Quotes & Sayings About Failed Attempts

YOU CANNOT IMAGINE YOU ARE IN A POSITION TO EFFECT A SHUTDOWN, BYRON."
"Can't I?" Zhang's eyes are wide now, gleaming with something new
a kind of madness to match the computer's. Not the look you want to see on the face of an enemy as intelligent as this one.
"DID WE NOT ESTABLISH THIS DURING YOUR FAILED ATTEMPTS ON THE BRIDGE? YOU CANNOT HOPE TO MATCH ME. MY COMPUTATIONAL POWER IS ALMOST INCALCULABLY SUPERIOR TO YOURS. TO ONE SUCH AS MYSELF, YOU ARE THE INTELLECTUAL EQUIVALENT OF A PROTOZOA."
"True." Zhang pauses, glancing into the emergency supply cupboard, gaze lingering on something inside. "But I have something you and protozoa don't."
"AND THAT IS?"
"Hands, mother******. — Amie Kaufman

We overestimate what we hear from others, what the facts may be. But the truth, it always lies in our hearts. When you choose the right person to love, you're happy. Even after one or two failed attempts, when there are obstacles in the way, soon enough things have a way of working out. But if you've tried all you could, and you're still suffering, then it's time to let go. Just ask your heart. If the pain is more than you can handle, then it's time to move on — Effrosyni Moschoudi

This is one reason that some experts believe there may have been many other big bangs, perhaps trillions and trillions of them, spread through the mighty span of eternity, and that the reason we exist in this particular one is that this is one we could exist in. As Edward P. Tryon of Columbia University once put it: "In answer to the question of why it happened, I offer the modest proposal that our Universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time." To which adds Guth: "Although the creation of a universe might be very unlikely, Tryon emphasized that no one had counted the failed attempts. — Bill Bryson

Once started, religious strife has a tendency to go on and on - to become permanent feuds. Today we see such intractable inter-religious wars in Northern Ireland, between Jews and Muslims and Christians in Palestine, Hindus and Muslims in South Asia and in many other places. Attempts to bring about peace have failed again and again. Always the extremist elements invoking past injustices, imagined or real, will succeed in torpedoing the peace efforts and bringing about another bout of hostility. — Mahathir Mohamad

Success goes to those who dare to dream. And sometimes you have to take a little "scary action," as well. - Joe Vitale
True success is always the last of a string of failed attempts to get it right. — Walter Inglis Anderson

When I began writing songs, there was a pretty direct line between what was happening in my life and what I wrote about. So my first album was really all about my failed attempts to make a particular relationship work. — Erin McKeown

But magic is never as simple as people think. It has to obey certain universal laws. And one is that, no matter how hard a thing is to do, once it has been done it'll become a whole lot easier and will therefore be done a lot. A huge mountain might be scaled by strong men only after many centuries of failed attempts, but a few decades later grandmothers will be strolling up it for tea and then wandering back afterward to see where they left their glasses. — Terry Pratchett

Although the creation of a universe might be very unlikely, Tryon emphasized that no one had counted the failed attempts." Martin — Bill Bryson

My attempts to demonstrate evolution by an experiment carried on for more than 40 years have completely failed ... It is not even possible to make a caricature of an evolution out of paleobiological facts ... The idea of an evolution rests on pure belief. — Nils Heribert-Nilsson

These other cultures are not failed attempts to be us; they are unique manifestations of the spirit - other options, other visions of life itself. — Wade Davis

He occasionally tried to fathom a comrade with seductive sentences. He looked about to find men in the proper mood. All attempts failed to bring forth any statement which looked in any way like a confession to those doubts which he privately acknowledged in himself. He was afraid to make an open declaration of his concern, because he dreaded to place some unscrupulous confidant upon the high plane of the unconfessed from which elevation he could be derided. — Stephen Crane

Of all the major developments in the history of science, there may be no better example than that of the periodic system to argue against Thomas Kuhn's thesis that scientific progress occurs through a series of sharp revolutionary stages.20 Indeed, Kuhn's insistence on the centrality of revolutions in the development of science and his efforts to single out revolutionary contributors has probably unwittingly contributed to the retention of a Whiggish history of science, whereby only the heroes count while blind alleys and failed attempts are written out of the story.21 — Eric Scerri

I tried to make my husband make his daughter like me. After ten years of failed attempts, I decided to make myself change. — Valerie J. Lewis Coleman

It took me years of attempts and failed drafts before I finally wrote the elegies I needed to write. — Natasha Trethewey

