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Quotes about Expression

Quotes about Failure


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222 art quotes about Failure found | Share this page of quotes about Failure on Facebook

Above all, it's hard learning to live with vivid mental images of scenes I cared for and failed to photograph. It is the edgy existence within me of these unmade images that is the only assurance that the best photographs are yet to be made. (Sam Abell)

Most success springs from an obstacle or failure. I became a cartoonist largely because I failed in my goal of becoming a successful executive. (Scott Adams)

No experience is a cause of success or failure. We do not suffer from the shock of our experiences - so-called trauma - but we make out of them just what suits our purposes. (Alfred Adler)

They fail, and they alone, who have not striven. (Thomas Bailey Aldrich)

They who have conquered doubt and fear have conquered failure. (James Allen)

There is no failure. Only feedback. (Robert G. Allen)

If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative. (Woody Allen)

When you are losing it can seem like there is a black cloud following you around, but like they say there is a silver lining in every cloud. (Mario Andretti)

Many experiences are bound to be failures, and sometimes I regret them before they even happen... it's very good to have regrets, to learn how to live with them. (Keren Ann)

A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he gives up. (Anonymous)

When we are flat on our backs there is no way to look but up. (Roger W. Babson)

I never know where I am going with a painting. I only know where I've been, and frankly, I believe that every painter is in a state of continual failure. The only constant in a painter's life is failure. (William Bailey)

Failure is the mechanism of learning. (Geoffrey Ballard)

We pay just as dearly for our triumphs as we do for our defeats. Go ahead and fail. But fail with wit, fail with grace, fail with style. A mediocre failure is as insufferable as a mediocre success. (Bruce Barton)

Best to have failure happen early. [It] wakes up the phoenix bird in you. (Anne Baxter)

To be an artist is to fail, as no other dare fail... failure is his world and to shrink from it desertion, art and craft, good housekeeping, living... (Samuel Beckett)

- Worstward Ho...
All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. (Samuel Beckett)

There is no such thing as a failed painting, there is only practice for a successful one... as long as there are artists who paint better than I do, I will remain a student. I expect to die a student. (Brenda Behr)

Most of my conscious efforts have ended in embarrassing failure... (Ingmar Bergman)

A failure is only a step on the way to your success. (Yogi Bhajan)

Without fail, three or four hideous paintings down the road, an absolutely wonderful painting appears. A painting that is a better painting than I know how to do. A painting that feels effortless. (Eleanor Blair)

The only real failure is trying to second-guess the taste of an audience. Nothing comes out of that except a kind of inward humiliation. (David Bowie)

You fail only if you stop... (Ray Bradbury)

There is in every artist's studio a scrap heap of discarded works in which the artist's brush prevailed against his imagination. (Robert Brault)

There can be no failure in an art experiment excepting that of vision. (Bob Brendle)

When you lose, don't lose the lesson. (H. Jackson Brown, Jr.)

But what if I fail of my purpose here? It is but to keep the nerves at strain, to dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall, and baffled, get up and begin again. (Robert Browning)

A minute's success pays the failure of years. (Robert Browning)

Some of the biggest failures I ever had were successes. (Pearl S. Buck)

- Richelieu...
In the lexicon of youth, which / Fate reserves for a bright manhood, there is no such word / As - fail. (Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton)

Failure does not count. If you accept this, you'll be successful. What causes most people to fail is that after one failure, they'll stop trying. (Frank Burford)

I honestly think it is better to be a failure at something you love than to be a success at something you hate. (George Burns)

A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else. (John Burroughs)

We seem to gain wisdom more readily through our failures than through our successes. We always think of failure as the antithesis of success, but it isn't. Success often lies just the other side of failure. (Leo Buscaglia)

I think you have to try and fail, because failure gets you closer to what you're good at. (Louis C.K.)

