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. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
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Success and failure
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“The defeated are those who never fail. Defeat means that we lose a particular battle or war. Failure does not allow us to go on fighting.”
Paulo Coelho (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others.”
Amelia Earhart (1897–1939) said by 1939 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Please know that I am aware of the hazards. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be a challenge to others.”
Amelia Earhart (1897–1939) said by 1939 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I turned against the left wing because they don't like genetics, because genetics implies that sometimes in life we fail because we have bad genes. They want all failure in life to be due to the evil system.”
James D. Watson (1928–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No single should have holdings so extensive that its failure could send the world economy into another ... If an institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist.”
Bernie Sanders (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Failure to delegate causes managers to be crushed and fail under the weight of accumulated duties that they do not know and have not learned to delegate.”
James D. Mooney (1884–1957) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: James D. Mooney (1931), cited in: Guy Kimberley Hutt (1990), Organizational decentralization and delegation in large New York. p. 1
“We need to focus every inch of our being on climate change, because if we fail to do so than all our achievements and progress have been for nothing and all that will remain of our political leaders’ legacy will be the greatest failure of human history. And they will be remembered as the greatest villains of all time, because they have chosen not to listen and not to act.”
Greta Thunberg (born 2003) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Learn math the way you'd learn anything, like riding a bicycle. Stay on that bicycle. Fall off that bicycle. Do it as long as necessary, until you have mastery. The traditional model, it penalizes you for experimentation and failure, but it does not expect mastery. We encourage you to experiment. We encourage you to fail. But we do expect mastery.”
“I’ve learned that failing forward is the best way to approach it. Failure doesn’t disarm me, it doesn’t scare me. I tell my employees that if you don’t fail forward, the universe will continue to bring you that lesson and it will get harder and harder every time. So when something bad happens, don’t ask, ‘Why did this happen to me?’ Ask, ‘Why is this happening for me?’”
Jennifer Moss (1945–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I can tell you, we are out of the woods, I think. The economy is going to pick up. These are the things we need to look forward to. Not somebody who is praying for Namibia to fail. How can citizens pray [for failure].”
Hage Geingob (1941–2024) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Some Namibians are praying for me to fail – Geingob" in The Namibian (2019)
“With everyone's sincere cooperation, this can be done and if I fail, it will be the failure of the archdiocese.”
Jacob Manathodath (born 1947) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Will restore our lost name: Jacob Manathodath (23 June 2018) The Hindu
“(about anarchists) we've got a wonderful critique of failure: if you don't fail from time to time, you're not setting your goals high enough.”
Margaret Killjoy (born 1982) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How can we fail to understand that when children are not taught from an early age to respect any rules, once they become adults they will suffer from a form of “psychological AIDS” that leads the individual to not recognize (not possessing “specific psychic antibodies”) any form of frustration because they are completely unprepared for failure?”
Paolo Crepet (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think in Nigeria, we don’t even discuss failure. It is as if nobody failed, whereas we know that many of us have failed and continue to fail in our personal business enterprises. For me it is first about being honest with oneself about the reasons why an enterprise is not working; whether it’s business, personal or environmental, and then deciding on how to change it.”
“A proud heart can survive general failure because such a failure does not prick its pride. It is more difficult and more bitter when a man fails alone.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Failure to grasp centrifugal meaning is incomplete reading; failure to grasp centripetal meaning is incompetent reading.”
Northrop Frye (1912–1991) said by 1991 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don't call that a failure, a real failure is when a man talks for an hour and says nothing.”
Joseph Dare (reverend) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Using, as an excuse, others’ failure of common sense is in itself a failure of common sense.”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (born 1960) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“With the American failure came world failure.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The more congenial page of some tenth-rate poeticule worn out with failure after failure and now squat in his hole like the tailless fox, he is curled up to snarl and whimper beneath the inaccessible vine of song.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The most fundamental liberal failure of the current era: the failure to embrace a moral vision of America based on the transcendent faith that human beings are more than the sum of their material appetites, our country is more than an economic machine, and freedom is not license but responsibility.”
Bill Moyers (1934–2025) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: For America's Sake" speech (12 December 2006), as quoted in Moyers on Democracy (2008), p. 21
“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.”
Barack Obama (born 1961) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech on the floor of the US Senate in which he opposed raising the US debt limit. (16 March 2006)
“The elementary truth is that the Great Depression was produced by government mismanagement. It was not produced by the failure of private enterprise, it was produced by the failure of government to perform a function which had been assigned to it.”
Milton Friedman (1912–2006) first seen 1976 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Economic Myths and Public Opinion” The Alternative: An American Spectator vol. 9, no. 4, (January 1976) pp. 5-9, Reprinted in Bright Promises, Dismal Performance: An Economist’s Protest, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanov…
“No, the problem that the politicians have with the professors is not one of failure to communicate; it is one of failure to say what politicians want (need) to hear, especially when they are trying to seize power from other politicians. And necessity is the mother of invention: a different group, the policy entrepreneurs, has arisen to fill the gap.”
Paul Krugman (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.”
Erik Naggum (1965–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Don't confuse cancellation with failure. Although this is also a failure.”
