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
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Success and failure
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“There is a great deal to be said for the Arts. For one thing they offer the only career in which commercial failure is not necessarily discreditable.”
Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966) said by 1966 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sentimentality is a failure of feeling.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Reformation theology” … pretends to prefer to Pharasaic ostentation a modest invisibility, which in practice means conformity to the world. When that happens, the hallmark of the Church becomes justitia civilis instead of extraordinary visibility. The very failure of the light to shine becomes the touchstone of our Christianity.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By willing endurance we cause suffering to pass. Evil becomes a spent force when we put up no resistance. By refusing to pay back the enemy with his own coin, and preferring to suffer without resistance, the Christian exhibits the sinfulness of contumely and insult. Violence stands condemned by its failure to evoke counter-violence.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An illness is a failure to solve a mental or psychological problem in the correct manner . . . The energy that would be used to solve the problem instead is spent maintaining the illness. It is therefore necessary that an attempt be made as soon as possible to solve the problem, which of course must first be discovered by the ego, which has avoided it.”
Jane Roberts (1929–1984) said by 1984 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The search for freedom through sex is doomed to failure.”
Camille Paglia (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What changed for me was – I don’t want to go through life being scared of it, being scared of love, being scared of rejection, being scared of failure.”
Chris Martin (born 1977) first seen 2014 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On a Zane Lowe interview, 2014. source
“Our sufferings have taught us that no nation is sufficient unto itself, and that our prosperity depends in the long run, not upon the failure of our neighbors but their successes.”
John Buchan (1875–1940) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A University's Bequest to Youth" (10 October 1936)
“Who I am as a guitarist is defined by my failure to become Jimi Hendrix.”
John Mayer (born 1977) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mayer, John (2004). "Jimi Hendrix" RollingStone.com (accessed March 21, 2007)
“James Lipton: The most pompous arrogant failure in history.”
David Cross (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”
Paulo Coelho (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When there is no penalty for failure, failures proliferate.”
George Will (born 1941) first seen 2021 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Opinion: Biden’s Afghanistan policy shows the world a wobbly, impulsive U.S.” The Washington Post, (Aug. 27, 2021)
“Character, courage, industry and perseverance are the four pillars on which the whole edifice of human life can be built and failure is a word unknown to me.”
Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Mohammad Ali Jinnah : A Political Study (1962) by M. H. Saiyid, p. 9
“Her family was slower to forgive a failure of discretion than they were to forgive most things actually prohibited in Scripture.”
Marilynne Robinson (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A successful marriage puts an end to feminine friendships; but if marriage is a failure, the young woman must have others to confide in.”
André Maurois (1885–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To our refusal to accept the French view of German duplicity and to our failure to regard the peace treaties as binding, many of our present troubles are due.”
Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone (1907–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All who strive to live for something beyond mere selfish aims find their capacities for doing good very inadequate to their aspirations. They do so much less than they want to do, and so much less than they, at the outset, expected to do, that their lives, viewed retrospectively, inevitably look like failure.”
Lydia Maria Child (1802–1880) first seen 1868 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to John Fraser (1868)
“Failure can get to be a rather comfortable old friend.”
Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“With carefully nourished resentment, a man can go through his life blaming someone or something else for his failures. This enables him to be a failure and to feel morally superior to the world at the same time.”
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist) first seen 2021 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Private Clubs and the Sour Pleasures of Resentment", The Epoch Times (August 19, 2021).
“Henceforth, there is to be no testing oneself against the best, with the possibility, even the likelihood, of failure: instead, one is perpetually to immerse oneself in the tepid bath of self-esteem, mutual congratulation, and benevolence toward all.”
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Rage of Virginia Woolf (Summer 2002).
“I knew, as everyone knows, that the easiest way to attract a crowd is to let it be known that at a given time and a given place some one is going to attempt something that in the event of failure will mean sudden death. That's what attracts us to the man who paints the flagstaff on the tall building, or to the 'human fly' who scales the walls of the same building.”
Harry Houdini (1874–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Life and Many Deaths of Harry Houdini (1993) by Ruth Brandon, p. 153
“Each play was, for me, 'a different kind of failure.' And that fact, I suppose, sent me on to write the next one. (p. 15)”
Harold Pinter (1930–2008) first seen 1958 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ellipses in the version published in Various Voices omit quotation listed first above, which is featured on the home page of Pinter's official Website, HaroldPinter.org, and also quoted in his 2005 Nobel Lecture (see ne…
“There are other examples of this passive tolerance of practices running totally contrary to our values. The failure of social services, the police and local authorities, to deal with child sex abuse in places like Rotherham was frankly unforgiveable.”
David Cameron (born 1966) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our sense of free will results from a failure to appreciate this: We do not know what we intend to do until the intention itself arises. To understand this is to realize that we are not the authors of our thoughts and actions in the way that people generally suppose.”
Sam Harris (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our evils are due mainly to the failure to apply to our international relationships knowledge which is of practically universal possession, often self-evident in the facts of daily life and experience.”
Norman Angell (1872–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The main failure of education is that it has not prepared people to comprehend matters concerning human destiny.”
Norman Cousins (1915–1990) first seen 1978 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 15 April 1978.
“War is primarily not about victory or defeat but about death and the infliction of death. It represents the total failure of the human spirit.”
Robert Fisk (1946–2020) said by 2020 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call "failure" is not the falling down, but the staying down.”
