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958) American inventor, engineer, researcher, businessman
(Attributed)
(Source)
There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day: we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life. Moreover, when we have an alibi for not writing a book, painting a picture, and so on, we have an alibi for not writing the greatest book and not painting the greatest picture. Small wonder that the effort expended and the punishment endured in obtaining a good alibi often exceed the effort and grief requisite for the attainment of a most marked achievement.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
The Passionate State of Mind, Aphorism 181 (1955)
(Source)
The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not deter me.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
“The Sub-Treasury,” Speech, Illinois House of Representatives, Springfield (26 Dec 1839)
If you look at automata which have been built by men or which exist in nature you will very frequently notice that their structure is controlled to a much larger extent by the manner in which they might fail and by the (more or less effective) precautionary measures which have been taken against their failure. And to say that they are precautions against failure is to overstate the case, to use an optimistic terminology which is completely alien to the subject. Rather than precautions against failure, they are arrangements by which it is attempted to achieve a state where at least a majority of all failures will not be lethal. There can be no question of eliminating failures or of completely paralyzing the effects of failures. All we can try to do is to arrange an automaton so that in the vast majority of failures it can continue to operate. These arrangements give palliatives of failures, not cures. Most of the arrangements of artificial and natural automata and the principles involved therein are of this sort.
John von Neumann (1903-1957) Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, inventor, polymath [János "Johann" Lajos Neumann]
Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata, Lecture 3 “Statistical Theories of Information”
(Source)
One overmuch elated with success
A change of fortune plunges in distress.Horace (65-8 BC) Roman poet and satirist [Quintus Horacius Flaccus]
Epistles, 1.10 [ed. Kraemer, Jr (1936)]
When we watch a child trying to walk, we see its countless failures; its success are but few. If we had to limit our observation within a narrow space of time, the sight would be cruel. But we find that in spite of its repeated failures, there is an impetus of joy in the child which sustains it in its seemingly impossible task. We see it does not think of its falls so much as of its power to keep its balance though for only a moment.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Indian Bengali poet, philosopher [a.k.a. Rabi Thakur, Kabiguru]
Sadhana: The Realization of Life, ch. 3 (1913)
(Source)
Talking of the danger of being mortified by rejection, when making approaches to the acquaintance of the great, I observed, “I am, however, generally for trying, ‘Nothing venture, nothing have.'” JOHNSON. “Very true, sir; but I have always been more afraid of failing, than hopeful of success.”
Our faults and sins seem all the bigger when they are seen by the world against the excessively self-righteous picture that is our official version of ourselves.
Walter Lippmann (1889-1974) American journalist and author
“The Grace of Humility,” New York Herald Tribune (24 Sep 1957)
Success contains within it the germs of failure, and the reverse is also true.
Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970) French statesman and soldier
In C. L. Sulzberger, “Foreign Affairs: The Last Giant,” New York Times (30 Apr 1969)
Success has ruined many a man.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard’s Almanack (Dec 1752)
Complete success alienates a man from his fellows, but suffering makes kinsmen of us all.
Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) American writer, businessman, philosopher
An American Bible [ed. Alice Hubbard] (1918)
I’m proof against that word failure. I’ve seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Felix Holt, the Radical (1866)
(Source)
Success is relative:
It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things.T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) American-British poet, critic, playwright [Thomas Stearns Eliot]
The Family Reunion, 2.3 (1939)
‘Tis a lesson you should heed,
Try, try again;
If at first you don’t succeed,
Try, try again.(Other Authors and Sources)
T. H. Palmer, “Try, Try Again,” The Teacher’s Manual (1840)
(Source)
Sometimes attributed to Charles Theodore Hart Palmer (1827-1897), but the book is clearly by Thomas H. Palmer, and was published in 1840 when Charles T. H. Palmer was 13 years old.
SID: It is not what you are; it’s what you don’t become that hurts.
Fannie Hurst (1889-1968) American novelist
Humoresque [film] (1946) [screenplay Clifford Odets, Zachary Gold]
Spoken by Oscar Levant.
Failure is a bruise, not a tattoo.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Jon Sinclair
Upon my word, there is nothing in the world so easy to explain as failure — it is, after all, what everybody does all the time.
Susanna Clarke (b. 1949) British author
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (2004)
The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one is a criminal.
Erich Fromm (1900-1980) American psychoanalyst and social philosopher
Escape from Freedom, 7.2 (1941)
If at first you don’t succeed, that’s one data point.
