My Biggest Failure Quotes & Sayings

What helped him build resilience the most, he told me, was overcoming pervasiveness: "Extreme compartmentalization may be my biggest superpower," he said, laughing. If a project doesn't turn out the way he wanted, Byron remembers that things could always be worse. "I say to myself and to others all the time, 'Is anyone gonna die?' That's the worst - I'm not afraid of failure." Byron — Sheryl Sandberg

Some of the biggest failures I ever had were successes. — Pearl S. Buck

I've had a lot of disappointments. I think my biggest disappointment is the failure of elected officials to make good on their promises in regards to the environment or anything else, really. I have very little faith in politicians. — Paul Watson

Looking back, perhaps the single biggest problem was fear. Fear of failure, fear of other people, but mostly fear of myself. It has taken sixty years to discover who I really am. It's never too late to find yourself however lost you may be. — Lynda Bellingham

The lingo used in the space is so arcane and out of date that investors have no context for the discussions. The failure to establish a clear, effective communication system has been the biggest sin private equity has committed. — Bob Rice

Among all the tests President Obama faced in his first term, his biggest failure was climate change. — Jeff Goodell

The biggest risk in life is not the failure, but the failure to get an education. — Debasish Mridha

I think one of the biggest political failures, and the biggest social failures, over the past few years has been the failure of empathy; not being able to look at the other person down the street. — Colum McCann

The biggest cause of failure in software-intensive systems is not technical failure; it's building the wrong thing. — Mary Poppendieck

From a public perspective, the Grand National is the biggest race of all, and not to have won it yet is definitely a failure. But there's been a lot of jockeys every bit as good and better than me that haven't won it - John Francome, Peter Scudamore, Jonjo O'Neill, Charlie Swan, to name a few. — Tony McCoy

To be successful in life, there are many hurdles you have to get over. For me, the biggest hurdle to success has always been failure. But, growing up, my Dad was always positive ... that I'd never amount to anything. — Christopher Titus

That's one of my biggest obstacles. I'm afraid of failure. I want to succeed so bad that I become afraid of failing. — LeBron James

The biggest threat to creativity is fear, especially the fear of failure. — Kelly Leonard

Mediocrity is my biggest fear. I'm not afraid of total failure because I don't think that will happen. I'm not afraid of success because that beats the hell out of failure. It's being in the middle that scares me. — Robert Downey Jr.

America's biggest failure is its inability to take comedy seriously. — H.L. Mencken

Finally, my biggest failure of 2014: Once again not securing the # disclosure of the UFO files. — John Podesta

Failure inspires winners. And failure defeats losers. It is the biggest secret of winners. It's the secret that loser do not know. The greatest secret of winners is that failure inspires winning; thus, they're not afraid of losing. — Robert Kiyosaki

The biggest enemy of success is the fear of failure — Tirumalai S. Srivatsan

I'm not gonna fall. I'm tired of falling. I'm tired of seeing our people fall. I don't believe in failure. It's what we put in our minds and our hearts to succeed. And success isn't about money. Success isn't about the biggest house in the world. Success is about loving your family, taking care of your child. — Adam Beach

Your biggest failure is the thing you dreamed of contributing but didn't find the guts to do. — Seth Godin

My greatest sense of accomplishment has come from having two amazing sons, but it's also a paradox in that the times when I felt like the biggest failure have been times when I felt like, as a parent, I wasn't making the right decisions or succeeding in the way that I should. — Michael Franti

But no matter how big the effort to push a propaganda line might be, climate change is bigger. This, undoubtedly and regrettably, is the biggest immediate long-term environmental challenge we face. A failure to concretely come to some policy outcome on climate change has not only a negative environmental impact but also social and economic consequences for us. — Peter Garrett

My biggest fear is doing the same things 10 years from now. That would be a failure. It's something you have to constantly reassess, and asking yourself what you are going to do next makes it a good, long full journey. — George Clooney

The biggest enemies we have to overcome on the road to success are not lack of ability and lack of opportunity but fears of failure and rejection and the doubts that they trigger. — Brian Tracy

There has been failure, particularly with the effort to protect our coast and our marsh. And that was the biggest topic of discussion in a very frank meeting we had with the president. — Bobby Jindal

My biggest failure is 'Metal Gear.' It's my biggest failure and my biggest success. — Hideo Kojima

