Famous quotes

Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,808 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

English Italiano Polski עברית Français Português فارسی Español 中文 Русский Deutsch العربية हिन्दी 日本語 Ελληνικά Latina

Success and failure

Love Friendship Happiness Hope Fear Courage Death Life Time War Peace Freedom Truth Wisdom Knowledge Science Art Music Nature Money Work Power God Beauty Laughter Family Success and failure Change Dreams Books and reading

“Canada regards herself as responsible to all mankind for the peculiar ecological balance that now exists so precariously in the water, ice and land areas of the Arctic archipelago. We do not doubt for a moment that the rest of the world would find us at fault, and hold us liable, should we fail to ensure adequate protection of that environment from pollution or artificial deterioration.”
Pierre Trudeau (1919–2000) first seen 1969 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: House of Commons Debate (24 October 1969)
“If the National Socialist Movement should fail to understand the fundamental importance of this essential principle [race], if it should merely varnish the external appearance of the present State and adopt the majority principle, it would really do nothing more than compete with Marxism on its own ground.”
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mein Kampf, Volume 2, Chapter IV, "Personality and the Ideal of the People's State," Trans. Marco Roberto, MVR, 2015, p. 33, first published 1926
“The Churches as Churches have always been and cannot fail to be institutions not only alien to, but directly hostile towards, Christ's teaching.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In order to correctly define art, it is necessary, first of all, to cease to consider it as a means to pleasure and consider it as one of the conditions of human life. ...Reflecting on it in this way, we cannot fail to observe that art is one of the means of affective communication between people.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It once occurred to a certain king, that if he always knew the right time to begin everything; if he knew who were the right people to listen to, and whom to avoid; and, above all, if he always knew what was the most important thing to do, he would never fail in anything he might undertake.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) first seen 1903 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Part VII: Stories Given to Aid Persecuted Jews (1903) Three Questions
“Wars can be prevented just as surely as they can be provoked, and we who fail to prevent them must share the guilt for the dead.”
Omar Bradley (1893–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words (1992) by Peace Pilgrim, p. 113
“Unmoved though Witlings sneer and Rivals rail, Studious to please, yet not ashamed to fail. He scorns the meek address, the suppliant strain. With merit needless, and without it vain. In Reason, Nature, Truth, he dares to trust: Ye Fops, be silent: and ye Wits, be just.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1749 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Tragedy of Irene (1749), Prologue
“We cannot afford weakly to blind ourselves to the actual conflict which faces us today. The issue is joined, and we must fight or fail.”
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) said by 1919 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If our farmers now used the wasteful methods that served for their great grand-fathers they would not merely fail in the present, but would work a grave wrong to the American citizens of the future. In the same way we must apply new political methods to meet the new political needs, or else we shall stiffer, and our children also.”
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) said by 1919 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nature never "fails." Nature complies with its own laws. Nature is the law. When Man lacks understanding of Nature's laws and a Man-contrived structure buckles unexpectedly, it does not fail. It only demonstrates that Man did not understand Nature's laws and behaviors. Nothing failed. Man's knowledge or estimating was inadequate.”
Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In "How Little I Know", in Saturday Review (12 Nov 1966), 152. Excerpted in Buckminster Fuller and Answar Dil, Humans in Universe (1983), 31.
“Our nation, this generation, will lift the dark threat of violence from our people and our future. We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage. We will not tire, we will not falter and we will not fail.”
George W. Bush (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Since September 11, an entire generation of young Americans has gained new understanding of the value of freedom and its cost and duty and its sacrifice. The battle is now joined on many fronts. We will not waver, we will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail. Peace and freedom will prevail. Thank you. May God continue to bless America.”
George W. Bush (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I told Barack Obama that I wouldn't let the automakers fail. I won't dump this mess on him.”
George W. Bush (born 1946) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In November 2008.
“In citizens like these, we see the best of our country – resilient and hopeful, caring and strong. These virtues give me an unshakable faith in America. We have faced danger and trial, and there is more ahead. But with the courage of our people and confidence in our ideals, this great Nation will never tire … never falter … and never fail.”
