Quotes & Sayings About Failing At Life

You're not a bad person for having negative thoughts or feelings. You're not getting it wrong or failing in life. You're not less spiritual, less human, or less evolved for going through an emotional funk or for feeling stuck. At your core, you are a learning and growing being. And you are doing just that. — Emily Maroutian

The small launch bay was littered with debris. A powerful breeze tore at his black silk shirt as Kilroy made his way across it to the waiting shuttle, evoking a feeling like the fingers of fate were caressing his body. "The Hammer" stepped over the body of one of his fallen crew without a trace of care or concern. The air was rushing past him, like a wind, out into space through the wounds in the side of his ship. Fatigued and desperate, the Hammer was running out of options. His ship was a mess, holed in a dozen places, the life support systems failing. Weakened hull sections were collapsing in pressure bursts. The vibrations that shook the deck beneath him now were not from the engines that once drove her forward, but now from the explosions down below, tearing her apart. — Christina Engela

There might well be deep evolutionary reasons for these fears; it made sense, millennia ago, to fear situations where we had no control and situations that involved malevolent attackers. In our modern world, however, the things we really ought to fear are almost entirely of our own doing. Failing to climb the stairs and get enough exercise kills far more people than any number of murderers climbing those stairs. You are at far greater risk of taking your own life than being killed by a terrorist. If you were to go strictly by the numbers, that cigarette in your hand ought to have you screaming louder than a chance encounter with Hannibal Lecter. — Shankar Vedantam

Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." I'd like to show how "intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members" connects with "the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age." I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever. — Jeffrey Eugenides

Since there's no help, come, let us kiss and part,
Nay, I have done, you get no more of me,
And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart,
That thus so cleanly I myself can free.
Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,
And when we meet at any time again
Be it not seen in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.
Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath,
When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies,
When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And Innocence is closing up his eyes,
Now, if thou wouldst, when all have giv'n him over,
From death to life thou might'st him yet recover. — Michael Drayton

For the first time in her life she found herself failing at something. — Jane Green

Success involves failing first. Ask any successful person. Ask any experienced person, really. It's all part of the creative process, so sit back and allow the artist within you to sprout, blossom and flourish. You must accept that your first, second, and third attempt at something might suck. It's a necessary step in improving your skill. Failure is your teacher, not your judge. — Connor Franta

It has been said that if you aim at nothing in life, you are likely to hit nothing! I have never had anyone come to me and say, 'Venita, I plan to fail.' Yet I have observed many who failed to plan and who unfortunately met with the same dismal results. — Venita VanCaspel

I grieved, but a part of me felt a lightening of a burden that I had carried all my life: that I could never be worthy of them, that I would always disappoint or fail them. As an unknown slave in the fields of the baron, I knew the worst was over. I had failed them. At least I could not do so again — Megan Whalen Turner

I am Death Walker, Grief Bringer, Daughter of Carnage. I have walked through fields of blood, nimbly stepping over corpses the way a dancer steps onto a stage. I am the Queen of War, knee deep in fallen life, up to elbows in warm failing flesh. The slip of intestine against my fingers, the feel of once strong hands gripping at me, begging me to save them. — Gea Haff

After the fever of life
after wearinesses, sicknesses, fightings and despondings, languor and fretfulness, struggling and failing, struggling and succeeding
after all the changes and chances of this troubled and unhealthy state, at length comes death
at length the white throne of God
at length the beatific vision. — John Henry Newman

As graduation loomed, I had a nagging sense that there was still far too much unresolved for me, that I wasn't done studying. I applied for a master's in English literature at Stanford and was accepted into the program. I had come to see language as an almost supernatural force, existing between people, bringing our brains, shielded in centimeter-thick skulls, into communion. A word meant something only between people, and life's meaning, its virtue, had something to do with the depth of the relationships we form. It was the relational aspect of humans - i.e., "human relationality" - that undergirded meaning. Yet somehow, this process existed in brains and bodies, subject to their own physiologic imperatives, prone to breaking and failing. There must be a way, I thought, that the language of life as experienced - of passion, of hunger, of love - bore some relationship, however convoluted, to the language of neurons, digestive tracts, and heartbeats. At Stanford, I had the good — Paul Kalanithi

