Success and failure quotes
Quotations about success and failure, from Beckett’s “fail better” and Roosevelt’s man in the arena to Shakespeare on greatness and Marcus Aurelius on obstacles. This is the theme where motivational posters invent the most, so each entry names its earliest verifiable source and, where it is a translation, the translator.
The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
Diligence is the mother of good luck, and God gives all things to industry.
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
But screw your courage to the sticking-place, / And we’ll not fail.
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.
Success is counted sweetest / By those who ne’er succeed.
Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.
I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.
There is a tide in the affairs of men, / Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
You must go on. I can’t go on. I’ll go on.