Success is always an easier motivator, because you want more of it. But I've also been motivated by failure. Had I medaled in London, I don't think I would be one of the few that have gone to a Summer and Winter. I would have been content with that medal. Instead, I used that failure to go to the Winter Olympics. I always tell people that failure can be one of your biggest motivators if you just have an attitude adjustment about it. — Lolo Jones

I guess my biggest failure was not getting reelected. [The loss taught me] not to ever let American hostages be held for 444 days in a foreign country without extracting them. I did the best I could, but I failed. — Jimmy Carter

Our present ecological crisis, the biggest single practical threat to our human existence in the middle to long term, has, religious people would say, a great deal to do with our failure to think of the world as existing in relation to the mystery of God, not just as a huge warehouse of stuff to be used for our convenience. — Rowan Williams

But if you look at WorldCom, which is the biggest failure to date, they grew dramatically, they were buying companies that were bigger than they were and they were doing it off inflated stock. — Don Nickles

Lincoln made mistakes. Roosevelt made mistakes. Eisenhower made mistakes. The Battle of the Bulge was the biggest intelligence failure in American military history, much bigger than any in Vietnam or now. We didn't know that the Soviets were moving 400,000 or 500,000 troops. We missed it. — Rudy Giuliani

Often the biggest obstacle in meeting life's challenges is actually our own fear of failure. — Daisaku Ikeda

My New Year's Eve is always 2 July, the night before my birthday. That's the night I make my resolutions. And this year scares the life out of me, because no matter how successful, how good things appear, there is always a deep core of failure within me, although I am trying to deal with it. My biggest fear, this coming year, is that I will be waking up alone.
It makes me wonder how many bodies will be fished out of the Thames, how many decaying corpses will be found in one-room flats.
I'm just being realistic. — Tracey Emin

People often avoid making decisions out of fear of making a mistake. Actually the failure to make decisions is one of life's biggest mistakes. — Noah Weinberg

The biggest problem in my life is trying to be the kind of man that I want to be, the father that I want to be, and how to process the failure of my marriage. — Ethan Hawke

I make my own surprises and I'm always surprised to see what I do, to see it when it's finished and the biggest challenge is once I finish it, it's not a failure. It's not a flop. — Robert Barry

People learn best and fastest from making their own mistakes and fixing them. It's painful to watch a child flounder, but in the long run children become more resilient and resourceful if they have to deal with failure once in a while. One of the biggest fears of today's business strategists is that we are producing a coddled workforce of straight "A" students who are afraid to go out on a limb for fear they'll fall. American innovation was born out of metaphorical scraped knees and bloody noses. A generation that's been told they shouldn't even touch a doorknob without applying antibacterial hand sanitizer may not have the rough and tumble qualities needed to compete in a global dog-eat-dog economy. — Lynne C. Lancaster

I judge myself by the shiny, pretty people I see at parent-teacher meetings, or on Facebook, or Pinterest, who seem to totally have their shit together and never have unwashed hair. They never wait until Thursday night to help their kid with the entire week's homework. They don't have piles of dusty boxes in corners waiting to be opened from the move before last. They have pretty, pastel lives, and they are happy, and they own picnic baskets and napkins and know how to recycle, and they never run out of toilet paper or get their electricity turned off. And it's not even that I want to be one of those people. I fucking hate picnics. If God wanted us to eat on the ground He wouldn't have invented couches. I just don't want to feel like a failure because my biggest accomplishment of the day was going to the bank. — Jenny Lawson

Peter, the biggest failure of them all, became the preacher that day. It was no homiletical masterpiece, to be sure. But people were deeply convicted - "cut to the heart," according to Acts 2:37 - by his anointed words. Three thousand were gathered into the church that day. Which church? Baptist? Presbyterian? Pentecostal? There were no such labels at that time - and in God's view of things, there still aren't. He ignores our categories. All he sees when he looks down is the body of Christ, made up of all born-again, blood-washed believers. The only subdivisions he sees are geographical - local churches. Other distinctions are immaterial. I — Jim Cymbala

The biggest mistake entrepreneurs can make is trying to do everything themselves. They usually blow up when they try. I did an inventory of every deal I've ever done and it turned out that every single deal I made money on was a partnership, and every colossal failure, where I lost millions, was something I tried to do by myself. — Kevin O'Leary

The propensity to dwell on failure and mistakes, and an inability to shut out the outside world are, in his mind, the biggest psychological impediments for his female players, and they directly affect performance and confidence on the court. — Katty Kay