Without failing at one thing, there won't be an opportunity to try again, learn and grow. Life isn't static but dynamic. Learn to embrace whatever situation you may face and strive to overcome. Believe in yourself, knowing your best is yet to come. — Kemi Sogunle

Visualize the conversations your friends have about how they all knew you'd never be able to make it. Imagine having to explain quitting to every single person who knew you were going to BUD/S. You have to face them. You have to live with many of them. Imagine trying to find a way to overcome the shame of failing. How long is it going to take for them to stop thinking of you as a failure, a quitter, a pussy? How long until anyone takes anything you say seriously again? Visualize being sent to a crappy ship, an undesignated Seaman. Imagine, if you will, a life below deck where you spend 18 hours chipping paint and repainting the spot you chipped. Imagine not seeing the sun for days or weeks at a time. This picture is worse than anything in BUD/S. Experience the shame and humiliation of quitting once in your head. Feel how much you hate yourself for giving up on your dream. Then never, ever, ever experience it in real life. — Mark Owens

I guess we're all guilty at some point of failing to appreciate the small things, because when we use a broad brush to paint our exemplary lives, we splatter ourselves with ignorance. — Danielle Esplin

Reading, like other types of art appreciation, is intensely personal. So what appeals to people is going to depend on who they are. It depends on what is happening in their life at any given moment. On what has happened to them over the course of their personal history and what makes them feel any number of things. The value of art, when it comes to being appreciated by the beholder makes the person consuming it part of that process. Failing to appreciate that integral part of the process is done at your own peril.
[*Pulls Ranty Pants Up* In Which Lauren Dane Discusses Art, Publishing, Trash and Writing What you Want, Blog Post, May 16, 2013] — Lauren Dane

To fail is to not try at all. — Peprah Boasiako

If one of the things people do is establish a civilization out of nature, a way out of the chaos, then Ray was failing at being a person, falling back into the glut of the physical world. He'd been fooled by life. It had triumphed over him. I wanted to call it out to him, over his wife's head, Hey Ray, life has triumphed over you. — Rebecca Lee

At age sixty-one, Donovan is just a year younger than the president. The two have known each other since they were classmates at Columbia Law School. But there the similarities end. Roosevelt is a liberal while Donovan is a staunch conservative Republican. Roosevelt is in failing health; Donovan is so robust and larger-than-life that he seems bulletproof. And while Roosevelt is happiest basking in the adulation of a large crowd, the swaggering Donovan prefers to work in the shadows. Even before the war began, Roosevelt brought in this quick-thinking former attorney and Medal of Honor2 winner to be his global eyes and ears - and Donovan has done a spectacular job. — Bill O'Reilly

Something about the music of nature and the dimming light loosened my tongue. "Music is my life. The only thing that made sense the last few years."
"I can't imagine you failing at anything. — Jenny B. Jones

Love is a devoted madness while marriage is a responsibility. But then it is possible to be devotedly mad and responsible at the same time, yes it is. And so this is how we should begin to see marriage: as it is, for what it is! Marriage needs to cease being an eternal ideal with the predestined ending of death! We must allow it to be and to appear as what it is! Perhaps if we approach marriage with eyes open to the reality of the nature of it, we will stop failing at it! We fail at it because we think of it as something it is not! We are romanced by an ideal that is not in touch with reality and that's why when we begin to discover the reality of it, we see ourselves as failures! It is a wild and blessed thing to want to spend the rest of your adult life with one person, growing and changing together, while stepping deeper into the depths of love; notwithstanding, we must understand that we may not get it "right" the first time. — C. JoyBell C.