Randall Munroe (b. 1984) American webcomic writer, roboticist, programmer
XKCD, #1154 “Resolution” [rollover] (31 Dec 2012)
(Source)
The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his clients to plant vines — so they should go as far as possible from home to build their first buildings.
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) American architect, interior designer, writer, educator [b. Frank Lincoln Wright]
“Frank Lloyd Wright Talks of His Art,” New York Times Magazine (1953-10-04)
(Source)
Now that I have grown old, I realize that for most of us it is not enough to have achieved personal success. One’s best friend must also have failed.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) English novelist and playwright [William Somerset Maugham]
Comment (1959)
A comment recorded by a journalist on his 85th birthday, quoted in Richard Cordell, Somerset Maugham: A Biographical and Critical Study (1961). Cordell mentions the influence of La Rochefoucauld on the phrase, and it is therefore often attributed to La Rochefoucauld, though it is not in his Maxims.
Also attributed to Gore Vidal, Iris Murdoch, Genghis Khan.
Pithier (and more common) paraphrases:
More discussion of this quotation here: It Is Not Enough to Succeed; One’s Best Friend Must Fail – Quote Investigator®.
- "It is not enough to succeed; one’s best friend must fail."
- "It is not enough to succeed; one’s friends must fail."
- "It is not enough to succeed; others must fail."
- "It’s not enough that I should succeed, others should fail."
- "It is not sufficient that I succeed –- all others must fail."
They do say that when a man starts down hill everybody is ready to help him with a kick, and I suppose it is so.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Letter, San Francisco Alta California (15 Mar 1867)
Great merit, or great failings, will make you be respected or despised; but trifles, little attentions, mere nothings, either done or neglected, will make you either liked or disliked, in the general run of the world.
Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #187 (20 Jul 1749)
(Source)
Failure: A man who has blundered but is not able to cash in on the experience.
Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) American writer, businessman, philosopher
The Roycroft Dictionary (1914)
(Source)
For us there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.
T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) American-British poet, critic, playwright [Thomas Stearns Eliot]
“East Coker” (1940), Four Quartets (1943)
man’s life is interesting primarily when he has failed — I well know. For it’s a sign that he tried to surpass himself.
Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929) French statesman, physician, journalist
Conversation wth Jean Martet (1 Jun 1928)
In J. Martet, Clemenceau, The Events of His Life as Told by Himself to His Former Secretary, Jean Martet, ch. 30 (1930) [tr. M. Waldman]
All those who try to go it sole alone,
Too proud to be beholden for relief,
Are absolutely sure to come to grief.
Robert Frost (1874-1963) American poet
“Haec Fabula Docet” (1947)
It is a human inclination to hope things will work out, despite evidence or doubt to the contrary. A successful manager must resist this temptation. This is particularly hard if one has invested much time and energy on a project and thus has come to feel possessive about it. Although it is not easy to admit what a person once thought correct now appears to be wrong, one must discipline himself to face the facts objectively and make the necessary changes — regardless of the consequences to himself. The man in charge must personally set the example in this respect. He must be able, in effect, to “kill his own child” if necessary and must require his subordinates to do likewise.
Hyman Rickover (1900-1986) US Navy Admiral
Quoted in T. Rockwell, The Rickover Effect, Part 3, ch. 2, epigraph (1992)
(Source)
Not failure, but low aim, is crime.
James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) American diplomat, essayist, poet
“For an Autograph,” st. 5 (1868)
(Source)
It is only a step from victory to disaster. My experience is that, in a crisis, some detail always decides the issue.
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) French emperor, military leader
Letter to Tallyrand (7 Oct 1797)
(Source)
Napoleon's Letters [tr. J. M. Thompson (1934)]
The baby rises to its feet, takes a step, is overcome with triumph and joy — and falls flat on its face. It is a pattern for all that is to come! But learn from the bewildered baby. Lurch to your feet again. You’ll make the sofa in the end.
Pamela Brown (1924-1989) British writer, actress, television producer
The Swish of the Curtain (1938)
Our greatest glory is, not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
Oliver Goldsmith (1730-1774) Irish poet, playwright, novelist
The Citizen of the World: or, Letters from a Chinese Philosopher, Residing in London, to His Friends in the East, Letter 7 (1762)
(Source)
Ostensibly from a Chinese visitor to London, Lien Chi Altangi, the letters were written by Goldsmith and published in The Public Ledger in 1760-61. Letter 22 has the similar "True magnanimity consists not in NEVER falling, but in RISING every time we fall."
The saying is often attributed to Confucius (Letter 7's introduction implied that they were), but is not found in Confucius' work. The saying is also sometimes attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson. See here for more discussion.
