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Success and failure

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“In the rare cases where it occurs, a failure to increase one's visible consumption when the means for an increase are at hand is felt in popular apprehension to call for explanation, and unworthy motives of miserliness are imputed.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Oh, why do I love Salisbury? It's simple. The population is 40,302. And their member of parliament is John Glen, a Conservative whose eight-year tenure has been widely viewed as a failure. (open brackets: "citation needed", closed brackets.)”
John Oliver (born 1977) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Last Week Tonight -- "Saudi Arabia" (ff. 0:02:43) (15 October 2018)
“We never like to admit to ourselves that we have made a mistake. Organizational structures tend to accentuate this source of failure of information.”
Kenneth Boulding (1910–1993) first seen 1978 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 87 quote in: D.A. Bella (1978) Environment, technology, and future generations
“There is not one instance, not one single, solitary instance in which Ambedkar participated in any activity connected with the struggle to free the country. Quite the contrary- at every possible turn he opposed the campaigns of the national movement, at every setback to the movement he was among those cheering for failure.”
Arun Shourie (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“With engineering, I view this year's failure as next year's opportunity to try it again. Failures are not something to be avoided. You want to have them happen as quickly as you can so you can make progress rapidly.”
Gordon Moore (1929–2023) said by 2023 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We arrive at the point where we, looking over the hundred and twenty five years of independence, can see that the simple government conceived by the revolutionary republicans was a foredoomed failure. It was so because of: 1) the essence of government itself; 2) the essence of human nature; 3) the essence of Commerce and Manufacture.”
Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912) said by 1912 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Canada has an experience of governance of which much of the world stands in dire need. It is a world of increasing dissension and conflict in which a significant contribution is the failure of different ethnic, tribal, religious, or social groups to search for, and agree upon, a common space for harmonious co-existence.”
Aga Khan IV (1936–2025) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address by His Highness the Aga Khan at the Leadership and Diversity Conference, Gatineau, Canada (19 May 2004)
“Perhaps we just have to accept it is God's will that the unorthodox individual is doomed to years of frustration, ridicule and failure in order to act out his role in the scheme of things, until his day arrives and mankind is ready to receive his message: a message which he probably finds hard to explain, but which he knows comes from a far deeper source than conscious thought.”
Charles III (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[It].. ..is a real declaration of love toward art. Abstraction from this world more as a game, less as a failure of the earthly. Somewhere in between. The man in love no longer drinks and eats..”
Paul Klee (1879–1940) first seen 1912 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diary entry (1912), # 922; as quoted by Francesco Mazzaferro, in 'The Diaries of Paul Klee Part Four', : Klee as an Expressionist and Constructivist Painter
“Any attempt to define literary theory in terms of a distinctive method is doomed to failure.”
Terry Eagleton (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Telling your parents you’ve failed at something is harder than the actual failure.”
Chetan Bhagat (born 1974) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Moving forward will not be for the faint of heart. But if the next century witnesses failure, let it be because our science is not yet up to the job, not because we don't have the courage to make less random the sometimes most unfair courses of human evolution.”
James D. Watson (1928–2025) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: All for the Good: Why genetic engineering must soldier on" TIME magazine, Vol. 153, No. 1 (11 January 1999)
“The failure of abstract painting is due to the confusion that exists in the understanding of primitive art [as well as that] concerning the nature of abstraction.”
Barnett Newman (1905–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I often think my life has been a failure. But whenever I drop into a theater and hear women laugh at one of my films, I think, well, if I brightened their day before they went home and did the dishes, maybe my life wasn't wasted, after all.”
Cary Grant (1904–1986) first seen 1969 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "They Changed Their Careers and Became Famous; Cary a Failure?" by Jack Harrison Pollack, Parade (November 16, 1969), p. 7; and The Filmgoer's Book of Quotes (1978) by , p.229
“The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in the stars but in our lousy genes. Or in the failure of one’s conquest of one’s self. The fault, dear Brutus, is in our fear of knowing ourselves.”
Philip José Farmer (1918–2009) said by 2009 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My whole life so far, my whole experience has been that our failure has been not to love enough. This conviction brought me to a rejection of the radical movement after my early membership in the Socialist Party, the Industrial Workers of the World, and the Communist affiliates I worked with.”
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) first seen 1948 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Pilgrimage (1948), p. 126
“One of the reasons why mature people are apt to learn less than young people is that they are willing to risk less. Learning is a risky business, and they do not like failure.”
John W. Gardner (1912–2002) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in "Self-Renewal" (1964)
“[On 2006 Israel-Lebanese war] "..the net result is you have an Israeli government in disarray and a United States administration so identified with Israeli failure right now that it hurts the United States around the world.”
Andrea Mitchell (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...experimental physics was particularly interested in the processes taking place inside the atom, and in this field the classical mechanics was failing conspicuously and completely. Perhaps its most spectacular failure was with the fundamental problem with the structure of the atom.”
James Jeans (1877–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Please don’t nag yourself with thoughts of failure. Do not set goals far beyond your capacity to achieve. Simply do what you can do, in the best way you know, and the Lord will accept of your effort.”
Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) first seen 1989 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Rise to the Stature of the Divine within You, Ensign, Nov 1989, 94.
“The American administration is trying to achieve any gain in the shadow of the embarrassment hitting it because of its failures in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine after the failure of Israel's war on Lebanon and the retreat of America's project in the region.”
Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah (1935–2010) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Senior Shiite Cleric Says U.S. Desperate" Forbes 7 August 2007
“Failure concentrates the mind wonderfully. If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not trying hard enough.”
