Failure

Failure refers to the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective, and may be viewed as the opposite of success.

• There is an element of failure in all success.
  • Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity. Philosophical Library. 1948. ISBN 978-0-8065-0160-4.  Part III: The Positive Aspect of Ambiguity

• All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
  • Samuel Beckett, Worstward Ho (1983).

• In the lexicon of youth, which
  Fate reserves for a bright manhood, there is no such word
  As—fail!
  • Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Richelieu (1839), Act II, scene 2.

• Never say
  "Fail" again.
  • Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Richelieu (1839), Act II, scene 2.

• Shariputra, it is the failings of living beings that prevent them from seeing the marvelous purity of the land of the Buddha, the Thus Come One. The Thus Come One is not to blame. Shariputra, this land of mine is pure, but you fail to see it.
  • Gautama Buddha, Vimalakirti Sutra, Chapter I, as translated by Burton Watson, Columbia University Press, 2000, ISBN: 0231106572.

• He that is down needs fear no fall
  He that is low, no pride.
  • John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress (1678), Part II.

• They never fail who die
  In a great cause.
  • Lord Byron, Marino Faliero, Act ii. Sc. 2 (1919).

• Imagination is a force that can actually manifest a reality. … Don’t put limitations on yourself. Other people will do that for you. Don’t do that to yourself. Don’t bet against yourself. And take risk. NASA has this phrase that they like, "Failure is not an option." But failure has to be an option. In art and exploration, failure has to be an option. Because it is a leap of faith. And no important endeavor that required innovation was done without risk. You have to be willing to take those risks. … In whatever you are doing, failure is an option. But fear is not.
  • James Cameron, Address to the 2010 TED conference (13 February 2010).

• Stop thinking of failing.
  • Ben Carson, Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story (p. 75).

• It's a failure only if you don't get anything out of it, Thomas Edison said he knew 999 ways that a light bulb did not work; yet we have lights today.
  • Ben Carson, Take The Risk (p. 36).

• If failure has the strength to turn your life into bitterness itself, then patience has the strength to turn your life into the sweetest joy. Do not surrender to fate after a single failure. Failure, at most, precedes success.
  • Sri Chinmoy, Songs of the Soul (1971).

• Restlessness is discontent — and discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man — and I will show you a failure.
  • Thomas Edison, The Diary and Sundry Observations of Thomas Alva Edison (1948), p. 110.

• 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, Felix Holt (1866).

• Qui vincit non est victor nisi victus fatetur.
  • He who has conquered is not conqueror
    Unless the conquered one confesses it.
    • Quintus Ennius, As quoted by Marcus Servius Honoratus in In Vergilii carmina comentarii (Commentaries on the poems of Virgil), Book XI [1]

• Failure concentrates the mind wonderfully. If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not trying hard enough.
  • Jasper Fforde, The Well of Lost Plots (2003), ISBN 0-14-303435-9, p. 255

• To fail spectacularly is a loser’s paradise.
  • Jasper Fforde, One of Our Thursdays is Missing (2011), ISBN 978-0-670-02252-6, p. 124

• To me the greatest moment in an experiment is always just before I learn whether the particular idea is a good or a bad one. Thus even a failure is exciting, and most of my ideas have of course been wrong.
  • Ivar Giaever, Electron Tunneling and Superconductivity, Nobel Lecture [2] (December 12, 1973).

• You are responsible for all of your successes, and the lack thereof. And that is the essential point that failure, your ever-faithful friend, wants to make: that your failure could not exist without you—without your stupidity, without your lies, without your mistakes, your uselessness, your lack of faith, your ineptitude, your unjustifiable confidence in your alleged abilities, you stupid loser—failure is your only friend. Failure is your only lover. Failure is your only hope.
  • John S. Hall, "Failure", from Failure (1998).

• Half the failures in life arise from pulling in one's horse as he is leaping.
  • Julius and Augustus Hare, Guesses at Truth by Two Brothers, I (1827).

• The acceptance of ambiguity implies more than the commonplace understanding that some good things and some bad things happen to us. It means that we know that good and evil are inextricably intermixed in human affairs; that they contain, and sometimes embrace, their opposites; that success may involve failure of a different kind, and failure may be a kind of triumph.
  • Sydney J. Harris, Clearing the Ground, "Learning to Live with Ambiguity" (1986).

