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Quotes about failure

95 quotes from 79 people

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Great God! this is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority.
Robert Falcon Scott1868–1912Journal, 17 January 1912, quoted in Scott’s Last Expedition (1913) vol.1, ch.18
A man is not finished when he’s defeated. He’s finished when he quits.
Richard Nixon1913–19941969 note to self, as quoted in Nixon (1987) by Stephen E. Ambrose, p. 284
- Motivation & Goals
But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.
Ernest Hemingway1899–1961The Old Man and the Sea (1952)
- Courage
All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible.
William Faulkner1897–1962Interview with Jean Stein, The Paris Review, No. 12 (Spring 1956)
Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition, there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.
George Sorosborn 1930Soros on Soros (1995)
Historically, the errors committed by a truly revolutionary movement are infinitely more fruitful than the infallibility of the cleverest Central Committee.
Rosa Luxemburg1871–1919Leninism or Marxism? (1904)
- Politics
When we can begin to take our failures nonseriously, it means we are ceasing to be afraid of them. It is of immense importance to learn to laugh at ourselves.
Katherine Mansfield1888–1923Journal entry (October 1922), published in The Journal of Katherine Mansfield (1927)
- Laughter
By success, of course, I do not mean that you may become rich, famous, or powerful for that does not, of necessity, represent achievement. Indeed, not infrequently, such individuals represent pathetic failure as persons.
Norman Vincent Peale1898–1993Stay Alive All Your Life (1957)
- Success
We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat; they do not exist.
Queen Victoria1819–1901Said to Arthur Balfour at Windsor during “Black Week” (December 1899), as recorded in Lady Gwendolen Cecil, Life of Robert, Marquis of Salisbury, vol. 3 (1931)
- War & Peace
Sometimes you need to feel the pain and sting of defeat to activate the real passion and purpose that God predestined inside of you.
Chadwick Boseman1976–2020Howard University Commencement Speech (2018)
- Motivation & Goals
Sometimes you need to get knocked down before you can really figure out what your fight is and how you need to fight it.
Chadwick Boseman1976–2020Howard University Commencement Speech (2018)
- Motivation & Goals
It’s bad policy to speculate on what you’ll do if a plan fails, when you’re trying to make a plan work.
Condoleezza Riceborn 1954Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, January 11, 2007.
It does not matter how frequently something succeeds if failure is too costly to bear.
Nassim Nicholas Talebborn 1960Fooled by Randomness (2001)
- Risk
Creativity comes from the freedom to fail. And freedom to fail comes from experimentation, and that’s what gives something its individuality.
Peter Gabrielborn 1950The Kate Bush Story (2014), On Kate Bush
- Art
Who I am as a guitarist is defined by my failure to become Jimi Hendrix.
John Mayerborn 1977Mayer, John (2004). “Jimi Hendrix” RollingStone.com (accessed March 21, 2007)
- Music