Mary Pickford (1892–1979) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Why Not Try God?", Chapter 6 (newspaper serial), appeared in St. Petersburg Times, 25 January 1936, sect. 2, p. 3
“So what are we saying? Our Eden's a failure. A made-up story to fit the picture-perfect world. The one with "I do"s and "I love you." And "we are made for each other." Is forever over now?”
Sarah McLachlan (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Boredom lies only with the traveler's limited perception and his failure to explore deeply enough. After a while, I found my perception limited.”
William Least Heat-Moon (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Remember this central truth. Your enemy is there because he, too, has weighed the consequences of failure and accepts them. Play always to win, because nothing else matters”
Alice Borchardt (1939–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It does not matter what you know about anything if you cannot communicate to your people. In that event you are not even a failure. You're just not there.”
Saul Alinsky (1909–1972) said by 1972 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The long history of mankind is studded with convergences, perhaps most notably in social systems and the use of artefacts and technology. But for human history, set in the arrow of time, there appears to be one intolerable stumbling-block. This is the catastrophic failure in human values and decency.”
Simon Conway Morris (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don't necessarily believe that the sting of failure is a bad thing. It gives you a certain amount of freedom to just say fuck it!”
Billy Corgan (born 1967) first seen 1998 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Guitar World. July 1998.
“The world is your kaleidoscope, and the varying combinations of colours, which at every succeeding moment it presents to you are the exquisitely adjusted pictures of your ever-moving thoughts.So you will be, what you "will" to be. Let failure find its false content, In that poor word "environment," But spirit scorns it and is free.”
James Allen (1864–1912) said by 1912 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Here's what we shouldn't do. We shouldn't import failed criminal justice policies from the United States. Mega prisons and mandatory minimums have failed in the United States,we've got to learn from the failure of the American criminal justice policy. Get tough on guns, invest in crime prevention and invest in victim services”
Michael Ignatieff (born 1947) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: English Language Leaders' Debate (April 12, 2011).
“Not failure, but low aim, is crime.”
James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) first seen 1868 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: For an Autograph" (1868), p. 48
“To legislation... the Puritans resorted. Instead of guiding, they repressed, and thus pitted themselves against the unconquerable impulses of human nature. Believing that nature to be depraved, they felt themselves logically warranted in putting it in irons. But they failed; and their failure ought to be a warning to their successors.”
John Tyndall (1820–1893) said by 1893 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When it comes to bullshit, they [advertising agencies] have forgotten what you haven't already learnt about all this crap! (To Rachel - shortly before her firing, when her supposed expertise in advertising results in the failure of the advertising task).”
Alan Sugar (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“speculation is carried on in safety, but, when it comes to action, fear causes failure.”
Thucydides (461–395 BC) said by 395 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Far from making ‘America great again,’ this epic policy failure will further tarnish the United States’ reputation as a country that knows how to do things effectively.”
Stephen Walt (born 1955) first seen 2020 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted by Julian Borger in US awol from world stage as China tries on global leadership for size, The Guardian, Berger followed the quote with the words: Walt wrote in Foreign Policy, in a commentary titled “the death o…
“Maybe not thinking about the price of failure was what marked a hero. On the other hand, maybe it just marked a damn fool.”
Harry Turtledove (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power station was graphic evidence, not only of how obsolete our technology was, but also of the failure of the old system. At the same time, and such is the irony of history, it severely affected our reforms by literally knocking the country off its tracks.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I still have an optimistic view because I think our future is what we're going to arrive at all together - whatever we all do collectively, meaning the whole planet. I like to rehearse for an optimistic future, because why not rehearse for the best performance possible? Reality might produce setbacks here and there, but if you don't plan for the optimum outcome, you're almost guaranteeing failure.”
Syd Mead (1933–2019) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Movie Television, Toronto, 1992
“Doesn't Joe Wilson owe the President and American an apology for his deception and his own intelligence failure? — March 15, 2004”
Jeff Gannon (born 1957) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[The poll tax] was a classic case of a good idea being entrusted to Chris Patten and becoming a terrible failure.”
Norman Tebbit (1931–2025) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the BBC (16 November, 2000).
“As a people we have become obsessed with Health. There is something fundamentally, radically unhealthy about all this. We do not seem to be seeking more exuberance in living as much as staving off failure, putting off dying. We have lost all confidence in the human body.”
Lewis Thomas (1913–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you look at the graph of the growth of G.M.O.s, the growth of application of glyphosate and autism, it’s literally a one-to-one correspondence. And you could make that graph for kidney failure, you could make that graph for diabetes, you could make that graph even for Alzheimer’s.”
Vandana Shiva (born 1952) first seen 2014 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the correlation of autism, kidney failure, diabetes and Alzheimer's with GMOs and glyphosate, as quoted in "Seeds of Doubt" by Michael Specter, The New Yorker (25 August 2014)
“Ideological data—like personality data—is treacherous when fed into a computer. For by its use the loyalty and security board’s failure or refusal to clear a person becomes a virtually incontestable ‘fact.’ All one has to do now is to press the ‘subversive’ button and all the names of ‘dangerous’ people come tumbling out.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Teachers, not students, are the ones who are failing. As Albert Einstein said that “all religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree,” the detachment of philosophy – the forefather of all knowledge and academic disciplines – from mathematics, sciences, and technology is the fundamental reason for failure in modern-day K-12 and higher education.”
Newton Lee wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source