• It's not hard to stand behind one's successes. But to accept responsibility for one's failures... that is devishly hard!
  • Václav Havel, as quoted in "Václav Havel: Heir to a Spiritual Legacy" by Richard L. Stanger in Christian Century (11 April 1990).

• Genius is often only the power of making continuous efforts. The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it — so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it. How many a man has thrown up his hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience, would have achieved success. As the tide goes clear out, so it comes clear in. In business sometimes prospects may seem darkest when really they are on the turn. A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success. There is no failure except in no longer trying. There is no defeat except from within, no really insurmountable barrier save our own inherent weakness of purpose.
  • Elbert Hubbard, as quoted from Electrical Review (c. 1895) without further attribution in The Search for the North Pole (1896) by Evelyn Briggs Baldwin, p. 520, this was later published as part of various works by Hubbard, including FRA Magazine : A Journal of Affirmation (1915), and An American Bible (1918) edited by Alice Hubbard.

• If one cannot have success, the next most agreeable thing is failure.
  • Jean Ingelow, Chapter 3, John Jerome, His Thoughts and Ways (1886)

• I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying (no hard work).
  • Michael Jordan, Jordan, Michael. I Can't Accept Not Trying : Michael Jordan on the Pursuit of Excellence. San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994. p. 129.

• Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.
  • Suzy Kassem, Rise Up And Salute The Sun (2010).

• I chose my path. You chose the way of the hero. And they found you amusing for a while... the people of this city. But the one thing they love more than a hero is to see the hero fail, fall, die trying.
  • David Koepp, Spider-Man (2002 film).

• I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest.
  • John Keats, Letter to J. A. Hessey (October 9, 1818).

• There is not a fiercer hell than the failure in a great object.
  • John Keats, Preface to Endymion (1818).

• Don't fear failure. — Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.
  • Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts: Bruce Lee's Wisdom for Daily Living, Part VIII : On Ultimate (Final) Principles, p. 121 (2000).

• Greatly begin! Though thou have time
  But for a line, be that sublime—
  Not failure, but low aim is crime.
  • James Russell Lowell, "For an Autograph," stanza 5, The Writings of James Russell Lowell (1890), vol. 9, p. 175.

• Problems or successes, they all are the results of our own actions. Karma. The philosophy of action is that no one else is the giver of peace or happiness. One's own karma, one's own actions are responsible to come to bring either happiness or success or whatever... As you sow, so shall you reap. It's a very old proverb of mankind. As you sow, so shall you reap.
  • Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, in CNN Larry King Weekend:Interview With Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, (2002)

• That’s what failure did to: run you out, plucked your bones, sucked you dry. It was revolting. A failed man is a loathsome thing.
  • Lisa Mason, The Golden Nineties (1995), ISBN 0-553-57307-1 p. 43

• It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has never failed somewhere, that man cannot be great. Failure is the true test of greatness. And if it be said, that continual success is a proof that a man wisely knows his powers, — it is only to be added, that, in that case, he knows them to be small.
  • Herman Melville, "Hawthorne and His Mosses," The Literary World (August 17, 24, 1850)

• With engineering, I view this year's failure as next year's opportunity to try it again. Failures are not something to be avoided. You want to have them happen as quickly as you can so you can make progress rapidly.
  • Gordon Moore, Laura Schmitt (May 2000). "An Interview with Gordon Moore". Ingenuity 5 (2). Retrieved on 2006-11-06.

• In God's world, for those who are in earnest there is no failure. No work truly done, no word earnestly spoken, no sacrifice freely made, was ever made in vain.
  • F.W.Robertson, Daily Strength for Daily Needs, Compiled Mary Tileson, http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8534#

• I have no use for men who fail. The cause of their failure is no business of mine, but I want successful men as my associates.
  • John D. Rockefeller, as quoted in Silas Hubbard, John D. Rockefeller and His Career, p. 72 (1904).

• It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.
  • Theodore Roosevelt, speech at the Hamilton Club, Chicago (10 April 1899) The Strenuous Life (vol. 13 of The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, national ed.), chapter 1, p. 320 (1926).

