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Failure quotes

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“Violence . . . is the last refuge of the incompetent.” Isaac Asimov, “Foundation” - 1951

“Failure is an opportunity.” Lao Tzu, “Tao Te Ching” - 4th century BC

“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” Paulo Coelho, “The Alchemist” - 1988

“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” - 1922

“When all else fails, give up and go to the library.” Stephen King, “11/22/63” - 2011

“In all our deeds, the proper value and respect for time determines success or failure.” Malcolm X, “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” - 1965

“Success is as dangerous as failure.” Lao Tzu, “Tao Te Ching” - 4th century BC

“In any case you mustn't confuse a single failure with a final defeat.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Tender Is the Night” - 1934

“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” - 1993

“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” - 1961

“When reason fails, the devil helps!” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, “Crime and Punishment” - 1867

“The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.” Charles Dickens, “Great Expectations” - 1861

“Where others have failed, I will not fail.” Jules Verne, “Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea” - 1870

“Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.” George Eliot, “Middlemarch” - 1872

“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” - 2012

“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” - 1934

“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” - 1532

“being . . . rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger.” J. K. Rowling, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” - 2005

“What we have not chosen we cannot consider either our merit or our failure.” Milan Kundera, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” - 1984

“if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another” Jane Austen, “Mansfield Park” - 1814

“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” - 1961

“The failure of global summits on the environment make it plain that our politics are subject to technology and finance.” Pope Francis, “Laudato si'” - 24 May 2015

“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” - 1858

Related topics

success fear opportunity perseverance violence life reason darkness time happiness poverty regret experience value will dreams intelligence meanness greatness danger

Related authors

Lao Tzu (2)
Jane Austen (1)
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1)
J. K. Rowling (1)
Charles Dickens (1)
George Eliot (1)
Paulo Coelho (1)
Malcolm X (1)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1)
Jules Verne (1)
George MacDonald (1)
Eleanor Roosevelt (1)
Arnold Schwarzenegger (1)
Margaret Thatcher (1)
Stephen King (1)
John Steinbeck (1)
Henry Miller (1)
Isaac Asimov (1)
Milan Kundera (1)
Pope Francis (1)

Related sources

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