About the only problem with success is that it does not teach you how to deal with failure.
It is a tragic hour, that hour when we are finally driven to reckon with ourselves, when every avenue of mental distraction has been cut off and our own life and all its ineffaceable failures closes about us like the walls of that old torture chamber of the Inquisition.
WILLA CATHER, "The Burglar's Christmas," Home Monthly, Dec. 1896
What people call success is only preparation for the next failure.
If something doesn't go your way, it's probably because you didn't work that hard at it.
CHRIS SIMMS, Lakeland Ledger, Nov. 24, 2005
Through failure, we learn a lesson in humility which is probably needed, painful though it is.
BILL WILSON, As Bill Sees It
Failure is regarded in Hollywood as practically a contagious disease; people will literally cross the road to avoid someone who is tainted with it.
BARRY NORMAN, The Film Greats
Ninety-nine percent of failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.
GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER, as quoted in Roy B. Zuck's The Speaker's Quote Book
One of the most important tasks of a manager is to eliminate his people’s excuses for failure.
ROBERT TOWNSEND, Further Up the Organization
Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it's not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won't. it's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere.
BARACK OBAMA, speech, Jul. 12, 2006
My parents always allowed me to fail when I was growing up, and I think that gave me a lot of strength going forward in my life. I lost high-school and junior-high elections when I ran for class president. I learned early in life to get up and dust yourself off and keep going.
ANDREA WONG, Newsweek, Oct. 15, 2007
A minute's success pays the failure of years.
ROBERT BROWNING, prologue, Apollo and the Fates