• It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all — in which case, you fail by default.
  • J. K. Rowling, Harvard University Commencement Address (5 June 2008).

• We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.
  • Samuel Smiles, Self-Help; with Illustrations of Character and Conduct, Ch. XI : Self-Culture — Facilities and Difficulties (1859).

• Failure makes success so much sweeter, and allows you to thumb your nose at the crowds.
  • Wilbur Smith, The Secrets of My Success, an interview for Live magazine, the Mail on Sunday (UK) newspaper (December 5, 2010).

• Any action is often better than no action, especially if you have been stuck in an unhappy situation for a long time. If it is a mistake, at least you learn something, in which case it's no longer a mistake. If you remain stuck, you learn nothing. Is fear preventing you from taking action? Acknowledge the fear, watch it, take your attention into it, be fully present with it. Doing so cuts the link between the fear and your thinking. Don't let the fear rise up into your mind. Use the power of the Now. Fear cannot prevail against it.
  If there is truly nothing that you can do to change your here and now, and you can't remove yourself from the situation, then accept your here and now totally by dropping all inner resistance. The false, unhappy self that loves feeling miserable, resentful, or sorry for itself can then no longer survive. This is called surrender. Surrender is not weakness. There is great strength in it. Only a surrendered person has spiritual power.
  • Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (1997) p. 56

• Never mind failures; they are quite natural, they are the beauty of life, these failures. What would life be without them? It would not be worth having if it were not for struggles. Where would be the poetry of life? Never mind the struggles, the mistakes. I never heard a cow tell a lie, but it is only a cow—never a man. So never mind these failures, these little backslidings; hold the ideal a thousand times, and if you fail a thousand times, make the attempt once more.
  • Swami Vivekananda, Pearls of Wisdom (2008).

• Every failure is a step to success. Every detection of what is false directs us towards what is true: every trial exhausts some tempting form of error. Not only so; but scarcely any attempt is entirely a failure; scarcely any theory, the result of steady thought, is altogether false; no tempting form of Error is without some latent charm derived from Truth.
  • William Whewell, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy in England, Lecture 7 (1852).

• Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.
  • Oscar Wilde, Phrases and Philosophies for the use of the Young (1894).

• Value of age is it gives you visceral understanding that the journey never ends, the ultimate answer is never “No”, and new opportunities are endlessly creating themselves. Grief and loss at times are simply part of the process. What’s important is who we choose to be as we go through the grief. If we can allow ourselves to feel the pain but avoid bitterness, learning whatever lessons are inherent in the loss, then we’re stronger and the opportunities are greater on the other side of the hurt we feel now
  • Marianne Williamson, Twitter post (2020)

• Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure.
  • Earl Wilson, as quoted in 0 to Bitch in 10 Seconds Or Less : Quips and Comebacks for Quick-Witted Women (2005) by Amy Hatch, p. 268.

• Failure is an event, not a person. Yesterday ended last night.
  • Zig Ziglar, See You at the Top (2000).

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 252-53.

• [Oxford] Home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs and unpopular names and impossible loyalties.
  • Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism, closing paragraph of preface.

• Now a' is done that men can do,
  And a' is done in vain.
  • Robert Burns, It Was a' for our Rightfu' King.

• He that is down can fall no lower.
  • Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part I (1663-64), Canto III, line 878.

• Camelus desiderans cornua etiam aures perdidit.
  • The camel set out to get him horns and was shorn of his ears.
  • Erasmus, Adagia. Chil, III. Cent. V. 8. heading. Greek proverb from Apostolius, IX. 59 b, VIII. 43. English a free translation of the same from the rendering of the Proverb applied to Baalam by the Rabbis of the Talmud. Sanhedrin. 106 a.

• He ploughs in sand, and sows against the wind,
  That hopes for constant love of woman kind.
  • Thomas Fuller, Medicina Gymnastica, Volume X, p. 7.

• Failed the bright promise of your early day?
  • Reginald Heber, Palestine, line 113.

