One who fears the future, who fears failure, limits his activities. Failure is only the opportunity more intelligently to begin again. There is no disgrace in honest failure; there is disgrace in fearing to fail. What is past is useful only as it suggests ways and means for progress.
 Henry Ford, My Life and Work (1922). copy citation

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Author Henry Ford
Source My Life and Work
Topic progress failure
Date 1922
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/7213/pg7213-images.html

Context

“In the first chapter was set forth the creed. Let me repeat it in the light of the work that has been done under it—for it is at the basis of all our work:
(1) An absence of fear of the future or of veneration for the past. One who fears the future, who fears failure, limits his activities. Failure is only the opportunity more intelligently to begin again. There is no disgrace in honest failure; there is disgrace in fearing to fail. What is past is useful only as it suggests ways and means for progress. (2) A disregard of competition. Whoever does a thing best ought to be the one to do it. It is criminal to try to get business away from another man—criminal because one is then trying to lower for personal gain the condition of one's fellow-men, to rule by force instead of by intelligence.
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