Avoiding Failure Quotes

If you're living life from a place of fear, you're not free to take risks or pursue your dreams. If your energy is expended in avoiding failure or rejection, then that energy is used to stay safe, instead of being available to create the life you envision. ~ Lauren Mackler

It is not enough to hope for something to happen and throw it into the universe. You, too, must also work to make it happen. ~ M.B. Dallocchio

The phrase, 'You must die before you die,' is found in most of the world religions. If you don't learn how to die early, you spend the rest of your life avoiding failure. When you can free your True Self, the whole spiritual life opens up. ~ Richard Rohr

Engineering is achieving function while avoiding failure. ~ Henry Petroski

I am facing the most difficult thing of my life, my own greatest failure. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Stress builds character and failure breeds motivation. I guess I'm a Optimist. ~ Noel DeJesus

If Jesus simply came to tell us what to do and provide moral instruction so we could try harder to please God, then his life would have been an utter failure. ~ Matt Perman

Limiting the power of government, in order to liberate the individual, was the great American revolutionary insight. Too much cooperation, avoiding conflict from ordinary people, these things aren't acceptable in America although they may suit China, Indonesia, Britain, or Germany just fine. In America the absence of conflict is a sign of regression toward a global mean, hardly progress by our lights if you've seen much of the governance of the rest of the world where common people are crushed like annoying insects if they argue. ~ John Taylor Gatto

Failure is ... the highway to success. ~ Og Mandino

Most merciful God, order my day so that I may know what you want me to do, and then help me to do it. Let me not be elated by success or depressed by failure. I want only to take pleasure in what pleases you, and only to grieve at what displeases you. ~ Kurt Bjorklund

Whether you are watching a video or playing a game, whether you are doing work or fielding an unwanted phone call, whether you are being successful or smarting from failure - in the ordinary context of daily living, you show the power and viability of Christian faith. ~ Tedd Tripp

Fear was the worst evil ever to plague a man, for with it came hesitation and with that, inaction, failure, death. ~ Melissa McPhail

The principle of avoiding the unnecessary expenditure of energy has enabled the species to survive in a world full of stimuli; but it prevents the survival of the aristocracy. ~ Rebecca West

Teams that focus on learning from failure outperform those that don't, but not everyone works in an organization that takes the long view. ~ Sheryl Sandberg

Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure. ~ Napoleon Hill

Age, mental illness, and failure are all in the mind.

They put the pain there to let you know it hurts. ~ David Holmes

The Second Law of Thermodynamics defines the ultimate purpose of life, mind, and human striving: to deploy energy and information to fight back the tide of entropy and carve out refuges of beneficial order. An underappreciation of the inherent tendency toward disorder, and a failure to appreciate the precious niches of order we carve out, are a major source of human folly. ~ Steven Pinker

I have never described the time I was in Doctor Who as anything except a kind of ecstatic success, but all the rest has been rather a muddle and a disappointment. Compared to Doctor Who, it has been an outrageous failure really - it's so boring. ~ Tom Baker

I had rather be defeated in a cause that will ultimately triumph than triumph in a cause that will ultimately be defeated. ~ Woodrow Wilson

My New Year's Eve is always 2 July, the night before my birthday. That's the night I make my resolutions. And this year scares the life out of me, because no matter how successful, how good things appear, there is always a deep core of failure within me, although I am trying to deal with it. My biggest fear, this coming year, is that I will be waking up alone.
It makes me wonder how many bodies will be fished out of the Thames, how many decaying corpses will be found in one-room flats.
I'm just being realistic. ~ Tracey Emin

It's a lonely road for those of us who choose to be remarkable, and the path of convention can sometimes be appealing. That path is paved with safe lives, middle of the road monotony, and little chance of failure. But where's the fun in being like everyone else out there? ~ Chris Guillebeau

Now that I have made this catalogue of swindles and perversions, let me give another example of the kind of writing that they lead to. This time it must of its nature be an imaginary one. I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:
I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
Here it is in modern English:
Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account. ~ George Orwell

Most people, after one success, are so cringingly afraid of doing less well that they rub all the edge off their subsequent work. ~ Beatrix Potter

There is no such thing as failure, only readiness, ~ S. Kelley Harrell

This dullness of vision regarding the importance of the general welfare to the individual is the measure of the failure of our schools and churches to teach the spiritual significance of genuine democracy. ~ Henry A. Wallace

Failure is information-we label it failure, but it's more like, 'This didn't work, I'm a problem solver, and I'll try something else.' ~ Carol S. Dweck

Trying is fine. Failing is inevitable. Don't let it devour you. ~ Michelle Sagara

following limitations: 1. These are AP films therefore; the cardiac size cannot be accurately assessed. 2. Pleural fluid lies posteriorly creating a denser hemithorax. 3. A pneumothorax lies anteriorly and so can be missed. 4. Upper lobe vessels will be prominent even in the absence of cardiac failure. 5. Good inflation of the lungs is difficult, even if the volumes are normal. ~ David Wilson

He had read lots of stories where heroes succeeded in spite of long odds, where they accomplished a task that everyone else had failed at. He wondered for the first time about all the people who'd gone before those heroes, about whether they'd been at each other's throats, before everything had gone wrong. He wondered if there was a point where they realized they weren't going to make it, weren't going to beat those long odds
that in the legend that would follow, they were going to be the nameless people that failed. ~ Holly Black

