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Success and failure

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“There is no way to define and measure success or failure. Success for one is failure for another. Being successful or failing are subjective and not always black and white, at least in my opinion. I don’t see failure as an inability to succeed, but a different experience from the ideal. Every experience is a learning one, what is important is to try and not make the same mistake twice”
Radhika Aggarwal wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Everyone should fail in a big way at least once before they’re forty. I don’t mean little disappointments, like screwing up an important assignment or quitting a good job or even getting fired from a normal job. It needs to be a big failure. You can only fail big if you take a big risk. The bigger you fail, the bigger you’re likely to succeed later.”
Al Neuharth (1924–2013) first seen 1989 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Confessions of an S.O.B. (New York: Doubleday, 1989), p. 24
“You will fail many times. I have done! But don’t let failure stop you. Embrace failure! Learn from it! When you were learning to walk, you fell so many times. It did not stop you. So, when you fail, keep tweaking what you do until you succeed.”
Ruth Oshikanlu (born 1973) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Oshikanlu University Award Acceptance speech 7 November,2019
“The first stone is love, and that shall fail you. The second stone is hate, and that shall fail you. The third stone is knowledge, and that shall fail you. The fourth stone is prayer, and that shall fail you. The fifth stone shall not fail you.”
Stella Benson (1892–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The freedom to fail is vital if you're going to succeed. Most successful people fail from time to time, and it is a measure of their strength that failure merely propels them into some new attempt at success.”
Michael Korda (born 1933) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Success is really a challenge more than an honor, because you don’t want to succeed and lose interest in what made you succeed...This success means maintaining it, or growing it. The real beauty is not in the results, it’s in whatever contributed to the success; the people that helped you, or the habits that got you there. The paper, the money, they’re bonuses, man.”
Black Sherif (born 2002) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Many people dream of success. To me success can only be achieved through repeated failure and introspection. In fact, success represents the 1% of your work which results only from the 99% that is called failure.”
Soichiro Honda (1906–1991) first seen 1989 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in What Creates Jobs? (1989) by Paul Callister; also quoted in The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything (2008) by Stephen Covey
“What can it matter to me, that I succeed or fail? The undertaking is none of mine, if they want me to succeed I’ll fail, and vice versa, so as not to be rid of my tormentors.”
Samuel Beckett (1906–1989) said by 1989 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If your success doesn’t make others a success, then you’re a failure. Your success should affect others positively. If not; then, it’s selfish success.”
Ali Baba (born 1965) first seen 2020 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: I see success that doesn’t help others as failure, says Ali Baba. 4 July 2020, Punch Newspaper.
“In business you wind up trying a lot of things, most of which won’t work. The way you become a good business person is to fail, fail, fail and fail.”
Bob Parsons (born 1950) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Forbes: GoDaddy Billionaire Bob Parsons' 7 Tips for Entrepreneurs (18 October 2015)
“When you fail to go to senior one you go to vocational, when you fail to go senior five you go to vocational, when you fail to go to university you go to vocational – so psychologically we are saying we go there only when we fail.”
Waswa Balunywa (born 1955) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Success means doing the best we can with what we have. Success is the doing, not the getting — in the trying, not the triumph. Success is a personal standard — reaching for the highest that is in us — becoming all that we can be. If we do our best, we are a success. Success is the maximum utilization of the ability that you have.”
Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Subconscious Diet : It's Not What You Put in Your Mouth; It Is What You Put in Your Mind (2005) by Hugh B. Sanders, p. 104
“Love is better than hate, because it brings harmony instead of conflict into the desires of the persons concerned. Two people between whom there is love succeed or fail together, but when two people hate each other the success of either is the failure of the other.”
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To want to be better, one must know what it feels like to FAIL. For failure is temporary but so is a success. So in anything just like what my Papa made sure I knew before he had passed on, -NEVER be afraid to be uncomfortable, EMBRACE the uncertainty, never be afraid to FAIL, never be afraid to TRY, and TRY HARDER.”
Dimples Romana (born 1984) first seen 2022 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dimples Romana: ‘Mas mabuti ang mahirap na may pangarap kaysa may kaya na walang pangarap’, Drew Acierto 30 October 2022.
“I cannot define failure because I don't believe in failure. There is no failure in my book. All I see is success, directed by the Spirit of God.”