• You may boldly say, you did not plough
  Or trust the barren and ungrateful sands
  With the fruitful grain of your religious counsels.
  • Philip Massinger, The Renegado. Arenas arantes. Plough the sands. Phrase used by Mr. Asquith, Nov. 21, 1894, at Birmingham. Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, Part III, Section 2. Mem. 1. Subs. 2.

• "All honor to him who shall win the prize,"
  The world has cried for a thousand years;
  But to him who tries and fails and dies,
  I give great honor and glory and tears.
  • Joaquin Miller, For Those Who Fail.

• If this fail,
  The pillar'd firmament is rottenness,
  And earth's base built on stubble.
  • John Milton, Comus (1637), line 597.

• Nam quamvis prope to, quamvis temone sub uno
  Vertentem sese, frustra sectabere cantum
  Cum rota posterior curras et in axe secundo.
  • Why, like the hindmost chariot wheels, art curst
    Still to be near but ne'er to reach the first.
  • Persius, Satires, V. 71. Dryden's translation. English, one of the mottoes of the Spectator, Tatler, Guardian.

• Do not say before hand what you are going to do; for if you fail, you will be laughed at.
  • Pittacus of Mytilene as quoted by Diogenes Laërtius, i. 78.

• Quod si deficiant vires, audacia certe
  Laus erit: in magnis et voluisse sat est.
  • Although strength should fail, the effort will deserve praise. In great enterprises the attempt is enough.
  • Sextus Propertius, Elegiæ, II. 10. 5.

• Allow me to offer my congratulations on the truly admirable skill you have shown in keeping clear of the mark. Not to have hit once in so many trials, argues the most splendid talents for missing.
  • Thomas De Quincey, Works, Volume XIV, p. 161. Ed. 1863, quoting the Emperor Galerius to a soldier who missed the target many times in succession.

• [Il] battoit les buissons sans prendre les ozillons.
  • He beat the bushes without taking the birds.
  • François Rabelais, Gargantua, Chapter II.

• How are the mighty fallen!
  • II Samuel. I. 25.

• Here's to the men who lose!
  What though their work be e'er so nobly plann'd
  And watched with zealous care;
  No glorious halo crowns their efforts grand—
  Contempt is Failure's share!
  • G. L. Scarborough, —To the Vanquished.

• And each forgets, as he strips and runs
  With a brilliant, fitful pace,
  It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones
  Who win in the lifelong race.
  And each forgets that his youth has fled,
  Forgets that his prime is past,
  Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,
  In the glare of the truth at last.
  • Robert Service, The Men That Don't Fit In.

• We have scotch'd the snake, not killed it.
  • William Shakespeare, Macbeth (1605), Act III, scene 2, line 14.

• Abraham Van Helsing: Nothing is too small. I counsel you, put down in record even your doubts and surmises. Hereafter it may be of interest to you to see how true you guess. We learn from failure, not from success!
  • Dracula by Bram Stoker

• Not all who seem to fail have failed indeed,
  Not all who fail have therefor worked in vain.
  There is no failure for the good and brave.
  • Attributed to Richard Chenevix Trench by Prof. Connington.

• For he that believeth, bearing in hand,
  Plougheth in the water, and soweth in the sand.
  • Sir Thomas Wyatt.

• A 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, conversation with Jean Martet, June 1, 1928—Clemenceau, The Events of His Life as Told by Himself to His Former Secretary, Jean Martet, trans. Milton Waldman, chapter 30, p. 220 (1930).

• I have no use for men who fail. The cause of their failure is no business of mine, but I want successful men as my associates.
  • John D. Rockefeller. Silas Hubbard, John D. Rockefeller and His Career, p. 72 (1904). Hubbard states that this was a favorite saying of Rockefeller's.

• It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.
  • Theodore Roosevelt, governor of New York, speech before the Hamilton Club, Chicago, Illinois, April 10, 1899. The Strenuous Life (vol. 13 of The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, national ed.), chapter 1, p. 320 (1926).

• Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.
  • Oscar Wilde, "Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young," The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, vol. 10, p. 213 (1923).

• Consciousness
• Determination
• Education
• Ego
• Karma (the Law of Cause and Effect)
• Learning
• Mind
• Positive thinking
• Thought
• Self Actualization
• Self-awareness