Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street. - Zig Ziglar
Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up. - Chinese Proverb
An inventor fails 999 times, and if he succeeds once, he's in. He treats his failures simply as practice shots. - Charles F. Kettering
No man ever achieved worth-while success who did not, at one time or other, find himself with at least one foot hanging well over the brink of failure. - Napoleon Hill
By seeing the seed of failure in every success, we remain humble. By seeing the seed of success in every failure we remain hopeful. - Anon
If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative. - Woody Allen
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. - Thomas Alva Edison
In a world flagrant with the failures of civilization, what is there particularly immortal about our own? - G.K. Chesterton
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. - Confucius
You can fail so very often. But you are not a failure until you give up. - Anon
The most important of my discoveries have been suggested to me by my failures. - Humphrey Davy
A rejection [cf. failure] is nothing more than a necessary step in the pursuit of success. - Bo Bennett
We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery. - Samuel Smiles
Psychoanalysis shows the human infant as the passive recipient of love, unable to bear hostility. Development is the learning to love actively and to bear rejection. - Karl Stern
I take rejection as someone blowing a bugle in my ear to wake me up and get going, rather than retreat. - Sylvester Stallone
You need to develop, somehow, a huge amount of faith and confidence in yourself, because there's a lot of rejection throughout an actor's life and you have to believe in yourself more than anyone else. - Stephen Collins
They say President Wilson has blundered. Perhaps he has, but I notice he usually blunders forward. - Thomas Alva Edison
Notice the difference between what happens when a man says to himself, "I have failed three times," and what happens when he says, "I am a failure." - S.I. Hayakawa
Because a fellow has failed once or twice or a dozen times, you don't want to set him down as a failure till he's dead or loses his courage. - George Horace Lorimer
Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. - Sir Winston Churchill
Having harvested all the knowledge and wisdom we can from our mistakes and failures, we should put them behind us and go ahead. - Edith Johnson
The man who has done his level best....is a success, even though the world may write him down a failure. - B. C. Forbes
Often the difference between a successful man and a failure is not one's better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on his ideas, to take a calculated risk, and to act. - Maxwell Maltz
We seem to gain wisdom more readily through our failures than through our successes. We always think of failure as the antithesis of success, but it isn't. Success often lies just the other side of failure. - Leo F. Buscaglia
He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being. - Paul Tillich
Remember that failure is an event, not a person. - Zig Ziglar
Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure...than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. - Theodore Roosevelt
In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure. - Bill Cosby
Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit. - Napoleon Hill
The only real failure in life is the failure to try. - Anon
Success is never final, failure is never fatal. It's courage that counts. - John Wooden
Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. - Thomas Alva Edison
All my successes have been built on my failures. - Benjamin Disraeli
I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. - Michael Jordan
Failure is success if we learn from it. - Malcolm S. Forbes
There is no failure except in no longer trying. - Elbert Hubbard
Remember the two benefits of failure. First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn't work, and second, the failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach. - Roger Von Oech
Failure is the tuition you pay for success. - Walter Brunell
Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure. - Anon
Restlessness is discontent and discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure. - Thomas Alva Edison
The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure. - Sven Goran Eriksson
Try and fail, but don't fail to try. - Stephen Kaggwa
There are no failures - just experiences and your reactions to them. - Tom Krause
There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure. - Colin Powell
Success builds character, failure reveals it. - Dave Checkett
Don't fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have. - Elbert Hubbard
Some people use failure as an excuse to give up, to become bitter, or cynical. Other people look at failure as an opportunity to revisit past decisions and to devise new strategies. - Catherine Pulsifer, from Do Not Be Discouraged
For every failure, there's an alternative course of action. You just have to find it. When you come to a roadblock, take a detour. - Mary Kay Ash
Successful people see alternatives and are willing to try different ways. People who only see failure are unable to see another way and give up to easily. - Catherine Pulsifer, from Hope
There is a vast difference between feeling like a failure, and actually being one. - Brian G. Jett
One who makes no mistakes never makes anything. - Anon
Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough. - Og Mandino
Failure is nature's plan to prepare you for great responsibilities. - Napoleon Hill
Failure is in a sense the highway to success, as each discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true. - John Keats
We don't grow unless we take risks. Any successful company is riddled with failures. - James E. Burke
A failure is a man who has blundered, but is not able to cash in the experience. - Elbert Hubbard
To begin to think with purpose, is to enter the ranks of those strong ones who only recognize failure as one of the pathways to attainment. - James Allen
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
Failures are like skinned knees, painful but superficial. - H. Ross Perot
Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure. - George E. Woodberry
Fear of failure must never be a reason not to try something. - Frederick Smith
Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure. - Earl Wilson
The person interested in success has to learn to view failure as a healthy, inevitable part of the process of getting to the top. - Dr. Joyce Brothers
Forget about the consequences of failure. Failure is only a temporary change in direction to set you straight for your next success. - Denis Waitley
Everyone has a success mechanism and a failure mechanism. The failure mechanism goes off by itself. The success mechanism only goes off with a goal. Every time we write down and talk about a goal we push the button to start the success mechanism. - Charles 'Tremendous' Jones
My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure. - Abraham Lincoln
Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement. - Charles F. Kettering
Persistent people begin their success where others end in failure. - Edward Eggleston
The way to succeed is to double your failure rate. - Thomas Watson
Before success comes in any man's life, he's sure to meet with much temporary defeat and, perhaps some failures. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and the most logical thing to do is to quit. That's exactly what the majority of men do. - Napoloen Hill
History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats. - B.C. Forbes
Fall seven times, stand up eight. - Japanese Proverb
Even if you fall on your face, you're still moving forward. - Robert C. Gallagher
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. - Samuel Beckett
You always pass failure on the way to success. - Mickey Rooney
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
Stumbling is not falling. - Portuguese Proverb
A stumble may prevent a fall. - English proverb
It's how you deal with failure that determines how you achieve success. - David Feherty
All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming. - Helen Keller
Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor. - Truman Capote
When you make a mistake or get ridiculed or rejected, look at mistakes as learning experiences, and ridicule as ignorance. Look at rejection as part of one performance, not as a turn down of the performer. - Denis Waitley
Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success. - Dale Carnegie
Failure doesn't mean you are a failure...it just means you haven't succeeded yet. - Robert Schuller
Failure to prepare. Prepare to fail. - Roy Keane
When I was a young man I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. I didn’t want to be a failure, so I did ten times more work. - George Bernard Shaw
Image © Aparna Chatterjee 2010