T. B. Joshua (1963–2021) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In an interview about his biography - "Untold Story Of A Mystery Prophet TB Joshua" Modern Ghana (April 6 2009)
“If failure has the strength to turn your life into bitterness itself, then patience has the strength to turn your life into the sweetest joy. Do not surrender to fate after a single failure. Failure, at most, precedes success.”
Sri Chinmoy (1931–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nothing fails like success, because we do not learn anything from it. We only learn from failure, but we do not always learn the right things from failure. If there is a failure of expectations, that is, if the messages that we receive are not the same as those we expected, we can make three possible inferences.”
Kenneth Boulding (1910–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Learning from experience, however, can be complicated. It can be much more difficult to learn from success than from failure. If we fail, we think carefully about the precise cause. Success can indiscriminately reinforce all our prior actions.”
N. R. Narayana Murthy (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...we like somebody who succeeds with such bad conscience, and who seems to wish that he had the nerve to be a failure or, better still, something to which the terms success and failure don’t apply — as when Mallory said, about Everest: “Success is meaningless here.”
Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The seventh rule of the ethics of means and ends is that generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics. The judgment of history leans heavily on the outcome of success or failure; it spells the difference between the traitor and the patriotic hero. There can be no such thing as a successful traitor, for if one succeeds he becomes a founding father.”
Saul Alinsky (1909–1972) said by 1972 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“on the train as I faced my disgrace, I saw that Hollywood was not my success, nor my present poverty and anonymity, failure. I saw that "success," "failure," "poverty," "riches," were price tags, money values of the market place which had mesmerized and sidetracked me for years.”
Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If success means living with joy, contentment, and doing great things with my talent, then failure is the opposite of success. It means not living with joy, contentment, or using my skills and gifts. Failure would also mean not pushing myself out of my comfort zone, and not daring to try new things and ideas.”
Oreoluwa Lesi first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: https://www.lionessesofafrica.com/blog/2017/11/1/quote-of-the-day
“• It's O.K. to be ambitious. • It's O.K. to look out for Number One. … • It's O.K. to be a winner. • And it's always O.K. to be rich. A word of caution: people will tell you that success can't buy you happiness. This is true enough, but success is the next best thing to happiness, and if you can't be happy as a success, it's very unlikely that you would find a deeper, truer happiness in failure.”
Michael Korda (born 1933) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“* "...the pursuit of success can be a catalyst for failure. Put another way, success can distract us from focusing on the essential things that produce success in the first place.”
Greg McKeown (author) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If all of the issues that I have worked on were depending on some measure of success, it would be a total failure. I don't anticipate success. We're not asked to be successful, we are only asked to be faithful. I couldn't even tell you what success is.”
Martin Sheen (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you feel comfortable, and you feel happy, and successful at your job, then that’s success. You define that as success, then that’s success. Success is not a general thing. It’s a personal thing. It’s a personal attribute.”
Lupe Fiasco (born 1982) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Success comes on God’s terms, in His time, and in His way. God only allowed me to have success after I’d been broken after I’d stopped seeking success for myself, and after I’d come to terms with the idea that my labors for God might not ever bring me a penny. It was only after I’d lost everything that God was able to get my heart right to the point where He could trust me with success.”
Scott Cawthon (born 1978) first seen 2014 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Scott Cawthon-Christian Developer Spotlight", Geeks Under Grace (October 25, 2014)
“I pray for my children, for their success and not even just material success, success as human beings so that they may be solid, because in our world today somebody has to have the qualities and the skills to live a successful life. I also continue to pray for success in this job, to make a difference in the energy sector.”
Rebecca Miano (born 1966) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You can’t define success in one sentence, a lot of people have tried to do that. Success is relative. What is success to you might not be success to me but I think generally its a state of peace of mind. A state of acceptance and a state of joy.”
Omotola Jalade Ekeinde (born 1978) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What the welfare system and other kinds of governmental programs are doing is paying people to fail. In so far as they fail, they receive the money; in so far as they succeed, even to a moderate extent, the money is taken away.”
Thomas Sowell (born 1930) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: During a discussion in Milton Friedman's "Free to Choose" television series in 1980.
