Quotes & Sayings About Unsuccessful

It may be no coincidence that the world's richest man is a computer programmer. Programmers have "theories" about how software will behave when they change a line of code. Those theories rarely hold up to their first encounter with reality. Unsuccessful programmers could probably wax eloquent about how things should be different. Successful programmers just debug their code. Such a profession would quickly wean a person from idealistic notions about how to make a change. Successful programmers soon learn that it is more profitable to challenge their own thinking than to curse their computers when faced with unexpected results. — Ron Davison

There are, basically, three kinds of people: the unsuccessful, the temporarily successful, and those who become and remain successful. The difference is character. — Jon Hunstman

Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do.
— Jeff Olson

If you consider an unsuccessful hunt to be a waste of time, then the true meaning of the chase eludes you all together. — Fred Bear

Instead of showing visibly distinct alternate identities, the typical DID patient presents a polysymptomatic mixture of dissociative and posttraumatic stressdisorder (PTSD) symptoms that are embedded in a matrix of ostensibly non-trauma-related symptoms (e.g., depression, panic attacks, substance abuse,somatoform symptoms, eating-disordered symptoms). The prominence of these latter, highly familiar symptoms often leads clinicians to diagnose only these comorbid conditions. When this happens, the undiagnosed DID patient may undergo a long and frequently unsuccessful treatment for these other conditions.
- Guidelines for Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder in Adults, Third Revision, p5 — James A. Chu

I don't want to be a Michael Moore-style artist, which is not to disparage Michael Moore. But he seems rather unsuccessful at winning people over who don't already agree with him. — Mohsin Hamid

My whole life has been merely a succession of miserable and unsuccessful denials of feelings or reason. — Mikhail Lermontov

The most unsuccessful three years in the education of cost estimators appears to be fifth-grade arithmetic. — Norman Ralph Augustine

To be normal is the ideal aim for the unsuccessful. — C. G. Jung

I would like to produce films, but I feel I am an unsuccessful producer. That's the fact. — Mithun Chakraborty

It is axiomatic among writers that no one ever sues the writer of an unsuccessful book. Just let a book go over twenty-five thousand copies and it is surprising how many people's feelings are hurt, how many screwballs think their brain children have been stolen, and how many people feel that they have been portrayed in a manner calculated to bring infamy upon them. — Margaret Mitchell

Among the aimless, unsuccessful or worthless, you often hear talk about 'killing time.' The man who is always killing time is really killing his own chances in life. While the man who is destined to success is the man who makes time live by making it useful. — Arthur Brisbane

Who is willing to be satisfied with a job that expresses all his limitations? He will accept such work only as a 'means of livelihood' while he waits to discover his 'true vocation'. The world is full of unsuccessful businessmen who still secretly believe they were meant to be artists or writers or actors in the movies. — Thomas Merton

Beating is the worst, and therefore the last means to be us'd in the correction of children, and that only in the cases of extremity, after all gently ways have been try'd, and proved unsuccessful; which, if well observ'd, there will very seldom be any need of blows. — John Locke

The unsuccessful person neither thinks nor acts; the average person either thinks or acts; the successful person thinks and then acts! — Orrin Woodward

Oh to have a lodge in some vast wilderness. Where rumors of oppression and deceit, of unsuccessful and successful wars may never reach me anymore. — William Cowper

Isn't my fur stole pitiful? How unsuccessful can a girl look? People think I'm wearing anchovies. The worst of it is, I trapped these under my own sink. — Phyllis Diller

A rationalist, as I use the word, is a man who attempts to reach decisions by argument and perhaps, in certain cases, by compromise, rather than by violence. He is a man who would rather be unsuccessful in convincing another man by argument than successful in crushing him by force, by intimidation and threats, or even by persuasive propaganda. — Karl Popper

HARTMANN observed something very much like insight which his theo- retical background led him to interpret otherwise: The difference between these records [for monkeys] and those of the chicks, cats and dogs ... is undeniable. Whereas the latter were practically unanimous ... in showing a process of gradual learning by a gradual elimination of unsuccessful — Anonymous

And we simply cannot be constant with the fact that God's cause is not always the successful one, that we really could be "unsuccessful"; and yet be on the right road. But this is where we find out whether we have begun in faith or in a burst of enthusiasm. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Because the demands on the goalie are mostly mental, it means that for a goalie the biggest enemy is himself. Not a puck, not a opponent, not a quirk of size or style. The stress and anxiety he feels when he plays, the fear of failing, the fear of being embarrassed, the fear of being physically hurt, all symptoms of his position, in constant ebb and flow, but never disappearing. The successful goalie understands these neuroses, accept them, and put them under control. The unsuccessful goalie is distracted by them, his mind in knots. His body quickly follows. — Ken Dryden

