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

“Women do not know how to be women exactly; men constantly fail to be men.”
Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim.”
L. Neil Smith (1946–2021) said by 2021 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you fail to pilot your own ship, don't be surprised at what inappropiate port you find yourself docked.”
Tom Robbins (1932–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The heritage we give our children, and the myths we leave to sustain them, must work with the tug and press of life, or they will fail. Adaptability has to be enshrined alongside stability, or the ghost of Darwin will surely come back to haunt us, whispering in our ears the penalty of conceit. We wish our descendants happiness. But over time one criterion alone will judge our efforts. Survival.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Climate change is already . . . costing our nations trillions of dollars [and] we know that none of us can escape the worst that’s yet to come if we fail to seize this moment.”
Joe Biden (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Ognev] recalled endless, heated, purely Russian arguments, when the wranglers, spraying spittle and banging their fists on the table, fail to understand yet interrupt one another, themselves not even noticing it, contradict themselves with every phrase, change the subject, then, having argued for two or three hours, begin to laugh.”
Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) first seen 1887 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Verotchka (1887)
“Not everyone knows when to be silent and when to go. It not infrequently happens that even diplomatic persons of good worldly breeding fail to observe that their presence is arousing a feeling akin to hatred in their exhausted or busy host, and that this feeling is being concealed with an effort and disguised with a lie.”
Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) first seen 1887 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Letter (1887)
“The desire to serve the common good must without fail be a requisite of the soul, a necessity for personal happiness; if it issues not from there, but from theoretical or other considerations, it is not at all the same thing.”
Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) said by 1904 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[D]oes [the Prime Minister] realise that it is precisely because of our admirable record in converting a former colonial empire into a free Commonwealth that we ought to welcome and support anti-colonial resolutions in the United Nations, and that to fail to do so inevitably gives the impression that we still support colonialist régimes?”
Hugh Gaitskell (1906–1963) first seen 1961 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (26 January 1961)
“Moreover, nothing is so rare as to see misfortune fairly portrayed; the tendency is either to treat the unfortunate person as though catastrophe were his natural vocation, or to ignore the effects of misfortune on the soul, to assume, that is, that the soul can suffer and remain unmarked by it, can fail, in fact, to be recast in misfortune's image.”
Simone Weil (1909–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Just as the hand that strikes the ground cannot fail, So is the ruin certain of him who cherishes anger.”
Thiruvalluvar wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My father's work will not go unfinished, even if it takes me to the grave. That is what I want you, as a rider, to understand. All of Ajihad's plans, all his strategies and goals, they are mine now. I will not fail him by being weak. The empire will be brought down, Galbatorix will with dethroned, and the rightful government will be raised.”
Christopher Paolini (born 1983) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Parasites,” hissed Aunt Six, just loud enough that he could not fail to hear. “No skills of their own, so they must live by preventing others from using common sense.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But Voorstod had long ago learned what passed for patience among the prophets: a rage they barely bothered to suppress. According to the prophets, if a man failed in his mission, he failed because Almighty God was unhappy with him and willed it so. If God were happy with him, he could not fail. If he failed, God was unhappy with him, and so were the prophets. It was all very logical.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Machiavelli says that if as a ruler you accept that your every action must pass moral scrutiny, you will without fail be defeated by an opponent who submits to no such moral test. To hold on to power, you have not only to master the crafts of deception and treachery but to be prepared to use them where necessary.”
J. M. Coetzee (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Accept that all of us can be hurt, that all of us can — and surely will at times — fail. Other vulnerabilities, like being embarrassed or risking love, can be terrifying, too. I think we should follow a simple rule: if we can take the worst, take the risk.”
Joyce Brothers (1927–2013) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing (2006) by Larry Chang, p. 415
“An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.”
James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Her cabin’d, ample Spirit, It flutter’d and fail’d for breath. To-night it doth inherit The vasty Hall of Death.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) first seen 1853 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Requiescat", st. 4 (1853)
“Your company may have a reputation for brilliant leadership, outstanding innovation, clever branding and effective change management, but the business could fail if the world changes and you are unprepared.”
