Success and Failure

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

George Bernard Shaw, in Success and Failure

When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work.

George Bernard Shaw, in Success and Failure and Work and Recreation

You see things and you say, "Why?" But I see things that never were; and I say, "Why not?"

George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah, Part I, Act I (1921), in Success and Failure

Take a chance and you may lose. Take not a chance and you have lost already.

Søren Kierkegaard, in Success and Failure

Anything not worth doing is worth not doing well. Think about it.

Elias Schwartz, in Success and Failure

Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.

Albert Schweitzer, in Success and Failure

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

Alan Kay, in Success and Failure and Work and Recreation

Life is a great big canvas; throw all the paint you can at it.

Danny Kaye, in Life and Death and Success and Failure

I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest.

John Keats, in Success and Failure

We can do anything we want to if we stick to it long enough.

Helen Keller, in Success and Failure

We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities.

Walt Kelly, in Success and Failure

Large increases in cost with questionable increases in performance can be tolerated only in race horses and women.

Lord Kelvin, in Men and Women and Success and Failure

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.

Robert F. Kennedy, in Success and Failure

If someone had told me I would be pope one day, I would have studied harder.

Pope John Paul I, in Success and Failure and Wisdom and Ignorance

Every man wishes to rule the world. Unfortunately, the world rules every man.

Jeremy Preston Johnson, in Success and Failure

Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake when you make it again.

Franklin P. Jones, in Success and Failure

Mistakes are the portals of discovery.

James Joyce, in Success and Failure

Positive anything is better than negative nothing.

Elbert Hubbard, in Success and Failure

There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.

Victor Hugo, in Success and Failure and War and Peace

Oh, my friend, it's not what they take away from you that counts. It's what you do with what you have left.

Hubert Humphrey, in Success and Failure