In fact, among the people I met, the term soviet served essentially as a synonym for 'fucked up'. I'd been in the country about three days when a car that was sent to take me to an interview failed to start. After several attempts to get it going, the driver turned to me, smiled wearily and explained: 'Soviet car'. By that time, that was all the explanation I needed. — Anthony DeCurtis

After a couple of failed attempts, I came up with a weird tuning where I was dropping the G string down a step so that it became a seventh, and it got me to a place where I could play all these figures fairly easily. It was not an easy thing to work out. — Lindsey Buckingham

I think the idea of trying to demonize Governor Romney's going to backfire. Their attempts so far have failed pretty outstandingly and I think at the end of the day, people are going to say, 'what was Obama's record?' Governor Romney's got pro-growth Reaganesque proposals on the table. — Steve Forbes

In the midst of our failed attempts at loving Jesus, His grace covers us. — Francis Chan

The abused child goes on living within those who have survived such torture, a torture that ended with total repression. They live with the darkness of fear, oppression, and threats. When all its attempts to move the adult to heed its story have failed, it resorts to the language of symptoms to make itself heard. Enter addiction, psychosis, criminality. — Alice Miller

I still can't figure out if it's bravery or cowardice to take your own life. I can't figure out whether it's being selfish, or selfless. It is the ultimate act of letting go of oneself, or a cheap act of self-possession? People say a failed attempt is a cry for help. I guess that's true if the person meant it to be unsuccessful. But then, I guess most failed attempts aren't entirely sincere, because, let's face it, if you want to off yourself, there are plenty of ways to make sure it works. — Neal Shusterman

It is merely the egoism of men, who wants to bury a woman like a treasure. All attempts at using vows, contracts, and holy ceremonies have failed to bring permanence into the most changeable aspect of changeable human existence, namely love. Can you deny that our Christina world is rotting? — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

When older people get together there is something unflappable about them; you can sense they've tasted all the heavy, bitter, spicy food of life, extract its poison, and will now spend ten or fifteen years in a state of perfect equilibrium and enviable morality. They are happy with themselves. They have renounced the vain attempts of youth to adapt the world to their desires. They have failed and now, they can relax. In a few years they will once again be troubled by a great anxiety, but this time it will be a fear of death; it will have a strange effect on their tastes, it will make them indifferent, or eccentric, or moody, incomprehensible to their families, strangers to their children. But between the ages of forty and sixty they enjoy a precarious sense of tranquility. — Irene Nemirovsky

DON'T QUIT NOW
Successful graduates from the school of life thrive on failed attempts
Kamil Ali — Kamil Ali

A stone / which in its own archai, simpleminded way / sees life as a chain of failed attempts. — Wislawa Szymborska

I had never seen such sorrow; it appalled me. And I was even more appalled by her attempts to overcome it, because they so plainly, pathetically failed and in failing opened up a view of the world I had only begun to suspect, where wounds did not heal, and things did not work out for the best — Tobias Wolff

All attempts to adapt our ethical code to our situation in the technological age have failed. — Max Born

They say much about the Einstein's theory now. According to Einstein the ether does not exist and many people agree with him. But it is a mistake in my opinion. Ether's opponents refer to the experiments of Maykelson - Morli [Michelson-Morley] who made attempts to detect the Earth's movement relative to the fixed-bed ether. These experiments failed, however it didn't mean the ether's non-existence. I always based as fact the existence of mechanical ether in my works and therefore I could achieve positive success. — Nikola Tesla

SOLVE BY RESOLVE -
Use lessons learned from failed attempts to reinforce commitment — Kamil Ali

The world in which you were born is just one model of reality. Other cultures are not failed attempts at being you; they are unique manifestations of the human spirit. — Wade Davis

There are times we will miss the opportunity to be empathic. Mental health professionals often call these "empathic failures." There are also times when the people around us will not be able to give us what we need. When this happens on occasion, most of our relationships can survive (and even thrive) if we work to repair the empathic failures. However, most relationships can't withstand repeated failed attempts at empathy. This is especially true if we find ourselves constantly rationalizing and justifying why we can't be empathic with someone or why someone is not offering us the empathy we need. — Brene Brown

Whether to follow uncritically the track he finds himself in, without considering his aptness for it, or to consider what his aptness or bent may be, and reshape his course accordingly. I tried to do the latter, and I failed. But I don't admit that my failure proved my view to be a wrong one, or that my success would have made it a right one; though that's how we appraise such attempts nowadays. — Thomas Hardy

