Top 200 Failure Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness.”

— Herman Melville

52. “Go on failing. Go on. Only next time, try to fail better.”

— Samuel Beckett

53. “I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”

— J.K. Rowling

54. “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

— Benjamin Franklin

55. “Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.”

— Bruce Lee

56. “Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.”

— Denis Waitley

57. “Don’t read success stories, you will only get a message. Read failure stories, you will get some ideas to get success.”

— Abdul Kalam

58. “The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.”

— Henry Ford

59. “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.”

— John Wooden

60. “When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal.”

— Napoleon Hill

61. “To learn to succeed, you must first learn to fail.”

— Michael Jordan

62. “Failure gave me strength. Pain was my motivation.”

— Michael Jordan

63. “Fail early, fail often, but always fail forward.”

— John C. Maxwell

64. “The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.”

— Ernest Hemingway

65. “There is no innovation and creativity without failure. Period.”

— Brené Brown

66. “The only thing worse than starting something and failing is not starting something.”

— Seth Godin

67. “Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”

— J.K. Rowling

68. “Don’t be afraid to fail. Anything I’ve ever attempted, I was always willing to fail. ”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

69. “We all make mistakes. If you can’t make mistakes, you can’t make decisions. I’ve made a lot bigger mistakes myself.”

— Warren Buffett

70. “Most people fail, not because of lack of desire, but because of lack of commitment.”

— Vince Lombardi

71. “It’s not really that much big of a deal – you brush it off and you come back. Defeat is the secret ingredient to success.”

— Conor McGregor

72. “Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.”

— Steve Jobs

73. “My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.”

— Abraham Lincoln

74. “It’s not how far you fall, but how high you bounce that counts.”

— Zig Ziglar

75. “Failure is not having the courage to try, nothing more and nothing less.”

— Robin S. Sharma

76. “The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.”

— Stephen McCranie

77. “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”

— Samuel Beckett

78. “The very first company I started failed with a great bang. The second one failed a little bit less, but still failed. The third one, you know, proper failed, but it was kind of okay. I recovered quickly. Number four almost didn’t fail. It still didn’t really feel great, but it did okay. Number five was PayPal.”

— Max Levchin

79. “Failure is success if we learn from it.”

— Malcolm S. Forbes

80. “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”

— George Bernard Shaw

81. “My mentality is that of a samurai. I would rather commit seppuku than fail.”

— Elon Musk

82. “If you’re not in the arena also getting your ass kicked, I’m not interested in your feedback.”

— Brené Brown

83. “You have to go through the worst to get to the best.”

— Anonymous

84. “When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.”

— Dalai Lama XIV

85. “I’ve never been afraid to fail.”

— Michael Jordan

86. “Take chances, make mistakes. That’s how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.”

— Mary Tyler Moore

87. “Most people fail in life not because they aim too high and miss, but because they aim too low and hit.”

— Les Brown

88. “When I started SpaceX I thought that the most likely outcome was failure. And I think to have any other expectation would have been irrational.”

— Elon Musk

89. “Why do we Fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves back up.”

— Christopher Nolan

90. “Don’t be afraid to fail big, to dream big.”

— Denzel Washington

91. “Even if you fall on your face, you’re still moving forward.”

— Victor Kiam

92. “There are no mistakes or failures, only lessons.”

— Denis Waitley

93. “If you can accept losing, you can’t win.”

— Vince Lombardi

94. “Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.”

— Cheryl Strayed

95. “You are not a failure until you start blaming others for your mistakes.”

— John Wooden

96. “Nothing in life is worthwhile unless you take risks. Fall forward. Every failed experiment is one step closer to success.”

— Denzel Washington

97. “Don't fear failure. Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.”

— Bruce Lee

98. “Failure is not the opposite of success; it’s part of success.”

— Arianna Huffington

99. “Go and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here.”

— Neil Gaiman

100. “When life knocks you down, try to land on your back. Because if you can look up, you can get up. Let your reason get you back up.”

— Les Brown