George W. Bush (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One fail-safe after another had let them down. Helped by the ionospheric storm, the sheer perversity of inanimate things struck again.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Say that a thing is so, according to the Pope or the Bible, and it will be dismissed as a superstition without examination. But preface your remark merely with "they say" or "don't you know that?" or try (and fail) to remember the name of some professor mentioned in some newspaper; and the keen rationalism of the modern mind will accept every word you say.”
G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The bodies and the bones of those That strove in other days to pass, Are wither'd in the thorny close, Or scatter'd blanching on the grass. He gazes on the silent dead: "They perish'd in their daring deeds." This proverb flashes thro' his head, "The many fail: the one succeeds.”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“O lift me from the grass! I die! I faint! I fail! Let thy love in kisses rain On my lips and eyelids pale. My cheek is cold and white, alas! My heart beats loud and fast: O press it to thine own again, Where it will break at last!”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) first seen 1819 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Indian Serenade" (1819), st. 3
“The American political experiment was new to all human experience, and the world expected us to fail. If Washington had not stepped forward again, first at the Constitutional Convention, then as our first elected President, we might well have failed.”
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We will at all times be ready to talk, if talk will help. But we must also be ready to resist with force, if force is used upon us. Either alone would fail. Together, they can serve the cause of freedom and peace.”
John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something — because it is always before one's eyes.) The real foundations of his enquiry do not strike a man at all. Unless that fact has at some time struck him. — And this means: we fail to be struck by what, once seen, is most striking and most powerful.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The end of living, or the ultimate good, which is to be sought for its own sake, according to the universal opinion of mankind, is happiness; yet men, for the most part, fail in the pursuit of this end, either because they do not form a right idea of the nature of happiness, or because they do not make use of proper means to attain it.”
Epicurus (342–270 BC) said by 270 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They never fail who die In a great cause.”
Lord Byron (1788–1824) said by 1824 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Marino Faliero, Act II, Scene 2, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“Fail I alone, in words and deeds? Why, all men strive and who succeeds?”
Robert Browning (1812–1889) first seen 1859 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Last Ride Together", line 67 (1859).
“Have you found your life distasteful? My life did and does smack sweet. Was your youth of pleasure wasteful? Mine I save and hold complete. Do your joys with age diminish? When mine fail me, I'll complain. Must in death your daylight finish? My sun sets to rise again.”
Robert Browning (1812–1889) first seen 1876 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: At the 'Mermaid'" (1876)
“[I am] fast becoming a patriot of the most decided stamp. Scornfully as I used to speak and think of Scotland in my hours of bitterness and irritation, I never fail to stand up manfully in defence of it thro' thick and thin, whenever a renegade Scot takes upon him to abuse it.”
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) first seen 1824 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Thomas Murray (24 August 1824), quoted in Fred Kaplan, Thomas Carlyle: A Biography (1983), p. 100
“The weakest living creature, by concentrating his powers on a single object, can accomplish something. The strongest, by dispensing his over many, may fail to accomplish anything. The drop, by continually falling, bores its passage through the hardest rock. The hasty torrent rushes over it with hideous uproar, and leaves no trace behind.”
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) first seen 1825 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The life of Friedrich Schiller: Comprehending an examination of his works (1825).
“It is a maxim among lawyers that whatever hath been done before may be done again, and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice and the general reason of mankind. These, under the name of precedents, they produce as authorities to justify the most iniquitous opinions, and the judges never fail of directing them accordingly.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Not to feel exasperated, or defeated, or despondent because your days aren't packed with wise and moral actions. But to get back up when you fail, to celebrate behaving like a human--however imperfectly--and fully embrace the pursuit that you've embarked on. (Hays translation)”
Marcus Aurelius (121–180) said by 180 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Not to feel exasperated or defeated or despondent because your days aren't packed with wise and moral actions. But to get back up when you fail, to celebrate behaving like a human—however imperfectly—and fully embrace the pursuit you've embarked on.”