It is through failure that we learn our skills, as well as who we are and how much more we are capable of. (Paul Cade)

Failure is how we learn. (Tony Calderone)

Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor. (Truman Capote)

-misattributed...
If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done? (George Carlin)

Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success. (Dale Carnegie)

I thought my mountain was coming this morning. It was near to speaking when suddenly it shifted, sulked, and returned to smallness. It has eluded me again and sits there, puny and dull. Why? (Emily Carr)

Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses. (George Washington Carver)

Intent is not a thought, or an object, or a wish. Intent is what can make a man succeed when his thoughts tell him that he is defeated. (Carlos Castaneda)

I was a loser, most concerned with making a living. It took me 30 years to understand... I had to reinvent a system, find a way out, and set some rules that could work for me and a few others. I guess in the end that's what we all are trying to do. (Maurizio Cattelan)

Success is often achieved by those who don't know that failure is inevitable. (Coco Chanel)

The only people who never fail are those who never try. (Ilka Chase)

One must be a god to be able to tell successes from failures without making a mistake. (Anton Chekhov)

Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It's the courage to continue that counts. (Winston Churchill)

Failure is the line of least persistence. (W. A. Clarke)

A fool often fails because he thinks what is difficult is easy. (John Churton Collins)

An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one. (Charles Horton Cooley)

Failure is authentic, and because it's authentic, it's real and genuine, and because of that, it's a pure state of being. (Doug Coupland)

Sometimes you learn more from failure than you do from success, and in some ways it's better to have failure at the beginning of your career, or your life. (Michael Crawford)

The artist lives in an atmosphere of perpetual failure. (Harry Crews)

If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style. (Quentin Crisp)

An artist, a man, a failure, must proceed. (e. e. cummings)

The only real failure in life is one not learned from. (Anthony J. D'Angelo)

Life's not about staying on your feet. It's about getting up when you fall. Thank God! (Jan Denise)

Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes. (John Dewey)

Try to do unto others as you would have them do to you, and do not be discouraged if they fail sometimes. It is much better that they should fail than you should. (Charles Dickens)

There are no formulas. You cannot replicate someone's color palette and mixing and make it sing. It cannot come from the outside. It MUST come from the inside. This automatically means enduring, and learning from a certain number of failures. (Jack Dickerson)

Sometimes a noble failure serves the world as faithfully as a distinguished success. (Edward Dowden)

Failures are events, not people. (Faith Duck)

The problem with failure is that it is subject to more attributional ambiguity than success. For success to occur, many things must go right: The person must be skilled, apply effort, and perhaps be a bit lucky. For failure to occur, the lack of any one of these components is sufficient. (Justin Kruger and David Dunning)

Failure is always hurtful, humiliating and embarrassing, but it's the price to pay for daring to get what we want out of life. (Fabian Duttner)

Failure is just another way to learn how to do something right. (Marian Wright Edelman)

Failure is more frequently from want of energy than want of capital. (Thomas Edison)

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. (Thomas Edison)

Each time you fail, you have eliminated another wrong option. (Thomas Edison)

I haven't failed, I've found 10,000 ways that don't work. (Thomas Edison)

You can't succeed unless you've got failure, especially creatively. (Michael Eisner)

Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure. (George Eliot)

I'm proof against that word failure. I've seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best. (George Eliot)

There are many victories worse than a defeat. (George Eliot)

It is on our failures that we base a new and different and better success. (Havelock Ellis)

The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it - so fine that we often are on the line and do not know it. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

I had to come to terms with my failure as an artist... I had to find a way for myself. (Tracey Emin)

It's not the failure that holds us back but the reluctance to begin over again that causes us to stagnate. (Clarissa Pinkola Estes)

Yet failure is growth... but then growth only leads to eventual decay; the fall of a tree leads to the growth of a new generation of life. So isn't this truth as well? (Ian Factor)

There is but one failure, and that is, not to be true to the very best one knows. (Canon Farrar)

No man is a failure who is enjoying life. (William Feather)

How will we ever know what we could do if we only do what we know we can do? Today's failure is tomorrow's starting point. (Beth Ferrier)

I've had a long line of failed television programs, pilots that were never picked up, series that didn't go very long. I've learned that there's really nothing you can do. If it's not in my control, I try not to worry about it. (Nathan Fillion)

Nothing is more humiliating than to see idiots succeed in enterprises we have failed in. (Gustave Flaubert)

Triumph often is nearest when defeat seems inescapable. (B. C. Forbes)

Don't find a fault; find a remedy. (Henry Ford)

Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently. (Henry Ford)

It is only through failure that we are able to step into a new psyche that screams 'artistic success.' (Gwen Fox)

There's always failure. And there's always disappointment. And there's always loss. But the secret is learning from the loss, and realizing that none of those holes are vacuums. (Michael J. Fox)

