Every experiment, by multitudes or by individuals, that has a sensual and selfish aim, will fail.

Anytime we step out boldly to make changes, we take a chance that we might fail. But the only way to get better is to try.

We dissect failure a lot more than we dissect success.

Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.

When a coil is operated with currents of very high frequency, beautiful brush effects may be produced, even if the coil be of comparatively small dimensions. The experimenter may vary them in many ways, and, if it were nothing else, they afford a pleasing sight.

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

Treat failure as a lesson on how not to approach achieving a goal, and then use that learning to improve your chances of success when you try again. Failure is only the end if you decide to stop.

It’s not an experiment if you know it’s going to work.

Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself.

No one is ever successful at everything that they do.

I bought a company in the mid-’90s called Dexter Shoe and paid $400 million for it. And it went to zero. And I gave about $400 million worth of Berkshire stock, which is probably now worth $400 billion. But I’ve made lots of dumb decisions. That’s part of the game.

How you respond to the challenge in the second half will determine what you become after the game, whether you are a winner or a loser.

Optimism is a kind of heart stimulant – the digitalis of failure.

You can’t be afraid to fail. It’s the only way you succeed – you’re not gonna succeed all the time, and I know that.

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.

The eyes of the soul of the multitudes are unable to endure the vision of the divine.

Failure is nature’s plan to prepare you for great responsibilities.

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

Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don’t fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgement, repeated every day.

Movies are not novels, and that’s why, when filmmakers try to adapt novels, particularly long or complex novels, the result is almost always failure. It can’t be done.

The young think that failure is the Siberian end of the line, banishment from all the living, and tend to do what I then did – which was to hide.

The credit of advancing science has always been due to individuals and never to the age.

Madness is rare in individuals – but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule.

I thank God for my failures. Maybe not at the time but after some reflection. I never feel like a failure just because something I tried has failed.

If you don’t understand the details of your business you are going to fail.

If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.

In this experiment, made on the 9th of October, 1876, actual conversation, backwards and forwards, upon the same line, and by the same instruments reciprocally used, was successfully carried on for the first time upon a real line of miles in length.

If you or I fail at business, we fail. If we cheat and fail, we go to jail. But if you’re rich and politically connected, your incompetence may be protected by a government bailout.

Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another.

I want to let you in on a little secret: I don’t always feel like I’m a success. That’s right. There are plenty of times when I feel like I’ve just totally messed up and failed to connect with the people I’m trying to communicate with.

I think you can have 10,000 explanations for failure, but no good explanation for success.

I don’t think that you can invent on behalf of customers unless you’re willing to think long-term, because a lot of invention doesn’t work. If you’re going to invent, it means you’re going to experiment, and if you’re going to experiment, you’re going to fail, and if you’re going to fail, you have to think long term.

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.

Once you hear the details of victory, it is hard to distinguish it from a defeat.

When you look at a corporation, just like when you look at a slave owner, you want to distinguish between the institution and the individual. So slavery, for example, or other forms of tyranny, are inherently monstrous. The individuals participating in them may be the nicest guys you can imagine.

Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.

Opera happens because a large number of things amazingly fail to go wrong.

At places like Davos, people like to tell success stories. But their financial success has come with an unthinkable price tag. And on climate change, we have to acknowledge we have failed.

Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence.

I put instant coffee in a microwave oven and almost went back in time.

Well, I screwed it up real good, didn’t I?

The topic of leadership is a touchy one. A lot of leaders fail because they don’t have the bravery to touch that nerve or strike that chord. Throughout my years, I haven’t had that fear.

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.

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.

Egos are never nice. I have been a victim of it a lot of times in my career. Whenever I have used it, I have failed.

If we don’t succeed we run the risk of failure.

The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.

A passionate belief in your business and personal objectives can make all the difference between success and failure. If you aren’t proud of what you’re doing, why should anybody else be?

How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?

Music is changing so quickly, and the landscape of the music industry itself is changing so quickly, that everything new, like Spotify, all feels to me a bit like a grand experiment.

Assuming if there’s such a thing as reality, if you have a false relationship with it, how can you do anything but fail?

We will all fail in life, but nobody has to be a failure. Failing at a thing doesn’t make you a failure. You are only a failure when you quit trying.

I’ve had a lot of success; I’ve had failures, so I learn from the failure.

Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity successful men act as though they have accomplished or are enjoying something. Soon it becomes a reality. Act, look, feel successful, conduct yourself accordingly, and you will be amazed at the positive results.

You never know with these things when you’re trying something new what can happen. This is all experimental.

Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

There is no innovation and creativity without failure. Period.

I’m interested in what motivates individuals to participate in atrocious acts to support their ideological identification.

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.

Failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.

States are not moral agents, people are, and can impose moral standards on powerful institutions.