Success: The successful person is willing to do what the unsuccessful person is not willing to do. Draw a profile of success in whatever you are choosing to improve. If you are willing to do what that profile demands, then you have a credible demand of success. If you are not willing to do that then it just will not be there for you. You can't have the one without the other. — Hyrum W. Smith

You can be an unhappy person, but you must never be a hopeless person! You can be an unsuccessful person or a defeated or an abandoned unlucky person, but you must never be a hopeless person! Being hopeless is the worst of the worst, it is the ultimate worst! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

One would think that an unsuccessful volume was like a degree in the school of reviewing. One unread work makes the judge bitter enough; but a second failure, and he is quite desperate in his damnation. I do believe one half of the injustice - the severity of 'the ungentle craft' originates in its own want of success: they cannot forgive the popularity which has passed them over ... — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Don't look so worried. I've sailed the seven seas, and I've never had an unsuccessful adventure yet!"
"Really? You've sailed all seven seas?" asked Darwin admiringly.
"Every last one!"
"What are the seven seas? I've always wondered."
"Aaarrr. Well, let's see ... " said the Pirate Captain, scratching his craggy forehead. "There's the North Sea. And that other one, the one near Mozambique. And ... what's that one in Hyde Park?"
"The Serpentine?"
"That's the one. How many's that then? Three. Um. There's the sea with all the rocks in it ... I think they call it Sea Number Four. Then that would leave ... uh ... Grumpy and Sneezy ... "
Darwin was starting to look a little less impressed.
"Would you look at that big seagull!" said the Pirate Captain, quickly ducking into a beach hut. — Gideon Defoe

Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful idiots are always asking, "What's in it for me"? — Ziad K. Abdelnour

When a public quarrel is envenomed by private injuries, a blow that is not mortal or decisive can be productive only of a short truce, which allows the unsuccessful combatant to sharpen his arms for a new encounter. — Edward Gibbon

There is nothing more common than unsuccessful men with talent. — Joe Strummer

I am a registered Democrat and two-time unsuccessful candidate for office. — Jack L. Chalker

Difference between a successful and an unsuccessful person is not the action but the vision. — Debasish Mridha

Father Fogden blinked, brought back to attention. He made an unsuccessful attempt to stifle another belch, and transferred his bright blue gaze to Fergus. "You have a name, too? And a cock?" "Yes," said Fergus, wisely choosing not to be more specific. — Diana Gabaldon

And being "nice" in the form of feigned sympathy is often equally as unsuccessful. We live in an age that celebrates niceness under various names. We are exhorted to be nice and to respect people's feelings at all times and in every situation. But nice alone in the context of negotiation can backfire. Nice, employed as a ruse, is disingenuous and manipulative. — Chris Voss

All of us have read of what occured during that interval. The tale is in every Englishman's mouth; and you and I, who were children when the great battle was won and lost, are never tired of hearing and recounting the history of that famous action. Its rememberance rankles still in the bosoms of millions of the countrymen of those brave men who lost the day. They pant for an opportunity of revenging that humiliation; and if a contest, ending in a victory on their part, should ensue, elating them in their turn, and leaving its cursed legacy of hatred and rage behind to us, there is no end to the so-called glory and shame, and to the alterations of successful and unsuccessful murder, in which two high-spirited nations might engage. Centuries hence, we Frenchmen and Englishmen might be boasting and killing each other still, carrying out bravely the Devil's code of honor. — William Makepeace Thackeray

I wrote a few unsuccessful screenplays before I wrote 'Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.' I wrote them as television plays that never got made. I'm glad I wrote them - I think it was a good experience. — Kelly Masterson

Unsuccessful people are the ones who are impressed by celebrity, by people's names and titles. — Robin S. Sharma

Our industries, our trade, and our way of life generally have been based first on the exploitation of the earth's surface and then on the oppression of one another--on banditry pure and simple. The inevitable result is now upon us. The unsuccessful bandits are trying to despoil their more successful competitors. The world is divided into two hostile camps: at the root of this vast conflict lies the evil of spoliation which has destroyed the moral integrity of our generation. While this contest marches to its inevitable conclusion, it will not be amiss to draw attention to a forgotten factor which may perhaps help to restore peace and harmony to a tortured world. We must in our future planning pay great attention to food--the product of sun, soil, plant, and livestock--in other words, to farming and gardening. — Albert Howard

