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34+ Failure Quotes to Fuel Your Journey to Success

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Here’s a collection of failure quotes to help you succeed. What..?! How can failure quotes help us succeed? By giving us hope when things get hard and for a hand up when we’re down.

Failure is simply fertilizer for growth. And yes, it stinks, but it gives us what we need to grow if we focus on the lesson not the failure.

For the first half of my life I believed failure was a bad and dreaded thing. I believed that if I failed at something it meant I was bad at it and shouldn’t do it. Thankfully, my failures coupled with a growth mindset have transformed my view and experience of failure from a negative to a positive.

To help fortify your resolve and boost your courage, here’s a collection of failure quotes.

Failure Quotes

Mary Kay Ash was very fond of turning the bitterness of failure into the sweetness of success. It clearly worked for her and the many hundreds of thousands of lives she touched.

“When you reach an obstacle, turn it into an opportunity.

You have the choice. You can overcome and be a winner, or you can allow it to overcome you and be a loser.

The choice is yours and yours alone. Refuse to throw in the towel. Go that extra mile that failures refuse to travel.

It is far better to be exhausted from success than to be rested from failure.”

~Mary Kay Ash, founder-Mary Kay Cosmetics, author, 1918-2001

NOTE: This extended Mary Kay Ash quote has been broken down into shorter quotes under different subject headings in this collection of quotes below.

Acceptance and Failure Quotes

“Accept pain, failure, and disappointment as a part of life, not the entirety of it.”
~Jimmy Sheils, entrepreneur, author, cofounder 18 Summers

Art and Failure Quotes

‘Failing forward’ has become my mantra since I began painting . Every ‘fail’ is still a step forward in my art journey, because I learn something of value every time. It doesn’t stop me or slow me down . It actually compels me to move forward, to do it again and do it better until I get it right.
~Mary Peters Ballesteros, artist

FAILURE QUOTE and ART QUOTE by Mary Peters Ballesteros. #FailureQuote #QuotesOnFailure #FailForwardQuote #ArtQuote #ArtistQuote
Art image and quote by Mary Peters Ballesteros, artist

Challenges and Failure Quotes

Problems are just a part of life and business. But that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. What if we handled life’s challenges with as much delight as life’s gifts…?
~LeAura Alderson, cofounder-iCreateDaily.com®

Choice and Failure Quotes

You have the choice. You can overcome and be a winner, or you can allow it to overcome you and be a loser.
~Mary Kay Ash, founder-Mary Kay Cosmetics, author, 1918-2001

The choice is yours and yours alone. Refuse to throw in the towel. Go that extra mile that failures refuse to travel.
~Mary Kay Ash, founder-Mary Kay Cosmetics, author, 1918-2001

Confidence and Failure Quotes

“Confident people approach challenging situations as something to be conquered and mastered, not hazards to be feared or avoided. They’re comfortable with failure and mistakes.”
~Elle Russ, health coach, author, podcast host, b.8/19/1977

Creativity and Failure Quotes

Creativity and innovation are fueled by curiosity and a willingness to fail.
~Chip Conley, hotelier entrepreneur, author, b.10/31/1960

CHIP CONLEY QUOTE on Creativity, Innovation and a Willingness to Fail. #ChipConleyQuote #FailureQuote #CreativityQuote #CuriosityQuote #iCreateDaily

Enthusiasm and Failure

“Jumping from failure to failure with undiminished enthusiasm is the big secret to success.”
~Savas Dimopoulos, Stanford University particle physicist, b.1952, in Istanbul, Turkey

Fear and Failure Quotes

To fear failure keeps you from trying… it holds you back. Better to fear the fear of failure. It is fear that holds you back, not failure.
~LeAura Alderson, cofounder-iCreateDaily.com®

What if failure was your friend… showing you what’s not working so you can more quickly discover what is?
~LeAura Alderson, iCreateDaily.com®

Growth and Failure Quotes

“When you learn the lesson, it’s not failure… it’s growth.”
~LeAura Alderson, cofounder-iCreateDaily.com®

The more you accept failure as a necessary part of growth, the less it hurts and the more you learn. The more you learn, the more you become.”
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®

