Nobody cleared a path for themselves by giving up.

Alacia Bessette, Simply from Scratch, 2010

If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure.

Anonymous¹, often attributed to Dan Quayle

It is possible to fail in many ways...while to succeed is possible only in one way.

Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC), Nichomachean Ethics²

You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed³ if you don't try.

Beverly Sills (1929 - )

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.

Bill Cosby (1937 - )

If at first you don't succeed, find out if the loser gets anything.

Bill Lyon

Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent.

Carl Jung (1875 - 1961)

I think you actually get a kick out of being disappointed and under-achieving, because it's easier, isn't it? Failure and unhappiness is easier because you can make a joke out of it.

David Nicholls, One Day, 2010

Act as if it were impossible to fail.

Dorothea Brande

If you're willing to fail interestingly, you tend to succeed interestingly.

Edward Albee

Behind many acts that are thought ridiculous there lie wise and weighty motives⁴.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613 - 1680)

It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.

Gore⁵ Vidal (1925 - )

Men are born to succeed, not fail.

Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)

I can't give you a sure-fire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time.

Herbert Bayard Swope (1882 - 1958)

Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than I was and began diverting all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.

J. K. Rowling, Harvard Commencement Address, 2008

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not lived at all. In which case, you've failed by default.

J. K. Rowling, Harvard Commencement Address, 2008

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria⁶ if you let it.

J. K. Rowling, Harvard Commencement Address, 2008

Don't be discouraged by a failure. It can be a positive experience. Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterwards carefully avoid.

John Keats (1795 - 1821)

Next to trying and winning, the best thing is trying and failing.

L. M. Montgomery (1874 - 1942), Anne of Green Gables, 1908

If you have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another chance for you. What we call failure is not the falling down but the staying down.

Mary Pickford (1893 - 1979)

You always pass failure on the way to success.

Mickey Rooney (1920 - )

Success isn't permanent, and failure isn't fatal.

Mike Ditka (1939 - )

If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style.

Quentin Crisp

We all have a few failures under our belt. It's what makes us ready for the successes.

Randy K. Milholland, Midnight Macabre⁷, 10-18-05

A minute's success pays the failure of years.

Robert Browning (1812 - 1889)

Try as hard as we may for perfection, the net result of our labors⁸ is an amazing variety of imperfectness. We are surprised at our own versatility⁹ in being able to fail in so many different ways.

Samuel McChord Crothers

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.

Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

Thomas A. Edison (1847 - 1931)

Have you heard that it was good to gain the day? I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.

Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892)