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Failure quotes

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“Failure is an opportunity.” Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

“Violence . . . is the last refuge of the incompetent.” Isaac Asimov, Foundation

“Failure is only the opportunity more intelligently to begin again. There is no disgrace in honest failure; there is disgrace in fearing to fail.” Henry Ford, My Life and Work

“No theory of government was ever given a fairer test or a more prolonged experiment in a democratic country than democratic socialism received in Britain. Yet it was a miserable failure in every respect.” Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years

“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“Success is as dangerous as failure.” Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

“In all our deeds, the proper value and respect for time determines success or failure.” Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

“In any case you mustn't confuse a single failure with a final defeat.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night

“When all else fails, give up and go to the library.” Stephen King, 11/22/63

“Looking back I see that I was always afraid of something: of the dark, of displeasing people, of failure. Anything I accomplished had to be done across a barrier of fear.” Eleanor Roosevelt, The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt

“The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.” Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“When reason fails, the devil helps!” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

“Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.” George Eliot, Middlemarch

“We learn from failure, not from success!” Bram Stoker, Dracula

“Where others have failed, I will not fail.” Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea

“We have not seen great things done in our time except by those who have been considered mean; the rest have failed.” Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

“being . . . rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger.” J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

“It is not difficult to be alone if you are poor and a failure. An artist is always alone—if he is an artist. No, what the artist needs is loneliness.” Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

“Alas, how easily things go wrong! A sigh too much, or a kiss too long, And there follows a mist and a weeping rain, And life is never the same again.” George MacDonald, Phantastes

“if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another” Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

“What we have not chosen we cannot consider either our merit or our failure.” Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“When I talk to graduating classes, I always tell a brief version of the story of my life and try to offer lessons everybody can use: have a vision, trust yourself, break some rules, ignore the naysayers, don’t be afraid to fail.” Arnold Schwarzenegger, Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story

“Failure is a state of mind. It’s like one of those sand traps an ant lion digs. You keep sliding back. Takes one hell of a jump to get out of it.” John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent

“The failure of global summits on the environment make it plain that our politics are subject to technology and finance.” Pope Francis, Laudato si'

“The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest...” John Steinbeck, Cannery Row

“My past is everything I failed to be.” Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

Related topics

success happiness fear experience perseverance opportunity violence incompetence achievement greatness life dreams respect government time defeat reason loneliness politics darkness

Related authors

Lao Tzu (2)
John Steinbeck (2)
Isaac Asimov (1)
Paulo Coelho (1)
Stephen King (1)
Henry Ford (1)
Malcolm X (1)
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1)
Jane Austen (1)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1)
J. K. Rowling (1)
Charles Dickens (1)
Milan Kundera (1)
George Eliot (1)
Bram Stoker (1)
Henry Miller (1)
Jules Verne (1)
Niccolò Machiavelli (1)
George MacDonald (1)
Eleanor Roosevelt (1)

Related sources

Tao Te Ching (2)
The Alchemist (1)
11/22/63 (1)
Tender Is the Night (1)
The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1)
Great Expectations (1)
My Life and Work (1)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1)
The Winter of Our Discontent (1)
Crime and Punishment (1)
Tropic of Cancer (1)
Middlemarch (1)
Dracula (1)
The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt (1)
Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (1)
Laudato si' (1)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (1)
The Prince (1)
Mansfield Park (1)
Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story (1)