The road to success includes failing with purpose—using failure and mistakes as a continuous opportunity to reflect, review and rise again. Here are 21 quotes to inspire you to fail fearlessly.
Related: Ep. 5: Fail Often and Fast
1. “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” —Michael Jordan
2. “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.” —J. K. Rowling
3. “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” —Thomas A. Edison
4. “The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
5. “If you learn from defeat, you haven’t really lost.” —Zig Ziglar
6. “If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.” —Woody Allen
7. “What matters is this: Being fearless of failure arms you to break the rules. In doing so, you may change the culture and just possibly, for a moment, change life itself.” —Malcolm Mclaren
8. “I don’t believe in failure. It is not failure if you enjoyed the process.” —Oprah Winfrey
9. “A minute’s success pays the failure of years.” —Robert Browning
10. “We’re born with success. It is only others who point out our failures, and what they attribute to us as failure.” —Whoopi Goldberg
11. “I’ve probably earned the right to screw up a few times. I don’t want the fear of failure to stop me from doing what I really care about.” —Emma Watson
12. “It’s only when you risk failure that you discover things. When you play it safe, you’re not expressing the utmost of your human experience.” —Lupita Nyong’o
13. “The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure.” —John C. Maxwell
14. “Failure isn’t fatal, but failure to change might be.” —John Wooden
15. “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” —Henry Ford
16. “If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success.” —James Cameron
17. “A failure doesn’t mean you are unworthy, nor does it preclude success on the next try.” —Leonard Mlodinow
18. “I was afraid of being a failure, of not having the best time or of being chicken. But every year I get older I think, What was I fearing last year? You forget. And then you move on.” —Sandra Bullock
19. “Failure doesn’t kill you… it increases your desire to make something happen.” —Kevin Costner
20. “You don’t go into anything contemplating failure, because if you did, you wouldn’t make it.” —Simon Cowell
21. “Don’t think of it as failure. Think of it as time-released success.” —Robert Orben
Related: 5 Ways to Reframe Failure