Lessons Learned: Failure Quotes to Inspire Wisdom and Persistence
1. “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill
2. “Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end.” – Denis Waitley
3. “The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” – Nelson Mandela
4. “Don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t waste energy trying to cover up failure. Learn from your failures and go on to the next challenge. It’s OK to fail. If you’re not failing, you’re not growing.” – H. Stanley Judd
5. “Failure is not about insecurity. It’s about lack of execution.” – Jeffrey Gitomer
6. “The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same.” – Colin R. Davis
7. “Success is not built on success. It’s built on failure. It’s built on frustration. Sometimes it’s built on catastrophe.” – Sumner Redstone
8. “The phoenix must burn to emerge.” – Janet Fitch
9. “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” – Thomas A. Edison
10. “Success is not the absence of failure; it’s the persistence through failure.” – Aisha Tyler
11. “Failure is only the opportunity more intelligently to begin again.” – Henry Ford
12. “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” —Michael Jordan
13. “The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.” – Stephen McCranie
14. “You don’t drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there.” – Edwin Louis Cole
15. “The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
16. “Failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently.” – Henry Ford
17. “There is no failure except in no longer trying.” – Elbert Hubbard
18. “Failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of success.” – Arianna Huffington
19. “The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.” – Steve Jobs
20. “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall.” – Confucius
21. “Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out.” —Benjamin Franklin
22. “When I was young, I observed that nine out of 10 things I did were failures. So I did 10 times more work.” —George Bernard Shaw
23. “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” —Henry Ford
24. “Success is not built on success. It’s built on failure. It’s built on frustration. Sometimes its built on catastrophe.” —Sumner Redstone
25. “Winners are not afraid of losing. But losers are. Failure is part of the process of success. People who avoid failure also avoid success.” —Robert T. Kiyosaki
26. “Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself.” —Charlie Chaplin
27. “Giving up is the only sure way to fail.” —Gena Showalter
28. “If you don’t try at anything, you can’t fail…it takes backbone to lead the life you want” —Richard Yates
29. “Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead-end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” —Denis Waitley
30. “One who fears failure limits his activities.” ― Henry Ford
31. “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” —Albert Einstein
32. “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” —Winston Churchill
33. “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” —Robert F. Kennedy
34. “The phoenix must burn to emerge.” —Janet Fitch
35. “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” —Ken Robinson
36. “Our greatest glory is, not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” —Oliver Goldsmith
37. “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent in doing nothing.” —George Bernard Shaw
38. “It’s failure that gives you the proper perspective on success.” —Ellen DeGeneres
39. “There is no failure except in no longer trying.” —Chris Bradford
40. “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.” —Winston Churchill
41. “No human ever became interesting by not failing. The more you fail and recover and improve, the better you are as a person. Ever meet someone who’s always had everything work out for them with zero struggle? They usually have the depth of a puddle. Or they don’t exist.” —Chris Hardwick
42. “The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.” —Elbert Hubbard
43. “Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.” —Lance Armstrong
44. “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” —Winston Churchill
45. “I’d rather be partly great than entirely useless.” —Neal Shusterman
46. “We are all failures–at least the best of us are.” —M. Barrie
47. “There is no failure except in no longer trying.” – Elbert Hubbard
48. “In every way that counted, I failed him.” – Sarah J. Maas
49. “You may experience disappointment if you fail, but you are destined for failure if you don’t try.” – Beverly Sills
50. “Don’t fret about being effective. Simply focus on remaining true to the truth.” – Dorothy Day
51. “When I have tried and failed, I shall have failed.” – Sophocles, Antigone
52. “Failure is a greater teacher than success” – Clarissa Pinkola Estés
53. “Nearly’ only counts in horseshoes and hand-grenades.” – Neil Gaiman
54. “Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure.” – George E. Woodberry
55. “There is something good in all seeming failures. You are not to see that now. Time will reveal it. Be patient.” – Swami Sivananda
56. “I never fail. It’s just that the people around me succeed more than I.” – Carroll Bryant “It is not failure to fail.” – Roshani Chokshi
57. “Whether or not there was room in her life for Tamani, Laurel knew that there was precious little room in Tamani’s life for anything but Laurel. He lived to protect her, and he’d never failed her. Annoyed her, frustrated her, hurt her, maddened her – but never once failed her.” – Aprilynne Pike