I didn't fail the test; I just found 100 ways to do it wrong. (Benjamin Franklin)

It's okay to fail; it's not okay to quit. (Chris Gardner)

Refreshing failures roll off the travel easel like ants from a picnic blanket. (Sara Genn)

All I can do will only ever be a faint image of what I see and my success will always be less than my failure or perhaps equal to the failure. I don't know if I work in order to do something, or in order to know why I can't do what I want to do. (Alberto Giacometti)

Whatever you do, try not to dwell too long on your failures. You don't need to conduct autopsies on your disasters. (Elizabeth Gilbert)

I've failed again! (Vincent van Gogh)

- unsourced...
Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again. (Vincent van Gogh)

Reconcile the loss of the painting - no matter how many times it may happen - with the joy of beginning again. (Josh Goldberg)

Our greatest glory consists not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall. (Oliver Goldsmith)

You fail to overlook the crucial point. (Samuel Goldwyn)

Don't allow yourself to be crushed by failure. Rembrandt had failures. Success grows from failure. (Irwin Greenberg)

If you start thinking that only your biggest and shiniest moments count, you're setting yourself up to feel like a failure most of the time. (Chris Hadfield, astronaut)

Laziness is a secret ingredient that goes into failure. But it's only kept a secret from the person who fails. (Robert Half)

Notice the difference between what happens when a man says to himself, I have failed three times, and what happens when he says, I am a failure. (S. I. Hayakawa)

A man can be destroyed, but not defeated. (Ernest Hemingway)

Sometimes the best gain is to lose. (George Herbert)

All men of goodwill have this in common – that our works put us to shame. (Hermann Hesse)

The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail. (Napoleon Hill)

When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal. (Napoleon Hill)

Failure is that early morning hour of darkness which precedes the dawning of the day of success. (Leigh Mitchell Hodges)

We may stumble, but always there is that Eternal Voice, forever whispering within our ear, that thing which causes the eternal quest, that thing which forever sings and sings. (Ernest Holmes)

Half of the failures in life come from pulling one's horse when he is leaping. (Thomas Hood)

A failure is a man who has blundered but is not able to cash in on the experience. (Elbert Hubbard)

I assumed that everything would lead to complete failure, but I decided that didn't matter – that would be my life. (Jasper Johns)

I consider failures to be the compost that feeds the better and best that is on its way. (Tim Johnson)

There is nothing fiercer than a failed artist. The energy remains, but, having no outlet, it implodes in a great black fart of rage which smokes up all the inner windows of the soul. (Erica Jong)

Ambitious failure, magnificent failure, is a very good thing. (Guy Kawasaki)

Don't be discouraged by a failure. It can be a positive experience. Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true... (John Keats)

My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them. (Jack Kerouac)

I think success has no rules, but you can learn a great deal from failure. (Jean Kerr)

It is not a disgrace to fail. Failing is one of the greatest arts in the world. (Charles F. Kettering)

The only time you mustn't fail is the last time you try. (Charles F. Kettering)

Failure, to me, is not having the desire to try. Having the desire to try is in its own way success. (Bob Knight)

Life is full of missteps, personally and professionally. The important thing is to recognize it, learn from it and regroup. Then move on. (Jackie Knott)

There could be no honor in a sure success, but much might be wrested from a sure defeat. (Ann Landers)

Failure seldom stops you. What stops you is the fear of failure. (Jack Lemmon)

It's not what you are, but what you don't become that hurts. (Oscar Levant)

However things may seem, no evil thing is success and no good thing is failure. (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

In great attempts it is glorious even to fail. (Cassiu Longinus)

Not failure, but low aim, is crime. (James Russell Lowell)

Many a man never fails because he never tries. (Norman MacEwan)

It was better, he thought, to fail in attempting exquisite things than to succeed in the department of the utterly contemptible. (Arthur Machen)

Artists know failure. It is not tragic that they know failure; it is only tragic if they know failure and little else... (Eric Maisel)

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. (Nelson Mandela)

The only people who never fail are those who never, never try. (Og Mandino)

Many a man has finally succeeded only because he has failed after repeated efforts. If he had never met defeat he would never have known any great victory. (Orison Swett Marden)