Marcus Aurelius (121–180) said by 180 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is my firm conviction that if the State suppressed capitalism by violence, it will be caught in the coils of violence itself, and fail to develop non-violence at any time. The state represents violence in a concentrated and organized form. The Individual has a soul, but as the state is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence.”
Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) first seen 1934 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Modern Review (October, 1935) p. 412. Interview with Nirmal Kumar Bose (9/10 November 1934)
“The process of being brought up, however well it is done, cannot fail to offend.”
C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Funeral of a Great Myth", in Walter Hooper, ed., Christian Reflections (1967)
“They would say," he answered, "that you do not fail in obedience through lack of love, but have lost love because you never attempted obedience.”
C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are two ways to live, he decided. You can be rich, or you can deliberately refuse to be rich. You can possess money, or you can despise money; the one fatal thing is to worship money and fail to get it.”
George Orwell (1903–1950) said by 1950 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Soviet-style communism failed, not because it was intrinsically evil but because it was flawed. It allowed too few people to usurp too much power. Twenty-first century market-capitalism, American style, will fail for the same reasons. Both are edifices constructed by the human intelligence, undone by human nature.”
Arundhati Roy (born 1961) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The time would fail me if I were to recite all the big names in history whose exploits are perfectly irrational and even shocking to the business mind. The incongruity is speaking; and I imagine it must engender among the mediocrities a very peculiar attitude, towards the nobler and showier sides of national life.”
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) said by 1894 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The troubles of our proud and angry dust Are from eternity, and shall not fail. Bear them we can, and if we can we must. Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Each time I fail to think about death, I have the impression of cheating, of deceiving someone in me.”
Emil Cioran (1911–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I remember Icarus. He flew too close to the sun. In the stories, though, it’s worth it. Always worth it to have tried, even if you fail, even if you fall like a meteor forever. Better to have flamed in the darkness, to have inspired others, to have lived, than to have sat in the darkness, cursing the people who borrowed, but did not return, your candle.”
Neil Gaiman (born 1960) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nothing is more common than energy in money-making, quite independent of any higher object than its accumulation. A man who devotes himself to this pursuit, body and soul, can scarcely fail to become rich. Very little brains will do; spend less than you earn; add guinea to guinea; scrape and save; and the pile of gold will gradually rise.”
Samuel Smiles (1812–1904) said by 1904 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.”
Beverly Sills (1929–2007) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Incredible Quotations : 230 Thought-Provoking Quotes with Prompts to Spark Students' Writing, Thinking, and Discussion (1997) by Jacqueline Sweeney
“Get jailed, jump bail Join the army, if you fail”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (501–501 BC) said by 501 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter I, as translated by , , 2000, ISBN: 0231106572.
“If you have doubt about suffering and the other Four Truths, you may quickly ask about them now. Do not harbor doubts and fail to clear them up.”
Gautama Buddha (501–501 BC) said by 501 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first ... I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”
Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Stephen Hawking: 'There is no heaven; it's a fairy story'" by Ian Sample, in The Guardian (15 May 2011)
“Now the 28 countries with forces in the Gulf area have exhausted all reasonable efforts to reach a peaceful resolution -- have no choice but to drive Saddam from Kuwait by force. We will not fail.”
George H. W. Bush (1924–2018) said by 2018 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country.”
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Despite these shortcomings, the insights into the organization of grammar that were achieved in Cartesian linguistics remain quite impressive, and a careful study of this work can hardly fail to prove rewarding to a linguist who approaches it without prejudice or preconceptions as to the a priori limitations on permitted linguistic investigation.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is only in folk tales, children's stories, and the journals of intellectual opinion that power is used wisely and well to destroy evil. The real world teaches very different lessons, and it takes willful and dedicated ignorance to fail to perceive them. These are, unfortunately, leading themes of history.”
Noam Chomsky (born 1928) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Talk titled "The World After September 11th", AFSC Conference at Tufts University, Massachusetts, December 8, 2001 .
“Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.”
Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) first seen 1932 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: D. H. Lawrence : An Unprofessional Study (1932); also quoted in The Mirror and the Garden : Realism and Reality in the Writings of Anais Nin (1971) by Evelyn J. Hinz, p. 40