SUCCESS/FAILURE
RELATED INDEX TOPICS: Mistakes, Trials & Triumphs, Diligence in Business, Discouragement, Redeem the Time.
1. I do not think all failure's undeserved,
And all success is merely someone's luck;
Some men are down because they were unnerved,
And some are up because they kept their pluck.
Some men are down because they chose to shirk;
Some men are high because they did their work.
I do not think that all the poor are good,
That riches are the uniform of shame;
The beggar might have conquered if he would,
And that he begs, the World is not to blame.
Misfortune is not all that comes to mar;
Most men, themselves, have shaped the things they are.
--Edgar Guest
2. No one is a failure who can truly say, "I have done my best."
3. One sure way for you to gain adherents to your cause is to start winning.
4. Nature gave men two ends--one to sit on & one to think with. Man's success or failure is dependent on the one he uses most.
5. A failure in life is one who lives & fails to learn.
6. No man ever fails until he fails on the inside.
7. Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are, "It might have been."
8. Sadder than work left unfinished is work never begun.
9. Formula for failure: Try to please everybody.
10. Making mistakes isn't stupid; disregarding them is.
11. Some people have been dead for several years, but they just prefer not to have it known.
12. Success is not measured by the heights one attains, but by the obstacles that were overcome in their attainment.
13. Maturity is the ability to do a job whether or not you are supervised; to carry money without spending it; to bear an injustice without wanting to get even.
14. Maturity is the ability to rejoice with another who has succeeded when you have failed.
15. Success is sweet, but its secret is sweat.
16. The hardest thing about climbing the ladder of success is getting through the crowd at the bottom.
17. For success, try aspiration, inspiration, & perspiration.
18. He has achieved success who has lived long, laughed often, & loved much.
19. You won't find many rules for success that will work unless you do.
20. If at first you don't succeed, find out why before you try again.
21. The man who fails while trying to do good has more honour than he who succeeds by accident.
22. It is doubtful if anyone ever made a success of anything who waited around until all the conditions were "just right" before starting.
23. Men usually get somewhere when they develop a brake for the tongue & an accelerator for the brain.
24. Every outstanding success is built on the ability to do better than good enough.
25. The basic rules for success may be defined as follows: Know what you want. Find out what it takes to get it. Act on it & persevere.
26. Success is the ability to hitch your wagon to a star while keeping your feet on the ground.
27. The man who gets along in the World is the one who can look cheerful & happy when he isn't.
28. There is no failure more complete than the so-called success that leaves God out of the project.
29. Try the ways of being good, and you will fail; but try the way of Christ and you will succeed.
30. You are not obliged to succeed. You are obligated only to do your best.
31. Sometimes a noble "failure" serves the World as faithfully as a distinguished success.
32. There are a lot of ways to become a failure, but never taking a chance is the most successful.
33. The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it's the same problem you had last year.
34. The greatest things in the World have been done by those who systematised their work & organised their time.
35. If people knew how hard I have had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem wonderful at all.--Michelangelo
36. Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success.--Henry Ford
37. Battles are really won in the preparation effort made for them.
38. The shortest distance from where you are to the place where you would like to be is a plan.
39. Specialise in doing what you can't.
40. The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.
41. If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.
42. Real success is having courage to meet failure without being defeated.
43. Rudyard Kipling wrote: "If you can take success & failure & treat these two impostors just the same, you'll be a man, my son!"
And God Himself through Jesus said almost the same thing when He said, "Well done, thou good & faithful servant" (Mat.25:21). He didn't say failed servant & He didn't say successful servant, but He just said faithful servant.
And "one thing is required of a servant," as Paul says, "& that is that he be found faithful."
44. Success is a great defeat when it's a success in the World & takes you out of God's Work.
45. Remember that the Lord never fails, even if you fail! No matter how many times you've failed Him, He won't fail you, He'll bring you through!
46. There was hardly a more wicked man than King David, & look what a Saint he finally became! He wasn't too saintly to begin with, but he sort of grew into it by learning a lot of lessons & making a Hell of a lot of mistakes & committing a terrible lot of sins & being an awful sinner! Even after he began to be great & saintly he pulled some real big boners & did some things that displeased the Lord.
47. Why do you think the Lord lets you make mistakes? Why do you think God let Adam & Eve fall prey to temptation & fall in the Garden? What do you think it's all about?--To prove that you need God!--To prove that you can't do it on your own! And What does that do?--That glorifies the Lord!
48. The secret of achievement is not to let what you're doing get to you before you get to it.
49. The president of a highly rated company was asked the secret of his success. "It's really simple," he said, "I always apply the Rule of the Three D's: Do it, Delegate it, or Ditch it."
50. You cannot be blamed for your weakness but you should blame yourself for not trying to turn it into your greatest asset.