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. — Joyce Meyer

The life of hope, then, is shot through with social influences at every level. We learn to formulate ideals in tandem with others. We pursue particular hopes, sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing, in the company of those we love. And as we develop habits of hope and the hopefulness which helps us weather our trials, we reach out to others, inspiring them, sharing our own hopes with them, and contributing our abilities as best we can to foster the growth of agency. — Patrick Shade

Because I'm attractive and sucessful so if I can't get a man I must be failing at something? — Jane Green

Christian communication is further impeded by the expectations of a world progressing at a staggering pace in every field of study. It seems as though to deal in spiritual matters, the Christian has to be an authority on every other subject, failing which, he is branded "escapist" or "unrealistic." Thus, science, philosophy, psychology, history, and virtually every other discipline affects religion. In a sense, this ought not to be surprising, because spiritual truth deals with the essence of life. For — Ravi Zacharias

Gods damn you, LOcke,'she whispered. The corners of her eyes glistened.
'Twice now? Look, uh, if I said the wrong thing
'
'No,' she said, wiping at her eyes, trying but failing to do so nonchalantly. 'No, the trouble is you said the right thing. — Scott Lynch

If you want to live a creative life, get efficient at failing. — Matthew Donnelly

By failing to let others be themselves before God and move at their own pace, we inevitably project onto them our own discomfort with their choice to live life differently than we do. — Peter Scazzero

Sometimes stories get on my nerves
especially the ones where unfair things keep happening to the hero over and over, for no reason at all, and he valiantly overcomes it all.
Life isn't like that.
Not every hero can stay valiant. Sometimes, they can't even stay a hero, so what does that make them? A failure? A pussy? A total failure jerkwad with no hope on the horizon save finding a cemetery and digging rectangles in the ground for the town drunk? — Susan Vaught

In this world, some time ago, far past anyone's remembering,women as a kind had done something so terrible, so awful, so fantastically cruel that they and their daughters and their daughters' daughters were forever beyond forgiveness until the end of time- unforgiving, distrusted, enslaved, made to suffer for the least offenses committed against any man. What was remembered were the terms of our survival as a class: We were to be docile, beautiful,uncomplaining, pure, and failing that at the least useful.bin return we might be allowed something like a long life. But if we were not any of these things, but a man's reckoning, or if perchance we violated their sense of that pact, we would have no protection whatsoever and were to be treated worse than any wild dog or lame horse. — Alexander Chee

It's easy, given the times we live in and the implicit messages we absorb each day, to equeate a good life with having a lot and doing a lot. So it's also easy to fall into believing that our children, if they are to succeed in life, need to be terrific at everything, and that it's up to us to make sure that they are-to keep them on track through tougher course loads, more activities, more competitive sports, more summer programs. But in all our well-intentioned efforts to do the right thing for our children, we may be failing to provide them with something that is truly essential-the time and space they need to wake up to themselves, to grow acquainted with their own innate gifts, to dream their dreams and discover their true natures. — Katrina Kenison

With a snarling face, fangs and blood red eyes, she had lunged at him and secured her mouth to his throat before he had even had time enough to scream. It had been the most terrifying moment of his life. Only two thoughts had occupied his mind; surviving to see Angela again, and the sensation of hearing his own heart beat fade away. Amelia had fed from him for what felt like hours, but that he knew couldn't have been very long, as Angela never came to see what had become of him. He lay in the dirt, with Amelia hunched over his limp body, with the sound of his own, failing breath in his ears and the bloodthirsty sound of someone sucking out his blood. — Elaine White

At this point in my travels and in my life, I still regard changing course as a personal failing. I don't yet have the hindsight to realize that some places don't fit quite right, for whatever reason, so sometimes it's best to cash in your chips and give it a go somewhere new, even if a mere twenty-four hours before you didn't even know that place existed. — Rachel Friedman

If it all looks good on the surface, I'll know I've failed at life — Julia Hoban

Failing sucks. But it's better than the alternative."
"Which is?"
"Not even trying." Now he did look at me, straight on. "Life's short, you know? — Sarah Dessen

