Success and Failure

Never try to out-stubborn a cat.

Robert A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long, in Success and Failure

The first myth of management is that it exists. The second myth of management is that success equals skill.

Robert Heller, in Success and Failure

Prophecy is many times the principal cause of the events foretold.

Thomas Hobbes, in Science and Religion and Success and Failure

Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account.

Doug Hofstadter, in Success and Failure

Success is like a fart -- only your own smells nice.

James P. Hogan, in Success and Failure

When everyone is against you, it means you are absolutely wrong -- or you are absolutely right.

Albert Guinon, in Success and Failure

You can pretend to be serious; you can't pretend to be witty.

Sacha Guitry, in Success and Failure

No man who needs a monument ever ought to have one.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, in Success and Failure

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

Winston Churchill, in Success and Failure

Man is able to do what he is unable to imagine. His head trails a wake through the galaxy of the absurd.

René Char, in Success and Failure

No pressure, no diamonds.

Mary Case, in Success and Failure

A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking.

Arthur Block, in Success and Failure

A celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness.

Daniel Boorstin, in Success and Failure

This is as true in everyday life as it is in battle: we are given one life and the decision is ours whether to wait for circumstances to make up our mind, or whether to act and, in acting, to live.

Omar Bradley, in Success and Failure

He who thinks he is raising a mound may only in reality be digging a pit.

Ernest Bramah, in Success and Failure

I have learned to use the word "impossible" with the greatest caution.

Werner von Braun, in Success and Failure

Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.

Werner von Braun, in Science and Religion and Success and Failure

Why be a man when you can be a success?

Bertolt Brecht, in Success and Failure

Brooks' Law: Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.

Fred Brooks, The Mythical Man-Month, in Success and Failure

I avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep going forward.

Charlotte Brontë, in Success and Failure