“Glory is like a circle in the water, which never ceaseth to enlarge itself till by broad spreading it disperse to nought.”
William Shakespeare
FameImpermanence
Failure Quotes
200 FAMOUS QUOTES · FAILURE
Failure Quotes
Read 200 of the best failure quotes about mistakes, setbacks, trying again and turning failure into success, from Keats, Edison, Whitman and more.
“What's done cannot be undone.”
William Shakespeare
RegretAcceptance
“Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation!”
William Shakespeare
ReputationLoss
“It is easier to be wise for others than for ourselves.”
François de La Rochefoucauld
Self-AwarenessWisdom
“The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.”
Samuel Johnson
Bad HabitsWarning
“He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.”
Benjamin Franklin
ExcusesResponsibility
“As soon as there is life there is danger.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
RiskLife
“Men were born to succeed, not to fail.”
Henry David Thoreau
PotentialSuccess
“All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.”
Sophocles
HumilityMistakes
“Waste not fresh tears over old griefs.”
Euripides
Moving OnRegret
“One more such victory and we are undone.”
Pyrrhus of Epirus
Hollow VictoryCost
“Self-conceit may lead to self-destruction.”
Aesop
PrideDownfall
“Distrust interested advice.”
Aesop
AdviceCaution
“If one is as careful at the end as he was at the beginning, there will be no ruin.”
Lao Tzu
Finishing WellCarefulness
“Hell is full of good meanings, but heaven is full of good works.”
George Herbert
ActionGood Intentions
“A danger foreseen is half avoided.”
Thomas Fuller
ForesightPreparation
“Better to bend than to break.”
Thomas Fuller
FlexibilityResilience
“Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow; he who would search for pearls must dive below.”
John Dryden
DepthEffort
“The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”
Thomas Paine
StruggleVictory
“Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
FinishingPersistence
“In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences.”
Robert G. Ingersoll
ConsequencesResponsibility
“Negative results are just what I want. They're just as valuable to me as positive results.”
Thomas Edison
ExperimentsLearning
“Victory belongs to the most persevering.”
Napoleon Bonaparte
PerseveranceVictory
“Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.”
Duke of Wellington
Cost Of SuccessLoss
“Oh! what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive!”
Walter Scott
LiesConsequences