Failure Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old failure quotes, failure sayings, and failure proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.

It's fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure. Bill Gates
Failure is enriching. It's also important to accept that you'll make mistakes—it's how you build your expertise. The trick is to learn a positive lesson from all of life's negative moments. Alain Ducasse
We need to accept that we won't always make the right decisions, that we'll screw up royally sometimes—understanding that failure is not the opposite of success, it's part of success. Arianna Huffington
Just because you fail once doesn't mean you're gonna fail at everything. Marilyn Monroe
I've come to believe that all my past failure and frustrations were actually laying the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living I now enjoy. Tony Robbins
You have to be able to accept failure to get better. LeBron James
Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another steppingstone to greatness. Oprah Winfrey
It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. Theodore Roosevelt
Failure is the foundation of success, and the means by which it is achieved. Lao Tzu
Mistakes are the portals of discovery. James Joyce
If you fell down yesterday, stand up today. H.G. Wells
Failure is success if we learn from it. Malcolm Forbes
Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail. Confucious
Negative results are just what I want. They're just as valuable to me as positive results. I can never find the thing that does the job best until I find the ones that don't. Thomas A. Edison
Success is not a good teacher, failure makes you humble. Shah Rukh Khan
The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows. Buddha
Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war. Donald Trump
There's always failure. And there's always disappointment. And there's always loss. But the secret is learning from the loss, and realizing that none of those holes are vacuums. Michael J. Fox
I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying. Michael Jordan
Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor. Truman Capote
Like success, failure is many things to many people. With positive mental attitude, failure is a learning experience, a rung on the ladder, a plateau at which to get your thoughts in order and prepare to try again. W. Clement Stone
If you try to be anyone but yourself, you will fail; if you are not true to your own heart, you will fail. Then again, there's no success like failure. Bob Dylan
I think you have to try and fail, because failure gets you closer to what you're good at. Louis C.K.
Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error. Cicero
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. Winston Churchill
Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure. George Eliot
The chief cause of failure and unhappiness is trading what you want most for what you want right now. Zig Ziglar
There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure. Paulo Coelho
You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space. Johnny Cash
Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself. Charlie Chaplin
It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default. J.K. Rowling
Failure is a bend in the road, not the end of the road. Learn from failure and keep moving forward. Roy T. Bennett
There is no failure except in no longer trying. Elbert Hubbard
Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough. Og Mandino
You have committed a double mistake, firstly by not keeping the engagement yesterday and secondly, by coming when you were not expected. Visvesvaraya
Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly. Robert F. Kennedy
If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried. Steven Wright
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
My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them. Jack Kerouac
I thank God for my failures. Maybe not at the time but after some reflection. I never feel like a failure just because something I tried has failed. Dolly Parton
Life is full of screwups. You're supposed to fail sometimes. It's a required part of the human existance. Sarah Dessen
Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of a greater or equal benefit. Napoleon Hill
Remember that failure is an event, not a person. Zig Ziglar
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. Henry Ford
The wise say that our failure is to form habits: for habit is the mark of a stereotyped world. Anthony C. Grayling
Why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. J.K. Rowling
Failing to prepare is preparing to fail. John Wooden
Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again. Richard Branson
My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with failure. Abraham Lincoln
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
People usually fail when they are on the verge of success. So give as much care to the end as to the beginning. Then there will be no failure. Laozi
Your failures in life come from not realizing your nearness to success when you give up. Yoruba Saying
The great question is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with failure. William Shakespeare
The man who does things makes many mistakes, but he never makes the biggest mistake of all—doing nothing. Franklin
The most important of my discoveries have been suggested to me by my failures. Humphrey Davy
He only is exempt from failures who makes no efforts. Richard Whately
Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, in as much 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 afterward carefully avoid. John Keats
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
A man can fail many times but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else. John Burroughs
The greatest mistake you can make is to be continually fearing you will make one. Hubbard
Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes. John Dewey
I have found that failure is a far better teacher than success. Bernard Baruch
Failures, repeated failures are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success. Charles Kettering
Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. Albert Einstein
Failure is the key to success; each mistake teaches us something. Morihei Ueshiba
By your stumbling, the world is perfected. Sri Aurobindo
There are two kinds of failures; those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought. Laurence J. Peter
Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is a 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
Failure is only postponed success as long as courage coaches ambition. Herbert Kaufman
If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure. Dan Quayle
I would rather fail in a cause that will ultimately succeed than succeed in a cause that will ultimately fail. Woodrow Wilson
A fool often fails because he thinks what is difficult is easy, and a wise man because he thinks what is easy is difficult. Churton Collins
Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure. George Edward
We all have a few failures under our belt. It's what makes us ready for success. Randy K. Milholland
Generally, it is our failures that civilize us. Triumph confirms us in our habits. Clive James
Show me a thoroughly satisfied man— and I will show you a failure. Thomas Edison
Failure is more frequently from want of energy than want of capital. Daniel Webster
The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it; so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it. Elbert Hubbard
Whoever is aware of his own failing will not find fault with the failings of other men. Sa'Di
Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to the error that counts. Nikki Giovanni
Use missteps as stepping stones to deeper understanding and greater achievement. Susan L. Taylor
You will be tested. You won't always succeed. But know that you have it within your power to try. Barack Obama
I am never daunted. If I fail once, it is not a signal that it is the end of the road; it is an opportunity to do even better on the next attempt. Norman Grant
You will make mistakes. But our mistakes are even more valuable for our growth than getting it all 'right.' It's in the areas that are difficult for us to work with, that we make lots of mistakes in, that we gain our greatest experiences. Angel Kyodo Williams