It is exciting and emancipating to believe we are one of nature's latest experiments, but what if the experiment is unsuccessful? — V.S. Pritchett

It is better to be unsuccessful pursuing a significant goal that being successful attaining an insignificant one. — Michael Josephson

The Llama is a woolly sort of fleecy hairy goat, with an indolent expression and an undulating throat; like an unsuccessful literary man. — Hilaire Belloc

The words It's not my fault! should never again come from your mouth. The words It's not my fault! have been symbolically written on the gravestones of unsuccessful people ever since Eve took her first bite of the apple. — Andy Andrews

Each day we go to our work in the hope of discovering, - in the hope that some one, no matter who, may find a solution of one of the pending great problems, - and each succeeding day we return to our task with renewed ardor; and even if we are unsuccessful, our work has not been in vain, for in these strivings, in these efforts, we have found hours of untold pleasure, and we have directed our energies to the benefit of mankind. — Nikola Tesla

Someone asked me ... how it felt and I was reminded of a story that a fellow townsman of ours used to tell
Abraham Lincoln. They asked him how he felt once after an unsuccessful election. He said he felt like a little boy who had stubbed his toe in the dark. He said that he was too old to cry, but it hurt too much to laugh. — Adlai E. Stevenson II

I went through about seven years of trying. And through artificial insemination. And through medication. And all of which was unsuccessful. — Nadya Suleman

Everyone has it in them to express themselves that fundamental thing that they know they are inside. That rather beautiful afraid person. Which might get translated into aggression, or silence, or shyness, or all kinds of other things. But inside we know that we are huggable and lovable, and we want to love and be loved. That person is yearning for fulfillment. To be the person they know they can be and that's a constant journey; that's a process. It's not acquiring about this thing and then that thing, getting to this place, learning this technique, and finding out how this works. It's about the fact that other people are always more interesting than oneself. Let's forget what successful people have in common, if there's a thing unsuccessful people have in common it's that they talk about themselves all the time. — Stephen Fry

During the 19th century, Britain fought two wars in unsuccessful attempts to subjugate the Afghans. When Britain finally drew a border between India and Afghanistan in 1893, Pashtun tribes in southern Afghanistan were cut off from related tribes across the border in what was then India and is now Pakistan. — Stephen Kinzer

Chimpanzees have very strong preferences and aversions that are completely personality-linked. The people who are unsuccessful in working with chimpanzees are those who take this personally. — Frans De Waal

So many people wait around for funding, and if they're unsuccessful, they don't make the film; if you've got a good idea, that seems so pointless. There's always a way of doing it; you've just got to find it. — Joel Edgerton

Try not to scream when I break your bones. It bothers me. You can cry if you want; that's fine."
He burst out laughing. I didn't realize that was a funny statement.
"Got it," he said, trying unsuccessful to cover his grin. "Screaming, no. Crying, yes — Amy Tintera

General manager Frank Lane made his mark on the club by making several unpopular or unsuccessful trades. Among the guys he traded to other teams are Rocky Colavito, Roger Maris, Norm Cash, and ... manager Joe Gordon? Uh, yes. Lane and Detroit GM Bill DeWitt traded managers - Joe Gordon for Jimmy Dykes. Lane's tenure ended shortly thereafter, long before the damage he caused. — Tucker Elliot

At that time, the people that were in the animated film business were mostly guys who were unsuccessful newspaper cartoonists. In other words, their ability to draw living things was practically nil. — Marc Davis

Unsuccessful candidates for the Presidency should be quietly hanged as a matter of public sanitation and decorum. — H.L. Mencken

One can be one's own ghost and roam about in various places, sometimes many places simultaneously. Perhaps I didn't approach it quite correctly. A ghost is always the result of botched work; a ghost means unsuccessful resurrection, a shadow of an image that has perhaps once been alive, a kind of abortion in the universe. — Halldor Laxness

Nothing can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrecognized genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are the omnipotent. Calvin Coolidge 30th President — R. Padfield

To judge between good or bad, between successful and unsuccessful would take the eye of a God. — Anton Chekhov

The unsuccessful bully can always become the father of a family. — Rebecca West

Be a pro at what you do. No one shows-up to meetings of the Unsuccessful Skydivers Club. — Ryan Lilly

When people with power see things happen of which they disapprove, they drop bombs and send in tanks. When people without power see things happen of which they disapprove, they smash store windows, blow themselves up in crowded places, and fly planes into buildings. The fact that both methods have proved remarkably unsuccessful at changing things doesn't stop people from going on in the same way. — N. T. Wright

