Success and Failure

People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them that Benjamin Franklin said it first.

Unknown, in Success and Failure

Perfection is only achieved on the point of collapse.

Unknown, (from Bjarne Stroustrup's book on C++), in Success and Failure

Putt's Law: Technology is dominated by two types of people: Those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand.

Unknown, 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

Never try to out-stubborn a cat.

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

If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

Neil Peart, in Success and Failure

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Plato, The Republic, in Success and Failure and Work and Recreation

Life's a bitch, and life's got lots of sisters.

Ross Presser, in Life and Death and Success and Failure

Imbesi's Law with Freeman's Extension: In order for something to become clean, something else must become dirty; but you can get everything dirty without getting anything clean.

Unknown, in Success and Failure

It is a mistake to allow any mechanical object to realize you are in a hurry.

Unknown, in Success and Failure

It is always better to fail in doing something than to excel in doing nothing.

Unknown, in Success and Failure and Work and Recreation

It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.

Unknown, in Success and Failure and Vice and Virtue

There's nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.

Peter F. Drucker, in Success and Failure

There's no success like failure, And failure's no success at all.

Bob Dylan, "Love Minus Zero/No Limit", in Success and Failure

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Thomas Alva Edison, in Success and Failure and Work and Recreation

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

Albert Einstein, in Science and Religion and Success and Failure

Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else -- unless it is an enemy.

Albert Einstein, in Altruism and Cynicism and Success and Failure

The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.

Albert Einstein, in Success and Failure