QUOTES ON FAILUREJesus Christ’s life was an absolute failure from every standpoint but God’s.
Oswald Chambers (1874–1917)
Failure is an invitation to have recourse to God.
Antonin Dalmace Sertillanges
A failure is a person who has blundered but is not able to cash in on the experience.
Elbert Green Hubbard (1856–1915)
A failure is not someone who has tried and failed; it is someone who has given up trying and resigned himself to failure; it is not a condition, but an attitude.
Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986)
A failure, within God’s purpose, is no longer really a failure. Thus the cross, the supreme failure, is at the same time the supreme triumph of God, since it is the accomplishment of the purpose of salvation.
Paul Tournier (1898–1986)
A stumble may prevent a fall.
Sir Thomas Fuller (1608–1661)
Any man may make a mistake; none but a fool will persist in it.
Cicero (106–43 b.c.)
Beware of succumbing to failure as inevitable; make it the stepping-stone to success.
Oswald Chambers (1874–1917)
Failure is not falling down; it is remaining there when you have fallen.
Failure is not the worst thing in the world. The worst is not to try.
Failure isn’t fatal.
Failure teaches success.
Fall seven times, stand up eight.
Japanese Proverb
Great accomplishments are often attempted but only occasionally reached. Those who reach them are usually those who missed many times before. Failures are only temporary tests to prepare us for permanent triumphs.
Charles R. Swindoll (1934– )
He who has never failed cannot be great. Failure is the true test of greatness.
Herman Melville (1819–1891)
I’d rather attempt to do something great and fail than attempt to do nothing and succeed.
Robert Harold Schuller
I’ve never met a person, I don’t care what his condition is, in whom I could not see possibilities. I don’t care how much a man may consider himself a failure, I believe in him, for he can change the thing that is wrong in his life any time he is ready and prepared to do it. Whenever he develops the desire, he can take away from his life the thing that is defeating it. The capacity for reformation and change lies within.
Preston Bradley (1888–1983)
If at first you don’t succeed, relax; you’re just like the rest of us.
If you have made mistakes, even serious mistakes, there is always another chance for you. And supposing you have tried and failed again and again, 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 (1893–1979)
If you’ve never stubbed your toe, you’re probably standing still.
In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.
It is defeat which educates us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression.
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
It is very difficult to be humble if you are always successful, so God chastises us with failure at times in order to humble us, to keep us in a state of humility.
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899–1981)
It’s the nature of God to make something out of nothing; therefore, when anyone is nothing, God may yet make something of him.Martin Luther (1483–1546)
Make kindling out of a fallen tree.
Spanish Proverb
Many of life’s failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
More men fail through lack of purpose than lack of talent.
Billy Sunday (1862–1935)
No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep picking ourselves up each time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. . . . It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present in us; it is the very sign of his presence.
C. S. Lewis (1898–1963)
Not failure, but low aim, is a crime.
James Russell Lowell (1819–1891)
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
Often the doorway to success is entered through the hallway of failure.
Erwin W. Lutzer (1941– )
Often we assume that God is unable to work in spite of our weaknesses, mistakes, and sins. We forget that God is a specialist; he is well able to work our failures into his plans.
Erwin W. Lutzer (1941– )
Only those who see themselves as utterly destitute can fully appreciate the grace of God.
Erwin W. Lutzer (1941– )
Our Father in heaven . . . help us to see that it is better to fail in a cause that will ultimately succeed than to succeed in a cause that will ultimately fail.
Peter Marshall (1902–1949)
Our mistakes won’t irreparably damage our lives unless we let them.
James E. Sweaney
Simon Peter, the Rock, very often looked more like a sandpile than a rock.
John Powell
Stumblers who give up are a dime a dozen. In fact, they’re useless. Stumblers who get up are rare. In fact, they’re priceless.
Charles R. Swindoll
The formula for failure: try to please everybody.
Herbert Bayard Swope (1882–1958)
The glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time you fail.
Chinese Proverb
The human soul, beaten down, overwhelmed, faced by complete failure and ruin, can still rise up against unbearable odds and triumph.
Harold Russell
The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.
John Powell
The past cannot be changed, but our response to it can be.
Erwin W. Lutzer (1941– )
The person who succeeds is not the one who holds back, fearing failure, nor the one who never fails . . . but rather the one who moves on in spite of failure.
Charles R. Swindoll (1934– )
The probability that we may fail in the struggle should not deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533–1592)
There’s no defeat, in truth, save from within;
Unless you’re beaten there, you’re bound to win.
Henry Austin
Those who have failed miserably are often the first to see God’s formula for success.
Erwin W. Lutzer (1941– )
Through God turn our endings into beginnings.
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 (1812–1904)
We mount to heaven mostly on the ruins of our cherished schemes, finding our failures were successes.
Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888)
What seems to be the end may really be a new beginning.
When you feel that all is lost, sometimes the greatest gain is ready to be yours.
Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380–1471)
Whether we stumble or whether we fall, we must only think of rising again and going on in our course.
François Fénelon (1651–1715)
Who falls for love of God shall rise a star.
Ben Jonson (1572–1637)
You don’t drown by falling in the water, you drown by staying there.
You must appreciate failure to appreciate success.
Chinese Proverb
