Success and Failure

Try a thing you haven't done three times. Once, to get over the fear of doing it. Twice, to learn how to do it. And a third time, to figure out whether you like it or not.

Virgil Thomson, in Success and Failure

He is the best sailor who can steer within fewest points of the wind, and exact a motive power of the greatest obstacle.

Henry David Thoreau, in Success and Failure

Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.

Lily Tomlin, in Success and Failure

If you cannot convince them, confuse them.

Harry S Truman, in Success and Failure

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence -- and then success is sure.

Mark Twain, in Success and Failure

If I traveled to the end of the rainbow
As Dame Fortune did intend,
Murphy would be there to tell me
The pot's at the other end.

Bert Whitney, in Success and Failure

Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.

Oscar Wilde, in Success and Failure and Vice and Virtue

The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

Oscar Wilde, in Success and Failure

Make voyages! Attempt them... there's nothing else.

Tennessee Williams, in Success and Failure

Nonchalance is the ability to remain down to earth when everything else is up in the air.

Earl Wilson, in Success and Failure

If you want to make enemies, try to change something.

Woodrow Wilson, in Success and Failure

By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve.

Robert Frost, in Success and Failure and Work and Recreation

We have had an Imperial lesson; it may make us an Empire yet!

Rudyard Kipling, in Success and Failure

There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.

Henry Kissinger, in Success and Failure and Work and Recreation

If you optimize everything, you will always be unhappy.

Don Knuth, in Success and Failure

Pick battles big enough to matter, but small enough to win.

Jonathan Kozol, in Success and Failure

Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.

Christopher Lasch, in Success and Failure

After spending many years in Wall Street and after making and losing millions of dollars I want to tell you this: It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting.

Edwin Lefèvre, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, in Success and Failure

Don't let fear stop you.

William F. Light, (to someone threatening to knock him out), in Success and Failure

It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up.

Vincent T. Lombardi, in Success and Failure