I have realized that we all have plague, and I have lost my peace. And today I am still trying to find it; still trying to understand all those others and not to be the enemy of anyone. I only know that one must do what one can to cease being plague-stricken, and that's the only way in which we can hope for some peace or, failing that, a decent death. This, and only this, can bring relief to men and, if not save them, at least do them the least harm possible and even, sometimes, a little good. — Albert Camus

I'm not a woman you bring home to Mother, pick out china patterns with, or Mary forefend, breed. I've seen a chunk of the universe, true, but there's still so much more to see. I doubt I'll ever cure this wanderlust, and I'm content with dedicating my life to failing to sate it ... He's never going to sit at my feet and write me poems, which is good because I hate poetry, except dirty ones that rhyme. — Ann Aguirre

On a second note, though, I have something to say about pain. There are lots of kinds of pain. Pain of smashing your fingers in a car door, pains of loosing a baby, pain of failing a test. But in their own little ways, these pains are all agonizing. Which is sad, and yet, happy, if you really think about it. If we never lost our car keys, or stepped in gum, or had a bad hair day, what kind of people would we be? In a word? Boring. We wouldn't be passionate; we wouldn't know it was exciting to get pregnant, or score an A on a final. So that's why, today at least, I am grateful for pain. Because it's part of what makes me the whacky, goofy, jaded, person that I am. Peace. — Alysha Speer

I think at times I read too much of my own press. I wish I was better at taking in how great my life is, but that's surprisingly elusive. I tend to be very hard on myself and insecure about failing no matter what happens. — Seth MacFarlane

Some failure in life is inevitable. 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. Failure gave me an inner security that I had never obtained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things that I could not have learned any other way. I discovered I had a strong will and more discipline than I had suspected. — J.K. Rowling

35 "Everyone has a dream, a vision, a goal and a desire. Just because we have bigger dreams than others doesn't mean they don't have one. Sometimes we just too lazy to make it happen or are scared of failing."

But trying is better than not doing anything at all. — Kcat Yarza

"Have you done your homework?" my mother would ask. "I'll do it later." "You will do it now, young man. I don't want you winding up on the third shift at Flagg-Utica." Flagg-Utica was a local textile plant. Somehow, I never could figure how failing to read three chapters in my geography book about the various sorts of vegetation to be found in a tropical rain forest had anything to do with facing a life as a mill hand. But with enough guilt and fear as catalysts, you can read anything, even geography books and Deuteronomy. — Lewis Grizzard

Kessler depicts his developing intimacy with a handful of dairy goats and offers an enviable glimpse of the pastoral good life. Yet he also cautions, "Wherever the notion of paradise exists, so does the idea that it was lost. Paradise is always in the past." The title Goat Song is a literal rendering of the Greek word traghoudhia, tragedy. Reading it, I was reminded of Leo Marx's analysis of Thoreau's Walden. In The Machine in the Garden, Marx names Thoreau a tragic, if complex pastoralist. After failing to make an agrarian living raising beans for commercial trade (although his intent was always more allegorical than pecuniary), Thoreau ends Walden by replacing the pastoral idea where it originated: in literature. Paradise, Marx concludes, is not ultimately to be found at Walden Pond; it is to be found in the pages of Walden. — Heather Paxson

His death had been as futile as his life. He died ingloriously, of a stupid disease, failing once more, even at the end, to accomplish anything. — W. Somerset Maugham

For two weeks, I lay awake at night and said Hail Marys over and over to stop my heart from beating too fast. I suddenly realized how much being a husband was about fear: fear of not being able to keep somebody safe, of not being able to protect somebody from all the bad stuff you want to protect them from. Knowing they have more tears in them than you will be able to keep them from crying. I realized that Renee had seen me fail, and that she was the person I was going to be failing in front for the rest of my life. It was just a little failure, but it promised bigger failures to come. Additional ones, anyway. But that's who your wife is, the person you fail in front of. Love it so confusing; there's no peace of mind. — Rob Sheffield

Humans are really stupid. If we don't fall and get hurt, we won't learn our lesson. Just like a kid repeatedly falling.