Patrick Dixon (born 1957) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Dwellers by the sea cannot fail to be impressed by the sight of its ceaseless ebb and flow, and are apt, on the principles of that rude philosophy of sympathy and resemblance...to trace a subtle relation, a secret harmony, between its tides and the life of man...The belief that most deaths happen at ebb tide is said to be held along the east coast of England from Northumberland to Kent.”
James Frazer (1854–1941) said by 1941 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“With traps and obstacles and hazards confronting us on every hand, only blindness or indifference will fail to turn in all humility, for guidance or for warning, to the study of examples.”
Benjamin N. Cardozo (1870–1938) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Law and Literature" in Law and Literature and Other Essays and Addresses (1931), p. 9.
“A judge is to give effect in general not to his own scale of values, but to the scale of values revealed to him in his readings of the social mind. … Objective tests may fail him, or may be confused as to bewilder. He must then look within himself.”
Benjamin N. Cardozo (1870–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tn taverns better far commune with Thee Than pray in mosques and fail Thy face to see! O first and last of all thy creatures Thou, 'Tis thine to burn and thine to cherish me.”
Omar Khayyám (1048–1131) said by 1131 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If we fail in our efforts to achieve harmonisation of patent law relating to computer-implemented inventions in the European Union, we may well be confronted with a renegotiation of the European Patent Convention. The process of renegotiating the European Patent Convention would not require any contribution from this Parliament.”
Frits Bolkestein (1933–2025) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the European Parliament (23 September 2003)
“A large proportion of Britain's Asian population fail to pass the cricket test. Which side do they cheer for? It is an interesting test. Are you still harking back to where you came from or where you are? I think we have got real problems in that regard.”
Norman Tebbit (1931–2025) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In an interview for the Los Angeles Times (April, 1990).
“We will unilaterally get rid of Trident and cruise, and we will put Polaris into the arms talks with the Soviet Union and hope to phase it out in multilateral negotiations. If the Russians...fail to cut their nuclear forces accordingly it would be a new situation that we could consider at that time.”
Denis Healey (1917–2015) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Times (25 May 1983), p. 1
“The trouble about Europe is what I call the Olive Line, the line below which people grow olives. North of the Olive Line people pay their taxes and spend public money very cautiously. South of it they fail to pay their taxes at all, but spend a lot of public money.”
Denis Healey (1917–2015) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From an interview with Michael Crick, as cited in "Healey: case for leaving Europe stronger than staying", Channel 4 News (9 May 2013)
“In the black sky no star is seen, somewhere in ambush lurks the Angel of Death, but the spices tongues of the masqueraders are loose and shameless A shout: "Make way for the hero!" Ah yes. Displacing the tall one, he will step forth now without fail and sing to us about holy vengeance...”
Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) said by 1966 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I fail to do What I'm trying I've been these walls And everyone who dies Hears other times”
John Frusciante (born 1970) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don't give you permission to fail.”
Martin de Maat (1949–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Without collaboration and synergy among various communities and socioeconomic groups, democracy will eventually fail as it “wastes exhausts and murders itself,” in the words of America’s founding father John Adams.”
Newton Lee wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I now quit altogether public affairs and I lay down my burden. It may be some time before I return to my native land, but I shall always follow the fortunes of the British race and empire with profound interest, and if at any time in the future I can be found of service to his majesty in a private station, I shall not fail.”
Edward VIII (1894–1972) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Abdication Speech, via radio to a worldwide audience. (11 December 1936)
“The earth cracks and is shriveled up; the wind moans piteously; the sky goes out if you should fail.”
William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the ties of kindred and of speech have force enough to bind together a powerful community, such a community may be able to defend its independence. If it fail, the pretension in itself has no claim on the consideration of the rest of mankind.”
James Anthony Froude (1818–1894) said by 1894 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Why did you fail me? I didn't do nothing!" The reply, of course, is: "That's just it.”
Bel Kaufman (1911–2014) said by 2014 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“for liberals, black people are to be “included” and “integrated” into “our” society and culture, while for conservatives they are to be “well behaved” and “worthy of acceptance” by “our” way of life. Both fail to see that the presence and predicaments of black people are neither additions to nor defections from American life, but rather constitutive elements of that life. (p3)”
Cornel West (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Indeed, there is a moment on the first CD — the electrifying opening to "I Got Loaded," which sounds like an R&B standard but isn’t — when you might find yourself asking whether anyone who has ever been smitten by pop music can fail to have his heart stopped by the chords, the swing, and, once again, Steve Berlin’s wonderfully greasy sax.”