Biggest obstacle in the way of success is the fear of failure. — Debasish Mridha

What's the truth? The truth is what happened to you and him or her, over the years, and what didn't happen. The truth is what you said and didn't say, how much you tried, how you changed, and whether you were lucky. I believe in luck. I think luck plays a huge part in success. Or failure. In the end, who cares about the truth? You still end up divorced. Finally, the biggest asshole wins. Sort of. At least the biggest asshole takes home the must stuff. If you consider this winning then have at it. You're an asshole. — Margaret Overton

The single biggest difference between financial success and financial failure is how well you manage your money. It's simple: to master money, you must manage money. — T. Harv Eker

If there is a single tragic flaw that mars our biggest enterprises, it is conservatism - the failure to fail, and fail big, in an era of unprecedented volatility and ambiguity. — Tom Peters

If you start thinking that only your biggest and shiniest moments count, you're setting yourself up to feel like a failure most of the time. — Chris Hadfield

I didn't want to get divorced, but at the point where your children are part of it, you have to do something. I would really love it not to have happened because it haunts you, it will never go away, and it is probably the biggest failure, and I have to live with that. — Amanda Harlech

I do think the biggest problem newspapers have is loss of trust, and I feel that's a result of failure to speak truth to power. — Craig Newmark

Make a decision! Failure to act is often the biggest failure of all. — John Wooden

J. K. Rowling was on welfare when she wrote the first Harry Potter book and has stated that she considered herself "the biggest failure I knew," but this didn't stop her. — Bob Proctor

I failed first grade, which is my biggest problem. You always feel like a failure, like you're stupid. — Amy Sedaris

Failure: Is it a limitation? Bad timing? It's a lot of things. It's something you can't be afraid of, because you'll stop growing. The next step beyond failure could be your biggest success in life. — Debbie Allen

If you can give up trying to be successful all the time, that will be your biggest success! Try failure sometimes! With failure, you shall learn things that no success can give you! And thus the road of actual big success will be opened! Try failure! Don't try to avoid it, live it, live it to the full, taste it fully! The road of the biggest successes is this one! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

The thing that you have to fight the most when you lose is you feel like the biggest failure in the world. — Meryl Streep

But all at once I realized that it was not my success God had used to enable me to help those in this prison, or in hundreds of others just like it. My life of success was not what made this morning so glorious
all my achievements meant nothing in God's economy.
No, the real legacy of my life was my biggest failure
that I was an ex-convict. My greatest humiliation
being sent to prison
was the beginning of God's greatest use of my life; He chose the one thing in which I could not glory for His glory. — Charles W. Colson

Ryanair's biggest achievement? Bringing low fares to Europe and still lowering em. Biggest failure? Hiring me. — Michael O'Leary

I was shocked when I found out who the biggest failure in the Bible actually is ... The biggest one in the whole Bible is God ... I mean, He lost His top-ranking, most anointed angel; the first man He ever created; the first woman He ever created; the whole earth and all the fullness therein; a third of the angels, at least - that's a big loss, man ... Now, the reason you don't think of God as a failure is He never said He's a failure. And you're not a failure till you say you're one. — Kenneth Copeland

My biggest fear isn't being a failure as an author but being a failure at being me. — Christina Noll

Failure is necessary to succeed and will become your biggest blessing. — Lynn Bardowski

I feel like the biggest failure of humans is miscommunication. We can't communicate with each other-we can fight, we can kill, we can do those things well. — Nate Lowman

My biggest failure is I have too many to talk about. — Dean Kamen

Okay," I said, "what's your biggest fear?" As always, he took a second to think about the answer. "Clowns," he said. "Clowns." "Yup." I just looked at him. "What?" he said, glancing over at me. "That is not a real answer," I told him. "Says who?" "Says me. I meant a real fear, like of failure, of death, of regret. Like that. Something that keeps you awake nights, questioning your very existence." He thought for a second. "Clowns. — Sarah Dessen

When it comes to continual improvement programs, the biggest mistake is a failure to launch, the biggest hurdle is culture. — John Novak

Our biggest failure is our failure to see patterns. — Marilyn Ferguson

The biggest cause of serious error in this business is a failure of communication, — Atul Gawande

At network television you could make a show like Freaks and Geeks, and even though 7 million people watch is every week, you were considered a terrible failure, and they got rid of you and staff. Now ... It's like a world where the replacements are the biggest fans in the world. It's, the Elvis Costellos of television are the winners. Creativity is king and it's very very exciting. — Judd Apatow