No matter how many times we fail, or how many times we've fallen. Humans will stand once again, smiling ruefully at our grazed knees before continuing onwards. This time we will not run from our pain. — Yuuri Eda

I tried the obvious route of hourly jobs and community college, and it just never worked for me. I'd been told for so long that the path to success was paved with a series of boxes you checked off, starting with getting a degree and getting a job, and I kept trying and failing at these, it sometimes seemed that I was destined for a life in the loser lane. But I always suspected that I was destined for more, and that I was capable of, something bigger. — Sophia Amoruso

...The world gets blessed every now and then with unique souls who though burdened by their invisible crosses, still have the extraordinary strength to forge ahead in life and give others a helping hand at the same time. Despite their tribulations, most of us think they are fine. Even when the weight of their crosses become unbearable, even when they proceed in a breathless manner, we still have a hard time understanding that they are drowning. In fact, we even condemn them for failing to sacrifice more... — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

You must not end your life because you failed an examination. Failing an examination or making a mistake does not make you a failure at life. The context of life is broader than that. — Archibald Marwizi

Failing at something is one thing, but Buddhism tells us that it is up to us how we interpret that failure [Buddhism] a philosophy and way of life that resonates with me I identify with it. I agree with so much of the sentiment behind it. I enjoy the liberating effect it's had on me to get back into the game Buddhism, with its concepts of karma and rebirth, have freed me from the twin fears of death and life without rugby, like life, will also come to an end. — Jonny Wilkinson

The general human failing is to want what is right and important, but at the same time not to commit to the kind of life that will produce the action we know to be right and the condition we want to enjoy. This is the feature of human character that explains why the road to hell is paved with good intentions. We intend what is right, but we avoid the life that would make it reality. — Dallas Willard

Life is really a travesty of will: it is a parade of learning how to lose people and improve at feigning indifference.

I suspect I shall always fail at this, and fail miserably. I do not know whether that is winning at life or failing at happiness. — Michelle Franklin

It is better to fail at your own life than to succeed at someone else's. — Andre Gide

If you live life so cautiously as to never fail, you end up failing at life itself. — J.S.B. Morse

I'll fail."
"At schoool.""Failing at school is failing at life. — Ned Vizzini

Do not say before hand what you are going to do; for if you fail, you will be laughed at. — Pittacus Of Mytilene

I won't tell," he said, his arms holding my waist with amateur stiffness. I smiled, thinking about the lover he'd become and all the things he'd try with me for the very first time. I'd be the sexual yardstick for his whole life: Jack would spend the rest of his days trying but failing to relive the experience of being given everything at a time when he knew nothing. Like a tollbooth in his memory, every partner he'd have afterwards would have to pass through the gate of my comparison, and it would be a losing equation. The numbers could never be as favorable as they were right now, when his naivety would be subtracted from my experience to produce the largest sum of astonishment possible. — Alissa Nutting

Jo couldn't even lose her heart in a decorous manner, but sternly tried to quench her feelings, and failing to do so, led a somewhat agitated life. She was mortally afraid of being laughed at for surrendering, after her many and vehement declarations of independence. — Louisa May Alcott

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

You can't live without failing at something, unless you love so cautiously you might as well have nit lived at all, in which case, you fail be default. — J.K. Rowling

We can make these changes if we are willing to unite and stand together. The road to a sustainable future is clear, and the technologies are ready and cost-efficient. The only thing holding us back is the lack of political will. And with the crisis at hand, this is no excuse for failing to fight for the future we want for generations to come. We must move forward fearlessly to build a mass movement with the political power necessary to create a truly sustainable energy future. We must do this - it's a matter of life and death. — Wenonah Hauter

Leaving love behind is never easy, for it also asks that we leave behind the part of ourselves that did the loving. And yet for all but the very fortunate and the very foolish, this difficult transition is an inevitable part of the human experience, of the ceaseless learning journey that is life - because, after all, anything worth pursuing is worth failing at, and fail we do as we pursue. — Maria Popova