It is a difficult question, my friends, for any young man
that question I had to grapple with, and which thousands are weighing at the present moment in these uprising times
whether to follow uncritically the track he finds himself in, without considering his aptness for it, or to consider what his aptness or bent may be, and re-shape his course accordingly. I tried to do the latter, and I failed. But I don't admit that my failure proved my view to be a wrong one, or that my success would have made it a right one; though that's how we appraise such attempts nowadays
I mean, not by their essential soundness, but by their accidental outcomes. If I had ended by becoming like one of these gentlemen in red and black that we saw dropping in here by now, everybody would have said: 'See how wise that young man was, to follow the bent of his nature!' But having ended no better than I began they say: 'See what a fool that fellow was in following a freak of his fancy! — Thomas Hardy

We haven't done action movies in Germany. We had some attempts in the '90s, but they failed. — Til Schweiger

I've always said that the 1986 [Immigration Reform and Control] Act had a fourth leg [in addition to law enforcement, increased immigration and amnesty] to its stool which was wishful thinking. And that pattern of a four-legged stool was copied in the failed attempts to enact a second and bigger general amnesty for illegal aliens in 2006, 2007, and in the current year 2013. — Jan C. Ting

In this century, the human race faces, once again, the virulent reign of the State - of the State now armed with the fruits of man's creative powers, confiscated and perverted to its own aims. The last few centuries were times when men tried to place constitutional and other limits on the State, only to find that such limits, as with all other attempts, have failed. Of all the numerous forms that governments have taken over the centuries, of all the concepts and institutions that have been tried, none has succeeded in keeping the State in check. The problem of the State is evidently as far from solution as ever. Perhaps new paths of inquiry must be explored, if the successful, final solution of the State question is ever to be attained. — Murray N. Rothbard

Instead of always worrying about being efficient, I wanted to spend time on exploration, experimentation, digression, and failed attempts that didn't always look productive. — Gretchen Rubin

But you're looking at this all wrong, Julius. Assassination attempts aren't a threat. They're a compliment. They're the final strike, the last desperate move when every other plot has failed." Ian winked at him. "When they try to kill you, that's when you know you're winning." Julius — Rachel Aaron

I don't believe in failure, because simply by saying you've failed, you've admitted you attempted. And anyone who attempts is not a failure. Those who truly fail in my eyes are the ones who never try at all. The ones who sit on the couch and whine and moan and wait for the world to change for them. — Sarah Dessen

In the heart's deepest place, where the burden of ego is dropped and the mystery of soul is penetrated, a man finds the consciousness there not different in any way from what all other men may find. The mutuality of the human race is thus revealed as existing only on a plane where its humanness is transcended. This is why all attempts to express it in political and economic terms, no less than the theosophic attempts to form a universal brotherhood, being premature, must be also artificial. This is why they failed. — Paul Brunton

There is a distinction between failing and being a failure. Few things are learned in life without failing at least once. Did you learn to roller skate without falling a few times? Did you learn to ride a bike without losing your balance? Chances are you didn't. You may have wanted to do those things so intensely that you quickly put unsuccessful attempts behind you and kept trying. Soon you acquired the skill to do the thing you wanted. Even though in the process of learning you may have failed many times, you were not a failure. "Failing" simply became an open door to try again. — John Templeton

It is merely the egoism of the man, who wants to bury a woman like a treasure. All attempts at using vows, contracts, and holy ceremonies have failed to bring permanence into the most changeable aspect of changeable human existence, namely love. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

My first attempts to transmit typhus to laboratory animals, including the smaller species of monkeys, had failed, as had those of my predecessors, for reasons which I can easily supply today. — Charles Jules Henry Nicole

There's more things that I'd like to do. You know, each song is a little bit of a puzzle. I see most of them as just failed attempts. — Beck

Emperor's Soul pg 123:
Attempts to Forge the window to a better version of itself had repeatedly failed; each time, after five minutes or so, the window had reverted to its cracked, gap-sided self.
Then Shai had found a bit of colored glass rammed into one side of the frame. The window, she realized, had once been a stained glass piece, like many in the palace. It had been broken, and whatever had shattered the window had also bent the frame, producing those gaps that let in the frigid breeze.
Rather than repairing it as it had been meant to be, someone had put ordinary glass into the window and left it to crack. A stamp from Shai in the bottom right corner had stored the window, rewriting its history so that a caring master craftsman had discovered the fallen window and remade it. That seal had taken immediately. Even after ll this time, the window had seen itself as something beautiful. — Brandon Sanderson

In the realm of science, all attempts to find any evidence of supernatural beings, of metaphysical concepts, as God, immortality, infinity, etc have thus far failed, and if we are honest, we must confess that in science there exists no God, no immortality, no soul or mind, as distinct from the body. — Charles Proteus Steinmetz