David Letterman (born 1947) first seen 2024 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Jon Stewart, attributed to Letterman -- After the Cut | The Daily Show, 19 May 2024
“At the vital moment there seems to be a failure of leadership, and also a failure of the general human spirit among the peoples. I hope I am wrong, but I have a sense of impending calamity, a fear that the war was only the vanguard of calamity ... I cannot look at that draft treaty without a sense of grief and shame.”
Jan Smuts (1870–1950) first seen 1919 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Smuts to Mary Murray, wife of Gilbert Murray, on the Treaty of Versailles, 2 June 1919, as cited in Antony Lentin, 2010, Jan Smuts – Man of courage and vision, p. 106.
“Failure is not fatal but failure to change might be.”
John Wooden (1910–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The fact that nobody asks you to sing is not an indication that you should sing louder. This sounds obvious until it's applied to matters like mass transportation. There are virtually no private mass transit companies. This does not represent the failure of the market to provide a needed service, it represents the failure of an unneeded service to go away!”
L. Neil Smith (1946–2021) said by 2021 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All stemmed from Quoyle's chief failure, a failure of normal appearance.”
Annie Proulx (born 1935) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Actually, we have misdefined "hypocrisy." Hypocrisy is not the failure to practice what you preach but the failure to believe it. Hypocrisy is propaganda.”
Peter Kreeft (born 1937) first seen 1988 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Pillars of Unbelief," National Catholic Register Jan-Feb 1988
“Among many other things, 9/11 was a failure of human understanding. It was a mean and nasty and bitter attack on the United States. But it was also about the failure of human beings to understand each other and to learn to love each other. It seems to me that lesson at that morning is something that we must carry with us every day.”
Deval Patrick (born 1956) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Sep. 11 Memorial service speech, Boston (September 11, 2007)
“Bitterness is a greater failure than failure.”
James Richardson (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Markets can be efficient or inefficient; so can governments. thus market failure is a counterpoint to government failure.”
Nicholas Barr (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The matriarchal society is thus the decadent and broken. The strongly matriarchal character of Negro life is due to the moral failure of Negro men, their failure to be responsible, to support the family, or to provide authority. The same is true of American Indian tribes which are also matriarchal today.”
Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a difference between failing and failure. Failing is trying something that you learn doesn't work. Failure is throwing in the towel and giving up.”
“People think it’s a failure to live alone. But it isn’t. The failure is to live with someone because you can’t face anything else.”
M. John Harrison (born 1945) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thought is born of failure. When action satisfies there is no residue to hold the attention; to think is to confess a lack of adjustment which we must stop to consider. Only when the human organism fails to achieve an adequate response to its situation is there material for the process of thought, and the greater the failure the more searching they become. (p. 1)”
Lancelot Law Whyte (1896–1972) said by 1972 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Suicide is often a failure of community, and claiming it as inevitable is a defense against that failure.”
Sarah Schulman (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the absence of truth, there is no penalty for failure. We seem destined to live in a failure-prone society.”
L. K. Samuels (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Any attempt to escape the negative, to avoid it or quash it or silence it, only backfires. The avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering. The avoidance of struggle is a struggle. The denial of failure is a failure. Hiding what is shameful is itself a form of shame.”
Mark Manson (born 1984) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Men must continue to condemn themselves not only for their failure to do what they could, but also for their failure to perform what they could not, for their denial of the absolute good whose categorical demands were laid upon their incapable will.”
H. Richard Niebuhr (1894–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This (Genocide against Tutsi in 1994) was not just a Rwandan failure, it was also a major failure for the international community.”
Mathilde Mukantabana (born 1958) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The 24th Commemoration of Genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda. Michigan State University. (April 2018)
“Weak infrastructure made it difficult to move food from areas with supplies to those facing shortages. It was not a failure of production, it was a failure of connectivity of our systems.”
Agnes Kalibata first seen 2026 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Experts Probe Why Africa’s Food Potential Is Not Feeding Its People ktpress.rw (September 20, 2026)
“It only becomes Failure when you keep trying rather thank thinking of failure as a negative experience, think of it as a learning experience.”
Toyin Sanni (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On failure the participating devices cancel the pairing procedure, and might notify the user of authentication failure.”
“It’s such an important subject for any age,Everyone in life experiences failure, and this book is about how to strategize getting unstuck. Some people may even view Drive.ai being acquired by Apple last year as a failure instead of it becoming the next stand-alone billion- dollar company. I see it as an opportunity for my next company to get there.”
Carol E. Reiley (born 1982) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Failure is not a bad thing so don’t be afraid of failure. Also, determination is key as you need to have a clear vision, and this means knowing your why and what motivates you.”
Hema Vallabh wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Right now there is a failure in the contracting system and a failure in coaching. Those two things contribute significantly to the problem you identified.”
Fourie du Preez (born 1982) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Big interview: Fourie du Preez, July 2019,SA RUGBY MAG by Ryan Rvede
“To succeed in brilliant businesses, to achieve great success, that is what the ambition and efforts of the majority of men aim for. But at the end of the day what do they get for it? Softer cushions, better meat, maybe decorations or medals - that is all. And to think that there are found serious men who consume their whole existence in the pursuit and the expectation of these trivialities.”
Afrikan Spir (1837–1890) said by 1890 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source