Failure is simply fertilizer for growth. And yes, it stinks, but it gives us what we need to grow if we focus on the lesson not the failure.
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®

Failure does not define me, it informs me.
~LeAura Alderson, creator iCreateDaily.com ®

“Facing failure rewires your brain to recognize the feeling of failure as a time to grow.”
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®

Learning and Failure Quotes

“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, motivational speaker, author, b.1933

“Failure became my personal trainer. Failure put me through some hard workouts. Fear that made me feel that I couldn’t finish… couldn’t survive. But it showed me that if I was willing to listen, failure had something to say to me. It said, you know what, this felt impossible, this disappointment, this embarrassment, this heartbreak felt like it would kill you, but you’re still here. You were terrified and you still got through it. Remember that about yourself.”
~Sarah Robb O’Hagan, CEO, author, b.1974

SOURCE: Extreme You by Sarah Robb O’Hagan

Luck and Failure Quotes

“It doesn’t matter how many times you fail. It doesn’t matter how many times you almost get it right.

No one is going to know or care about your failures, and neither should you.

All you have to do is learn from them and those around you because all that matters in business is that you get it right once.

Then everyone can tell you how lucky you are.”

~ Mark Cuban, billionaire entrepreneur, investor

Mistakes and Failure Quotes

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.”
~Albert Einstein, German theoretical physicist, author, 1879-1955

Never Give Up

Because a fellow has failed once or twice or a dozen times, you don’t want to set him down as a failure till he’s dead or loses his courage.
~George Horace Lorimer, American journalist, author, publisher, 1867-1937

Opportunity and Failure Quotes

When you reach an obstacle, turn it into an opportunity.
~Mary Kay Ash, founder-Mary Kay Cosmetics, author, 1918-2001

What doesn’t work leads us to what does.
~LeAura Alderson, creator iCreateDaily.com ®

Optimism Quotes

Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn’t be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn’t know it so it goes on flying anyway.
~Mary Kay Ash, founder-Mary Kay Cosmetics, author, 1918-2001

Pain of Failure Quotes

“When I am in pain, I get relief by doing something. I need to get to work and feel a forward momentum toward a goal. If I can throw my energy into doing something positive, it at least helps to numb some of the pain.”
~Sarah Robb O’Hagan, business leader, author, b.1974

SOURCE: Extreme You by Sarah Robb O’Hagan

Progress and Failure Quotes

“Fail forward fast.”
~Multiple authors

Reframing Failure Quotes

The more you learn to retrain and reframe, the less failure feels like pain, and it’s all just growth.
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®

Strength and Failure Quotes

The great thing about falling is that getting up takes muscle. Getting up makes us stronger. So does failure.
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®

Failure makes you stronger if you learn from it, or weaker if you run from it.
~LeAura Alderson, cofounder-iCreateDaily.com®

Photo by Carl Newton on Unsplash

“Each day is a new beginning, a new opportunity to strive for excellence.  Don’t let the pitfalls of the past weigh you down. Getting up from failure makes us stronger. Failure is not a bad word; It’s how we learn.”
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®

Success and Failure Quotes

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
~Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister,

Don’t let fear of failure hold you back. Fear of failure inhibits your travel on the road to success.
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®

“My best successes came on the heels of failures.” 
~Barbara Corcoran, businesswoman, investor, speaker

Turn the bitterness of failure into the sweetness of success.
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®

If ‘failure is the road to success’, then the more we face failure… dance with it… dine with it… make friends with it and learn from it, the more we will succeed.
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®

It is far better to be exhausted from success than to be rested from failure.”
~Mary Kay Ash, founder-Mary Kay Cosmetics, author, 1918-2001

Winners and Failure Quotes

You have the choice. You can overcome and be a winner, or you can allow it to overcome you and be a loser.
~Mary Kay Ash, founder-Mary Kay Cosmetics, author, 1918-2001

Embrace the learning you’ll gain from failure and your life will be better.

I KNOW IT WILL BE GREAT
I have a premonition
that soars on silver wings.
It’s a dream of your accomplishment
of many wondrous things.
I do not know beneath which sky
or where you’ll challenge fate.
I only know it will be high,
I only know it will be great!

Anonymous

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Cover Photo by Marc Rafanell López on Unsplash


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