I conclude therefore that, fortune being changeful and mankind steadfast in their ways, so long as the two are in agreement men are successful, but unsuccessful when they fall out. For my part I consider that it is better to be adventurous than cautious, because fortune is a woman, and if you wish to keep her under it is necessary to beat and ill-use her; and it is seen that she allows herself to be mastered by the adventurous rather than by those who go to work more coldly. She is, therefore, always, woman-like, a lover of young men, because they are less cautious, more violent, and with more audacity command her. — Niccolo Machiavelli

Successful people make decisions quickly (as soon as all the facts are available) and change them very slowly (if ever). Unsuccessful people make decisions very slowly, and change them often and quickly. — Napoleon Hill

Successful people willingly do what unsuccessful people are unwilling to do. — John Spence

True success is overcoming the fear of being unsuccessful. — Paul Sweeney

When a physician is called to a patient, he should decide on the diagnosis, then the prognosis, and then the treatment ... Physicians must know the evolution of the disease, its duration and gravity in order to predict its course and outcome. Here statistics intervene to guide physicians, by teaching them the proportion of mortal cases, and if observation has also shown that the successful and unsuccessful cases can be recognized by certain signs, then the prognosis is more certain. — Claude Bernard

I know very well you can't help me," he said. "But I tell you, because unsuccessful and superfluous people like me find their salvation in talking. I have to generalise about everything I do. I'm bound to look for an explanation and justification of my absurd existence in somebody else's theories, in literary types - in the idea that we, upper-class Russians, are degenerating, for instance, and so on. Last night, for example, I comforted myself by thinking all the time: 'Ah, how true Tolstoy is, how mercilessly true!' And that did me good. Yes, really, brother, he is a great writer, say what you like!" Samoylenko, who had never read Tolstoy and was intending to do so every day of his life, was a little embarrassed, and said: "Yes, all other authors write from imagination, but he writes straight from nature. — Anton Chekhov

Most people, who have quit smoking, have had at least one unsuccessful try in the past. It is not important how many times you try to quit. The only important thing is, that eventually you stay quit — Ralph Waldo Emerson

In its 2013 annual report on "Global Risks," the World Economic Forum (host of the annual superelite gathering in Davos), stated plainly, "Although the Alaskan village of Kivalina - which faces being 'wiped out' by the changing climate - was unsuccessful in its attempts to file a US$ 400 million lawsuit against oil and coal companies, future plaintiffs may be more successful. Five decades ago, the U.S. tobacco industry would not have suspected that in 1997 it would agree to pay $368 billion in health-related damages. — Naomi Klein

Let men of all ranks whether they are successful, or unsuccessful, whether they triumph or not; let them do their duty, and rest satisfied. — Plato

Disruption to the flow of oil through the Straits of Hormuz would threaten regional and global economic growth. Any attempt by Iran to close the Straits would be illegal and unsuccessful. — Philip Hammond

My first attempts to transplant nuclei in Xenopus were completely unsuccessful, because the Xenopus egg, unlike those of other amphibians, is surrounded by an extremely elastic membrane and jelly layer that make penetration by a micropipette impossible. — John Gurdon

I was so unsuccessful for so long. I was used to the word no. I was used to you're not good enough or not quite there or you need to fix this about you. So I am honestly walking in faith every single day that I am going to be able to handle whatever God has for me. I am not used to being in a place where people appreciate my work and understand my work and want to be a part of my work and getting something out of my work because for so long it was so misunderstood. The success part for me is the hardest part and everyday I'm still battling. — Tamar Braxton

It is possible that the scrupulously honest man may not grow rich so fast as the unscrupulous and dishonest one; but the success will be of a truer kind, earned without fraud or injustice. And even though a man should for a time be unsuccessful, still he must be honest: better lose all and save character. For character is itself a fortune ... — Samuel Smiles

Revenge is a frequent motive in suicides, you know. They feel it is someone's fault their lives have been unsuccessful, and they want to inflict this guilt on others by committing suicide. — Jo Nesbo

When I've been unsuccessful, I've been controlled. When I've been successful, I've been in control. — Katharine Hepburn

Just like us, successful people are also given 24 hours each day. The only differences between them and unsuccessful individuals are their winner mindset and self discipline. — Kevin J. Donaldson

I have had unsuccessful films, but I learned a lot from those films. I give my failures as much importance as my success. — Aamir Khan