58. “Failures plagued me. Things I had omitted or ignored, neglected. What I should have given and hadn’t. I felt the biting pang of every unfulfillment.” – Richard Matheson
59. “The difference between Success and failure is not giving up.” – Steven Redhead, The Solution
60. “Many of my most important discoveries have arisen from my failures.” – Humphry Davy
61. “Sometimes, by losing a battle, you can discover a new way to win the war.” – Donald Trump
62. “All human actions are equal… and all are fundamentally destined to fail.” – Carl Sandburg
63. “Success is never final, failure is never fatal. It’s courage that counts.” – John Wooden
64. “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” – Colin Powell
65. “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” – Henry Ford
66. “Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is just another steppingstone to greatness.” – Oprah Winfrey
67. “Failure will never overcome me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.” – Og Mandino
68. “Failure at some point in your life is inevitable, but giving up is unforgivable.” – Joe Biden
69. “I have self-doubt, insecurity, and fear of failure. But I don’t deny it; I embrace it. You have to embrace failure to overcome it.” – Kobe Bryant
70. “You have to be able to accept failure to improve.” – LeBron James
71. “If something is important enough, you should try, even if failure is the likely outcome.” – Elon Musk
72. “You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. You don’t dwell on it, but you don’t forget it either.” – Johnny Cash
73. “There can be no failure for a man who has not lost his courage, character, self-respect, or self-confidence. He remains a King.” – Orison Swett Marden
74. “There is no innovation and creativity without failure. Period.” – Brene Brown
75. “An investment with an 80% chance of success sounds more attractive than one with a 20% chance of failure. The mind struggles to recognize that they are the same.” – Daniel Kahneman
76. “No experience is inherently a cause of success or failure. We do not suffer from the shock of our experiences, but rather we make of them what suits our purposes.” – Alfred Adler
77. “You can be discouraged by failure, or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes, because that’s where you’ll find success – on the far side of failure.” – Thomas J. Watson
78. “Winners are simply people who have experienced failure and responded better than others.” – Aaron Gordon
79. “You cannot learn anything from success; you only learn from failure.” – Jim Dale
80. “Without intellectual honesty, a culture cannot tolerate failure because people are too attached to ideas that may be bad or not working. They cannot admit failure.” – Jensen Huang
81. “War is the failure of diplomacy.” – John Dingell
82. “I’ve experienced a lot of success; I’ve had failures, and I learn from them.” – Gordon Ramsay
83. “Remember your dreams and fight for them. The fear of failure is the only thing that can make your dreams impossible.” – Paulo Coelho
84. “The only true failure in life is not being true to the best one knows.” – Buddha
85. “Not failure, but low aim, is the real crime.” – James Russell Lowell
86. “Success is often the result of mastering failure.” – Sylvester Stallone
87. “If you give up every time you encounter a new challenge, quitting can alter your self-perception. You might start to believe you’re feeble or inadequate because you can’t persevere long enough to witness positive outcomes.” – Amy Morin
88. “The only true failure is the failure to attempt.” – George Clooney
89. “Failure is a valuable teacher. Those who truly reflect learn just as much from their failures as they do from their successes.” – John Dewey
90. “Discipline is rooted in pride, meticulous attention to detail, and mutual respect and confidence. It must become so ingrained that it surpasses the allure of achieving the goal or the fear of failing.” – Gary Ryan Blair
91. “If I were not African, would it be as evident to me that Africa needs not just handouts, but tools for self-sufficiency and fair access to resources? Would I recognize that while African nations suffer from poor leadership, they also possess resilient people with agency and voices?” – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
92. “Failure is a form of success if we extract lessons from it.” – Malcolm Forbes
93. “I won’t reach a point and declare, ‘Okay, I’m finished.’ Success is never final; I’ll continue pushing forward. Similarly, failure is never fatal. Just keep moving forward. I aim for the stars and beyond.” – Conor McGregor
94. “The paths to success and failure are nearly identical.” – Colin R. Davis
95. “Failure holds little significance. It takes bravery to make a fool of oneself.” – Charlie Chaplin
96. “The failure to invest in youth reflects a lack of empathy and a monumental lapse in practicality.” – Coretta Scott King
97. “If we don’t strive for success, we risk failure.” – Dan Quayle
98. “Baseball may be deemed a game of failure, but that’s only true on the offensive side.” – Clayton Kershaw
99. “At the end of the day, your success and failure rest solely on your shoulders. Once you realize and accept that, and integrate it into your work ethic, you’ll begin to flourish. Blaming others for your shortcomings will only perpetuate failure.” – Erin Cummings
100. “Ambition has acquired a negative connotation, but I believe it is a potent force for positive change. I can tolerate ambition gone awry, but I cannot abide by lowered expectations, wasted time, laziness, and the glorification of failure and ignorance.” – Robert Greene