But here's the thing Ona. Howard wrote that song for you.' Quinn had never been more sure of anything. 'I think he wrote all his songs for you, Ona, for young and lovely you.'
'Now you're talking foolish.'
'He wrote them for you, and you refused them because he didn't know how to give them to you.' How could he, living his shadow of a life, floundering in the sludge of grief and failure?
'Have you been drinking?'
'Listen to me,' he said. 'You 're the glittering girl with the cherry-wood hair. You're the angel's breath and sunlight.'
'Oh, for heaven's sake.' She sat up crossly, her tufted hair seeming to quiver. 'Quinn Porter,' she said, 'I never took you for a romantic.'
'Howard Stanhope loved you,' he declared. 'I thought you should know.'
'Well, all right.'
'I thought you should know, Ona.'
'Thank you.'
'People should know these things ~ Monica Wood

...it was becoming obvious that the war he had been anticipating, "in three to five years" might have already begun, as many wars do begin, he said, not with a major event reported in the news but with sufferings barely noticed: an unjust law, a murder, a peaceful protest march attacked by police. It begins, according to Leonel, with poverty endured by many and corruption benefiting the few, with crimes unpunished, a hardening of positions, the failure of peaceful means of appeal and redress. ~ Carolyn Forche

Guilt is only another way of avoiding informed action. ~ Audre Lorde

There's really no avoiding the fact that suffering is part of life. And of course we have a natural tendency to dislike our suffering and problems. But I think that ordinarily people don't view the very nature of our existence to be characterized by suffering ..." The Dalai Lama suddenly began to laugh, "I mean on your birthday people usually say, 'Happy Birthday!,' when actually the day of your birth was the birth of your suffering. But nobody says, 'Happy Birth-of-Sufferingday!" he joked. ~ Dalai Lama XIV

We can become fearless as we let go off our grasp on the fear of failure, because failure too is a perception rather than a reality. ~ Gyalwa Dokhampa

Our best successes often come after our greatest disappointments. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

On my tenth birthday a bicycle and an atlas coincided as gifts, and a few days later I decided to cycle to India ... However, I was a cunning child so I kept my ambition to myself, thus avoiding the tolerant amusement it would have provoked among my elders. ~ Dervla Murphy

Cheat (sometimes)

Eating healthily is a part of my lifestyle, but I'm no superhuman. My Kryptonite is at the movie theater. I can't go to the movies unless I have popcorn (with butter and salt, of course), and I'll also get nachos with extra cheese and jalapeños, then some M&Ms, water, and a root beer if I really want to get crazy. It's okay to cheat…provided you do it only occasionally. If you never allow yourself to cheat, you put too much pressure on yourself and doom yourself to failure. Work hard and practice hard, but it's okay to cut yourself a break now and then. ~ Derek Hough

The most tragic paradox of our time is to be found in the failure of nation-states to recognize the imperatives of internationalism. ~ Earl Warren

He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person's failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him. ~ Anonymous

Did you follow me here?"
"Something like that."
I let out a frustrated groan. "Can't anyone just talk to me straight? Why is everyone avoiding my damn questions tonight?"
Bishop's brows went up. "Okay, fine. Yes, I followed you here. Better?"
"Yes. Stalkery, but better."
"I'm not stalking you."
"Spoken like a true stalker ~ Michelle Rowen

Looking back I see that I was always afraid of something: of the dark, of displeasing people, of failure. Anything I accomplished had to be done across a barrier of fear. ELEANOR ROOSEVELT ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Willful ignorance and endless laws become the replacement for self-education and self-restraint, because ignorance and laws are easy. ~ Holly Lisle

Not thinking it's possible is a failure of imagination. ~ Vinod Khosla

We may infer from any defeat of ours that it is due either to lack of faith or failure to obey. No other reason can suffice. ~ Watchman Nee

Is it optimism or madness that keeps one forging ahead despite failure after failure? ~ Megan Chance

Patient stated that she felt like a burden to loved ones" - much later, when I read the notes from the emergency room, I did not have any recollection of the conversation. 'A burden to loved ones': this language must have been provided to me. I would never use the phrase in my thinking or writing. But my resistance has little to do with avoiding a platitude. To say a burden is to grant oneself weight in other people's lives: to call them loved ones is to fake one's ability to love. One does not always want to subject oneself to self-interrogation imposed by a cliché. ~ Yiyun Li

Goal-oriented people exist in a state of continuous presuccess failure at best, and permanent failure at worst if things never work out. Systems people succeed every time they apply their systems, in the sense that they did what they intended to do. The goals people are fighting the feeling of discouragement at each turn. The systems people are feeling good every time they apply their system. ~ Scott Adams

Just remember: If you make unfounded assumptions before choosing a path, you're blindly sauntering along. ~ Auliq Ice

Play with no fear of failure. ~ Max Seibald

Nearly' only counts in horseshoes and hand-grenades. ~ Neil Gaiman

We need to substitute 'trier' for failure. The word 'fail' is closely related to the word fall. A child taking his first step falls, cries and then tries again. Why does he try again? Because he wants to, but does not, know the meaning of failure. ~ Anup Kochhar

To our benefit, death isn't affected by an economic failure, and it never takes a holiday. In addition, a bereaved rich man is easier to con than a poor one in the same condition. A poor man, straightaway, understands death to be inevitable, but it takes a rich man some time to see that the end can't be circumvented with the application of enough collateral. ~ Jeffrey Ford