Successful people aren't born that way. They become successful by establishing the habit of doing things unsuccessful people don't like to do. The successful people don't always like these things themselves; they just get on and do them. — William Makepeace Thackeray

The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal. — Erich Fromm

My first kiss can be summed up in one word - unsuccessful. — Huey Lewis

The unsuccessful person is burdened by learning, and prefers to walk down familiar paths. Their distaste for learning stunts their growth and limits their influence. — John C. Maxwell

Many men and women spend their lives in unsuccessful attempts to spin the flax God sends them upon a wheel they can never use. — J.G. Holland

I think the periods of being unsuccessful have made me a better actor. — Peter Capaldi

Most codes extend their definitions of treason to acts not really against one's country. They do not distinguish between acts against the government, and acts against the oppressions of the government. The latter are virtues, yet have furnished more victims to the executioner than the former. Real treasons are rare; oppressions frequent. The unsuccessful strugglers against tyranny have been the chief martyrs of treason laws in all countries. — Thomas Jefferson

Dad was a retired chemist who, in his 60s, fathered and fed me and my two sisters while Mum worked as a secretary. He made us curries, Chinese meals and strange concoctions. He was often unsuccessful. — Tamsin Greig

The Unsuccessful Salesperson says, the other guy has the best territory. The Successful Salesperson says, every territory is the best one. The Unsuccessful Salesperson says, that company will never buy. The Successful Salesperson says, I can make that company buy. — Brian Tracy

I asked him at the clambake in 2001, at the writers' retreat Xanadu, what he'd done during the war, which he called 'civilization's second unsuccessful attempt to commit suicide, — Kurt Vonnegut

There is no use in your walking five miles to fish when you can depend on being just as unsuccessful near home. — Mark Twain

One of the major differences between successful and unsuccessful people is that the former look for problems to resolve, whereas the latter make every attempt to avoid them. — Grant Cardone

It seems that it is the most unsuccessful people who give the most advice, particularly for writing and financial matters. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The biggest hurdle is rejection. Any business you start, be ready for it. The difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is the successful people do all the things the unsuccessful people don't want to do. When 10 doors are slammed in your face, go to door number 11 enthusiastically, with a smile on your face. — John Paul DeJoria

A cruel queen does not mean an unsuccessful one. Under her guidance, Kenettra changed from a glittering gem into a clouded stone, and her empire became one to rule all others, a darkness that stretched from sun, to sea, to sky.
- The Empire of the Wolf, translation by Tarsa Mehani — Marie Lu

If a team needs new facilities, and they've been unsuccessful for a long period of time, and the local community is not being responsive, then I think it's a possibility that team might get a vote to relocate. — Bob McNair

If one insists on calling all unsuccessful efforts failures the meaning of failure is really quite benign. When trying anything new or taking on any challenge, unsuccessful efforts are an essential aspect of skill building. — Michael Josephson

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press On! has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. — Calvin Coolidge

The habit of postponing work that should be done today for tomorrow has made many people unsuccessful. — Sunday Adelaja

No century has been more concerned than ours to do away with war: it has proved signally unsuccessful. All too little attention has been given to the phenomenon that internal politics have become increasingly more warlike. — Bertrand De Jouvenel

An authentic response to who God is and what He's done ... What we do is useful to the extent that it provides an ability for our community to voice things back to God. If it's unsuccessful in that, then it's just self-indulgence. — Crowder

Start with this: not all pain matters. There are people whose attention is consistently drawn away from their purpose and toward their pain, like a moth to a light. Such people, who pay attention to every annoyance and obstacle in their way, are usually unsuccessful in their endeavors. In extreme cases they are mentally ill. A healthy person, a flourishing person, learns to move past a lot of annoyance and a good deal of pain. — Eric Greitens

Next door but one is Quinlan Broddle, a Viceroy with a fear of gardens. So much so that he sold his garden to Virgin Atlantic and his erstwhile front lawn is now a runway where miniature helicopters and packets of crisps undertake sorties to 1940's Dresden where they have made several dozen unsuccessful attempts to rescue the Quaker Oats man, who is being held captive by the SS on the basis that his hair looks like ice cream. — St John Morris

When you think that it's too hard, remember that in the long run, doing the things that will make you successful is a lot easier than being unsuccessful — Ray Dalio

Nothing in the world is more common than unsuccessful people with talent, leave the house before you find something worth staying in for. — Banksy

My grandfather was a Methodist preacher, and my father was an unsuccessful businessman. We didn't have status or wealth. — Alexandra Stoddard