Jasper Fforde (born 1961) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Is there a place here for the spirit? Is there time on this brief platform for anything other than mind's failure to explain itself?”
R. S. Thomas (1913–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The failure of the "good Germans," not the ranting of the "bad" ones, was the real crime of Germany against European civilization.”
A. J. P. Taylor (1906–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Everything looks like a failure in the middle.”
Rosabeth Moss Kanter (born 1943) first seen 1987 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Slightly edited version of text in The Change Masters, Simon and Schuster, 1987
“Any president can start a war, and use the chaos of disorder that such a war creates as an indefinite argument for prolonging it. It's a war that keeps on giving. Failure means it's even more necessary to keep failing.”
Andrew Sullivan (born 1963) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Of Their Choosing", The Daily Dish (20 September 2007)
“here was Kenilworth now heading the new department concerned with Personnel [-] one of those blank administrative constructs which offered no openings into the world of policy. A dead end. [-] he would soon develop the negative powers of obstruction which always derive from a sense of failure. (IV)”
Lawrence Durrell (1912–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think the greatest taboos in America are faith and failure.”
Michael Malone (1942–2022) first seen 1989 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Guardian (London, July 7, 1989)
“A proper autobiography is a death-bed confession. A true man finds so much work to do that he has no time to contemplate his yesterdays; for to-day and to-morrow are here, with their impatient tasks. The world is so busy, too, that it cannot afford to study any man's unfinished work; for the end may prove it a failure, and the world needs masterpieces.”
Mary Antin (1881–1949) said by 1949 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Despair, when not the response to absolute physical and moral defeat is, like war, the failure of imagination. (p17, III: "What would we create?")”
Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How do you get up in the morning? Another wasted life it's so boring The system never failed you You failed yourself and all of your friends Now your heart is failing too A total system failure they pronounce you”
Juliana Hatfield (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Failure is not a disgrace. It’s just a pitch that you missed, and you’d better get ready for the next one... My son and I are Americans, we prepare for glory by failing until we don’t.”
Craig Ferguson (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Negro soldier was an utter and dismal failure in combat in Europe. When I make that statement, it is not from prejudice. I am not prejudiced against the Negro.”
James Eastland (1904–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The worst of failure in this kind is that it spoils the market for more competent performers.”
James Agate (1877–1947) first seen 1944 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ego 7 (1945), p. 153, July 21, 1944.
“Self-discipline without talent can often achieve astounding results, whereas talent without self-discipline inevitably dooms itself to failure.”
Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“30. The obstacles to soul cognition are bodily disability, mental inertia, wrong questioning, carelessness, laziness, lack of dispassion, erroneous perception, inability to achieve concentration, failure to hold the meditative attitude when achieved.”
Alice Bailey (1880–1949) said by 1949 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The pseudoscience of astrology has no place in magick. Astrology has already died twice: once with the classical gods, and a second time after the Enlightenment. The complete failure of contemporary psychology to create anything other than a vocabulary of intellectual rubbish has encouraged astrology to resurface.”
Peter J. Carroll (1953–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We will have to take risks, to chance failure, to be willing to walk away from the familiar paths that have brought us to this point.”
Alan Hirsch (born 1959) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Becoming an adventurous, liminal church means getting over risk aversion. Often the difference between a successful person (or organization) and a failure lies not in having better abilities or ideas, but in having the courage to bet on one’s ideas, to take a calculated risk — and to act.”
Alan Hirsch (born 1959) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is not in the nature of man to accept permanent failure.”
Edmund Cooper (1926–1982) said by 1982 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The onset of a crisis is usually triggered by a spectacular failure which shakes confidence in fictitious forms of capital.”
David Harvey (born 1935) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Rationality is what we do to organize the world, to make it possible to predict. Art is the rehearsal for the inapplicability and failure of that process.”
Brian Eno (born 1948) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: December 7, 1995, p. 272
“As the number of unexplained, irreducibly complex biological systems increases, our confidence that Darwin’s criterion of failure has been met skyrockets toward the maximum that science allows.”
Michael Behe (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To cut out every negative root would simultaneously mean choking off positive elements that might arise from it further up the stem of the plant. We should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only by our failure to grow anything beautiful from them.”
Alain de Botton (born 1969) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sentir mon Cœur is a privilege only granted to the exceptional man — the one who has the ability to find words that exactly (or, to himself, convincingly) express his feelings. … The value of words help to define the feeling itself. … The common failure is to allow habitual words and phrases, flowing spontaneously from the memory, to determine and deform the feelings.”
Herbert Read (1893–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Modern publication wishes to minimize discussion. … Phrases … are carefully chosen not to stimulate reflection, but to evoke stock responses of approbation or disapprobation. Headlines and advertising teem with them, and we seem to approach a point at which failure to make the stock response is regarded as faintly treasonable.”
Richard Weaver (1910–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Any attempt to break with the past, or with existing social structures, is a failure if it leads to a bored, listless, and colourless style of life; assertive and enduring innovation, like the mastering of a new environment, requires the confidence and discipline which are founded on exuberant emotions.”
John Carroll (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“R. W. K. Paterson makes a central point of identifying Stirner with nihilism. His argument depends on a failure to distinguish between social values, which Stirner does reject, and personal values, to which he is more overtly committed than any other philosopher.”
John Carroll (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To think yourself incapable of crime is one failure of the imagination. To think yourself capable of all crimes is another.”
James Richardson (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The UK can be proud of its real contribution to this unique system and its influence in bringing about effective human rights protection throughout the European continent. It would be deeply regrettable if it were to allow its commitment to that system to be called into question by a failure to defend it against its detractors or to offer its strong support for the vital work of the court.”
Nicolas Bratza (born 1945) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source