You cannot measure a man by his failures. You must know what use he makes of them. What did they mean to him? What did he get out of them? (Orison Swett Marden)

There is no man so low down that the cure for his condition does not lie strictly within himself. (Thomas L. Masson)

The only guarantee for failure is to stop trying. (John C. Maxwell)

If you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself. Also you will have betrayed our community in failing to make your contribution to the whole. (Rollo May)

No matter what you do, no matter how stupid, dumb or damaging you judge it to be, there is a lesson to be learned from it. (Peter McWilliams)

He who has never failed somewhere... that man cannot be great. (Herman Melville)

Failure is merely an indication that something greater is trying to emerge and it is blocked. (Gina Mollicone-Long)

Failures can be divided into those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought. (Rev. W.A. Nance)

Everyone should fail in a big way at least once before reaching forty. (Allen H. Neuharth)

Once you've been really bad in a movie, there's a certain kind of fearlessness you develop. (Jack Nicholson)

- Genesis by Bill Moyer...
Your creation never completely succeeds. And there's a kind of addiction that goes with that because the artist is continuously struggling and failing and struggling again. But it's always a better richer kind of failure. (Hugh O'Donnell)

The real test is not whether you avoid failure, because you won't. It's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it. . . (Barack Obama)

Remember the two benefits of failure. First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn't work; and second, the failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach. (Roger von Oech)

Alas, all too often, the dream turns into a mud puddle. I am left looking at a disaster. What to do! Keep working. I ask the Almighty for help. That frees me... (Jules Olitski)

Success is seldom permanent, and failure is seldom fatal. The important thing is to keep trying. (Anna Olson)

There's no such thing as failure - just waiting for success. (John James Osborne)

I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and it isn't of much value. Life hasn't revealed its beauty to them. (Boris Pasternak)

I don't fear failure. I only fear the slowing up of the engine inside of me... (George Smith Patton, Jr.)

There is a feeling of finality in failure that is often deceptive. Choose it or lose it. (Jennifer Kathleen Phillips)

Failure is a cup half full. (Jennifer Kathleen Phillips)

Some drawings are better than others... Some are utterly spoiled... I keep them all. I find a use sometimes even for the worst drawing... But their chief use is to mortify one's conceit, to show how thoroughly incompetent it is possible to be, and to shame one into better ways. (Walter J. Phillips)

Failure is only in the shadows of a great prize – a shadow that evaporates when you choose to be bold and shine from within. (Todd Plough)

If you get up one more time than you fall down, you will make it through. (Chinese proverb)

Pulling yourself up again is the most important part of your life. Getting out of the bottom that you put everything into - yourself! (Milton Resnick)

An artist's failures are as valuable as his successes: by misjudging one thing he conforms something else, even if at the time he does not know what that something else is. (Bridget Riley)

I've come to believe that all my past failure and frustration were actually laying the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living I now enjoy. (Tony Robbins)

There are no failures in life. There are only results. Consider the adage: Success in life is the result of good judgment. Good judgment is usually the result of experience. Experience is usually the result of bad judgment. (Tony Robbins)

There's a stack of failures for every masterpiece. (Richard Robinson)

He who is discouraged after a failure is not a real artist. (Auguste Rodin)

Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day, while failure is simply a few errors in judgement, repeated every day. (Jim Rohn)

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. (Theodore Roosevelt)

Re-priming paintings gives the feeling of removing collected badness. (Yaroslaw Rozputnyak)

O, happy the soul that saw its own faults. (Rumi)

Failures are divided into two classes: those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought. (John Charles Salak)

Back of every mistaken venture and defeat is the laughter of wisdom, if you listen. (Carl Sandburg)

I never look at a bad painting as a failure or a waste of paper. I look at it as a learning experience. (Vivian Sathre)

Artistic failure may be labours lost but is life lived. (Ian Semple)

I was shipwrecked before I got aboard. (Seneca)

One of the main causes of our artistic decline lies beyond doubt in the separation of art and science. (Gino Severini)

But screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we'll not fail. (William Shakespeare)

When I was a young man, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. I didn't want to be a failure, so I did ten times more work. (George Bernard Shaw)

Success is not forever, and failure is not fatal. (Don Shula)

The minute you start thinking about what you're going to do if you lose, you have lost. (George P. Shultz)

