Quotes about success and failure
14 quotes · 12 authors
Quotes
The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman EmpireEvery man, however brave, who begins by worshipping violence, must end in mere timidity. Every man, however wise, who begins by worshipping success, must end in mere mediocrity.
It is well known that a vital ingredient of success is not knowing that what you're attempting can't be done.
To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well.
Trantor could win even such a war, but perhaps not without paying a price that would make victory only a pleasanter name for defeat.
p. 62
One fail-safe after another had let them down. Helped by the ionospheric storm, the sheer perversity of inanimate things struck again.
p. 223
The theory seems to be that so long as a man is a failure he is one of God's chillun, but that as soon as he has any luck he owes it to the Devil.
A living dog is better than a dead lion. Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to the race of pygmies, and not be the biggest pygmy that he can? Let every one mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made. Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
p. 366
WaldenNo man leaves where he is and seeks a distant place unless he is in some respect a failure.
Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose.
Despite countless hours of practice, dozens of auditions, many artistic disputes, seven demo CDs, and two radical changes in hairstyle, Arrival never arrived. It wasn't that they were bad; it was just that, as they reluctantly came to understand, they really weren't anything special. They were competent. The problem was, there were competent bands everywhere. Competence wasn't the key to stardom; you needed something else. Whatever it was, Arrival didn't have it. (Chapter 3)
"What is that gun firing for?" said Boxer.
"To celebrate our victory!" cried Squealer.
"What victory?" said Boxer. His knees were bleeding, he had lost a shoe and split his hoof, and a dozen pellets had lodged themselves in his hind leg.
"What victory, comrade? Have we not driven the enemy off our soil—the sacred soil of Animal Farm?"
"But they have destroyed the windmill. And we had worked on it for two years!"
"What matter? We will build another windmill. We will build six windmills if we feel like it. You do not appreciate, comrade, the mighty thing that we have done. The enemy was in occupation of this very ground that we stand upon. And now—thanks to the leadership of Comrade Napoleon—we have won every inch of it back again!"
"Then we have won back what we had before," said Boxer.
"That is our victory," said Squealer.