“The task of the wise government of so vast an empire may be an impossible one—I often fear it is so—we may fail in our efforts, but, whether we fail or succeed, let us do our best to compensate for the wrong of the past and the present by conferring on the Indian people whatever good it is in our power to give them.”
John Bright (1811–1889) first seen 1883 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Major Evans Bell (25 August 1883), quoted in The Public Letters of The Right Hon. John Bright, M.P., ed. H. J. Leech (1885), p. 282
“In the real world, very smart people fail and mediocre people rise. Part of what makes people fail or succeed are skills that have nothing to do with IQ. Also, the idea that intelligence can be gauged by an IQ test is erroneous.”
Camille Paglia (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You will fail, you should fail. But if you stick with it, and let your peculiarities become assets, you will succeed.” Commencement address at Bates College.”
Evelynn M. Hammonds (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I will act now. For now is all I have. Tomorrow is the day reserved for the labor of the lazy. I am not lazy. Tomorrow is the day when the evil become good. I am not evil. Tomorrow is the day when the weak become strong. I am not weak. Tomorrow is the day when the failure will succeed. I am not a failure. I will act now.”
Og Mandino (1923–1996) said by 1996 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...One of the things I have discovered is, in Washington, D.C. most people understand the consequences of failure. And if failure is not an option, then it's up to the president to come up with a plan that is more likely to succeed.”
George W. Bush (born 1946) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the House Republican Conference (January 26, 2007)
“I really believe that entrepreneurship is about being able to face failure, manage failure, and succeed after failing”
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They would fail. We would always fail. We weren’t built to do anything but fail. We had the wrong kind of motives and we couldn’t change them. We had a built-in short-sightedness and an inherent selfishness and a self-concern that made it impossible to step out of the little human rut we traveled.”
Clifford D. Simak (1904–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“_Macb._ If we should fail? _Lady M._ We fail! But screw your courage to the sticking-place, And we 'll not fail.”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) said by 1616 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“I was blessed with a sense of my own destiny. I have never sold myself short. I have never judged myself by other people’s standards. I have always expected a great deal of myself, and if I fail, I fail myself. So failure or reversal does not bring out resentment in me because I cannot blame others for any misfortune that befalls me.”
Sophia Loren (born 1934) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Sophia, Living and Loving: Her Own Story (1979) by A. E. Hotchner, p. 76.
“Not all who seem to fail have failed indeed, Not all who fail have therefor worked in vain. There is no failure for the good and brave.”
Richard Chenevix Trench (1807–1886) said by 1886 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Attributed to Trench by Prof. Connington; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 253.
“Victory belongs to those who can say 'Victory is mine'. Success belongs to those who can begin saying 'I will succeed' and say 'I have succeed' in the end.”
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938) first seen 1925 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Published in the Hakimiyet-i Milliye on 12 January 1925.
“Failure is only the opportunity to more intelligently begin again. There is no disgrace in honest failure; there is disgrace in fearing to fail.”
Henry Ford (1863–1947) first seen 1927 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: pp. 19–20. Quoted in Samuel Crowther, "Henry Ford's Problem," The Magazine of Business, vol. 52 (1927), p. 182
“Don't fear failure. — Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.”
Bruce Lee (1940–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Social failure, artistic failure, sexual failure - they are all the same. And lack of money is at the bottom of them all.”
George Orwell (1903–1950) said by 1950 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm proof against that word failure. I've seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.”
George Eliot (1819–1880) first seen 1866 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Felix Holt, the Radical (1866)
“I have to learn to take failure in my stride, failure in work, and failure in relationships.”
Nomzamo Mbatha (born 1990) first seen 2021 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 7 Empowering Quotes From Nomzamo Mbatha to Live Your Life By.February 23, 2021 by Nomthandazo Xaba.
“Failure is a part of life, and it is especially common in the world of entrepreneurship. However, it is important to view failure as an opportunity to learn and grow. Every failure can teach you something new about yourself, your business or the market.”
Khanyi Dlomo wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I fail sometimes, I succeed sometimes, so that's fair enough. It's a package deal. It comes with that package:Failures and success.”
Sachin Tendulkar (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm hopeful. I know there is a lot of ambition in Washington, obviously. But I hope the ambitious realize that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure.”
George W. Bush (born 1946) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with the Associated Press (18 January 2001)