You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try. (Beverly Sills)

It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they much oftener succeed through failures. Precept, study, advice, and example could never have taught them so well as failure has done. (Samuel Smiles)

And he that strives to touch the stars / Oft stumbles at a straw. (Edmund Spenser)

A real failure does not need an excuse. It is an end in itself. (Gertrude Stein)

I learned, especially in school, to value 'success' and hide 'failure' so that I wouldn't be scolded or ridiculed. That wasn't the way I had started out, when both were interesting and failure was sometimes more interesting than success because it raised more questions. (Barry Stevens)

Here lies one who meant well, tried a little, failed much. Surely that may be his epitaph of which he need not be ashamed. (Robert Louis Stevenson)

Every path you take educates you and leads you to the next. (Martha Sturdy)

As long as you're still bothered by the perceived failures and defeats in your past, you may hear other people's praise and accolades, but you won't be able to accept them. (Dan Sullivan)

More men fail through lack of purpose than lack of talent. (Billy Sunday)

I'm a failed conceptual painter. The times we live in demand it... I also see myself as a failed copyist. I intentionally get everything wrong. (Monica Tap)

The fact that I'm going to be unsuccessful at times is pretty well-balanced by the fact that I'm going to be successful at others. (Rod Taylor)

Even in the works of the greatest master, the organic sequence can fail and then a skillful join must be made. (Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky)

Failure is merely feedback that there is something blocking the path of the emergence and expansion of the greatest version of yourself. (Mother Teresa)

Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more. (Nikola Tesla)

It's hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. (James Thurber)

He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being. (Paul Tillich)

Most people achieved their greatest success one step beyond what looked like their greatest failure. (Brian Tracy)

Remember, you only have to succeed the last time. (Brian Tracy)

It is not failure itself that holds you back; it is the fear of failure that paralyses you. (Brian Tracy)

Failure is a prerequisite for great success. If you want to succeed faster, double your rate of failure. (Brian Tracy)

All art is failure. How one fails is a different matter. (Luc Tuymans)

It is not in the least likely that any life has ever been lived which was not a failure in the secret judgment of the person who lived it. (Mark Twain)

To be successful, you've got to be willing to fail. (Frank Tyger)

Failure is the foundation of success... success the lurking place of failure. (Lao Tzu)

Failure is the key to success; each mistake teaches us something. (Morihei Ueshiba)

Turn your stumbling blocks into stepping stones. (Author unknown)

We are often dismayed to find that even disasters cannot cure us of our faults. (Marquis de Vauvenargues)

Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing. (Denis Waitley)

Forget about the consequences of failure. Failure is only a temporary change in direction to set you straight for your next success. (Denis Waitley)

Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful. (Margaret J. Wheatley)

The idea is not to avoid failure at all costs; the idea is to give triumph a chance. (Huw Wheldon)

Failure comes when we don't get back up and try again. (Jack White)

There are many times in my life, when I could've thrown in the towel. Many times in my life when I was on the floor. And when you're on the floor, never allow anybody to pick you up. It doesn't matter how long you stay there, make sure you pick yourself up and dust yourself down. Whatever happens, whether you go home today or you don't go home today, that's irrelevant. What's relevant is you take the knowledge from the experience and you grow as a person. (Marco Pierre White)

Ambition is the last refuge of the failure. (Oscar Wilde)

The apparent failure of a play sends me back to my typewriter that very night, before the reviews are out. I am more compelled to get back to work than if I had a success. (Tennessee Williams)

My ever-so-many half-baked canvases have enabled my few well-done delicacies. (David Wayne Wilson)

- Shatterpoint (Star Wars: Clone Wars), novel by Matthew Woodring Stover, 2004...
If no mistake have you made, yet losing you are... a different game you should play. (Yoda)

The season of failure is the best time for sowing the seeds of success. (Paramahansa Yogananda)

Never think of failure, for what we think will come about. (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi)

Turn your weaknesses into your strengths. Success is failure turned inside out. (Miles Patrick Yohnke)

Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street. (Zig Ziglar)

If you learn from defeat, you haven't really lost. (Zig Ziglar)

Remember that failure is an event, not a person. (Zig Ziglar)

If you have a good design, don't leave it if you fail to render it to its full extent the first time around. (Milford Zornes)