Nick Hornby (born 1957) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the Los Lobos boxed set El Cancionero, from Songbook, published in England as 31 Songs (2003)
“There are things that other people do not see: unknown depths, the wellsprings of life... There is grace in elegance; above grace, there is modelling; everything is exaggerated; we call it soft but it is most powerfully soft! Words fail me then.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: About the Chola sculptures, in 1913. quoted in Sunderland, Rev. Jabez T.India in Bondage: Her Right to Freedom Lewis Copeland Company New York 1929p. 350. Quoted and attributed in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduis…
“It is too evident that if the drawing is bad, the color false, the deepest emotion must fail to express itself.”
Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The source of my name,” the vehicle had replied, “The Hundredth Idiot, is a quotation: ’One hundred idiots make idiotic plans and carry them out. All but one justly fail. The hundredth idiot, whose plan succeeded through pure luck, is immediately convinced he’s a genius.’ It is an old proverb.”
Iain Banks (1954–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Most writers are successful in getting their readers’ attention, but fail at getting them to think. If you’re asked to explain anything philosophical to anyone, the chances are great their understanding will be superficial; it’s best they don’t understand than to think they do, so encourage them to grow into understanding and don’t hand them too much explanation.”
Eugene J. Martin (1938–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One is to know that art is not national, that to be merely an American or a French artist is to be nothing; to fail to overcome one's initial environment is never to reach the human.. .Thus when we say one of the ideals of modern art has been internationalism, it is.. ..as a natural consequence of dealing with reality on a certain level. [quote in 1946]”
Robert Motherwell (1915–1991) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Abstract Expressionist Painting in America, W.C, Seitz, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1983, p. 439
“Let's not eliminate nature. Too bad if we fail. You see, in his 'Dejeuner sur l'herbe', Manet ought to have added - I don't know what - a touch of this nobility, whatever it is in this picture that conveys heaven to our every sense. Look at the golden flow of the tall woman, the other one's back.. .They are alive and they are divine.”
Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) first seen 1510 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 186 in: 'What he told me – II. The Louvre' [standing in the Louvre in front of the painting 'Le concert Champêtre', painted by Giorgioni (ca. 1510)
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this crisis in paying attention has taken place at the same time as the worst crisis of democracy since the 1930s. People who can’t focus will be more drawn to simplistic authoritarian solutions– and less likely to see clearly when they fail.”
Johann Hari (born 1979) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let those who think the soul is shallow rail, They must be warned before they dare to leap They'll plunge into the twilight depths where sweep In ceaseless thirst great teeth too swift to fail.”
Philip José Farmer (1918–2009) first seen 1961 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Job's Leviathan" in JD Argassy #58 (1961); re-published in Pearls From Peoria (2006)
“Everything that happened, good or bad, would subtract something from the lessening store of useful energy, till a time arrived when nothing could happen any more, and the universe, frozen into eternal repose, would for ever be as if it were not. /.../ The physical course of nature does not merely fail to indicate design, it seems loudly to proclaim its absence.”
Arthur Balfour (1848–1930) said by 1930 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Your dæmon can only live its full life in the world it was born in. Elsewhere it will eventually sicken and die. We can travel, if there are openings into other worlds, but we can only live in our own. Lord Asriel’s great enterprise will fail in the end for the same reason: we have to build the Republic of Heaven where we are, because for us there is no elsewhere.”
Philip Pullman (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You have haters from all walks of life. I could care less who wants me to fail. They inspire me. Motivates me.”
Stephen A. Smith (born 1967) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted by Richard Sandomir in "ESPN's New Master of the Offensive Foul", New York Times (July 31, 2005).
“God will not forgive us if we fail.”
Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982) said by 1982 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Understanding the Cold War : A Historian's Personal Reflections (2002) by Adam Bruno Ulam and Paul Hollander, p. 269
“Moreover, because the slothful mind is typically brought to its downfall gradually, when we fail to control our speech, we move on to more harsh words. Thus, at first, we are happy to speak of others kindly; afterwards, we begin to pick at the lives of those of whom we speak, and finally our tongues break into open slander against them.”
Pope Gregory I (540–604) said by 604 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source