Facing failure and overcoming life’s challenges is a soft-skill every entrepreneur must master. As a matter of fact, 20% of new businesses close their doors within the first two years so misfiring is a real possibility. In our quest to grow and succeed, understanding how to learn from failure becomes an essential life skill.

This guide features 211+ quotes about failure and overcoming life’s challenges from various walks of life. Whether you’re interested in general reflections on failure, insights on failure in business, or motivational mantras to keep you going this collection offers a diverse range of perspectives will encourage you to forge ahead.

Quotes about Failure

• “Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.” – Truman Capote
• “Failure is not the opposite of success; it’s part of success.” – Arianna Huffington
• “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas A. Edison
• “Mistakes are the portals of discovery.” – James Joyce
• “Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.” – C.S. Lewis
• “There is no failure except in no longer trying.” – Elbert Hubbard
• “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston S. Churchill
• “Failure is success if we learn from it.” – Malcolm Forbes
• “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” – Confucius
• “The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.” – Stephen McCranie
• “Remember that failure is an event, not a person.” – Zig Ziglar
• “The only real failure in life is the failure to try.” – Unknown
• “Every failure brings with it the seed of an equivalent success.” – Napoleon Hill
• “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” – Henry Ford
• “It’s not how far you fall, but how high you bounce that counts.” – Zig Ziglar
• “A man may fall many times, but he won’t be a failure until he says that someone pushed him.” – Elmer G. Letterman
• “The only true failure is when you stop trying.” – Unknown
• “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” – Albert Einstein
• “Failure is the tuition you pay for success.” – Walter Brunell
• “The fastest way to succeed is to double your failure rate.” – Tom Watson
• “Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street.” – Zig Ziglar
• “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky
• “I’d rather be partly great than entirely useless.” – Neal Shusterman
• “There is no failure, only feedback.” – Robert Allen
• “Failure teaches us more than success ever does.” – Unknown
• “Failure is the key to success; each mistake teaches us something.” – Morihei Ueshiba
• “The only thing that separates success from failure is one last attempt.” – Marc Levy

Quotes about Failure and Success

The difference between failure and success.

• “Success is not in never failing, but rising every time you fall!” – Anonymous
• “The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same.” – Colin R. Davis
• “Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.” – Henry David Thoreau
• “Failures are the stairs we climb to reach success.” – Roy T. Bennett
• “Success is not how high you have climbed, but how you make a positive difference to the world.” – Roy T. Bennett
• “The only difference between success and failure is the ability to take action.” – Alexander Graham Bell
• “In order to succeed, we must first believe that we can.” – Nikos Kazantzakis
• “Success is not just about making money. It’s about making a difference.” – Anonymous
• “Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.” – John Wooden
• “The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.” – Vidal Sassoon
• “Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence.” – Colin Powell
• “I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.” – Thomas Jefferson
• “Success is not in what you have, but who you are.” – Bo Bennett

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• “The biggest risk is not taking any risk. In a world that’s changing quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” – Mark Zuckerberg
• “The biggest failure you can have in life is making the mistake of never trying at all.” – Anonymous
• “Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” – Anonymous
• “Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.” – Bill Gates
• “Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.” – Og Mandino
• “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” – Albert Schweitzer
• “I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he climbs, but how high he bounces when he hits the bottom.” – George S. Patton
• “If you learn from defeat, you haven’t really lost.” – Zig Ziglar
• “Success is a journey, not a destination.” – Arthur Ashe
• “Success is not the absence of failure; it’s the persistence through failure.” – Aisha Tyler
• “Success isn’t about the end result, it’s about what you learn along the way.” – Vera Wang
• “You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the failure and you don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.” – Johnny Cash
• “I never dreamed about success. I worked for it.” – Estée Lauder
• “Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.” – George Bernard Shaw

Not Giving Up Quotes

The feeling when you’ve reached the summit.

• “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” – Confucius
• “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” – Thomas A. Edison
• “Never give up on something that you can’t go a day without thinking about.” – Winston Churchill
• “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” – C.S. Lewis
• “Keep going. Everything you need will come to you at the perfect time.” – Anonymous
• “Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th.” – Julie Andrews
• “When you feel like giving up, remember why you held on for so long in the first place.” – Anonymous
• “The only thing that stands between you and your dream is the will to try and the belief that it is actually possible.” – Joel Brown
• “Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.” – Sam Levenson
• “The day you give up on your dreams is the day you give up on yourself.” – Anonymous
• “Fall seven times, stand up eight.” – Japanese Proverb
• “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue.” – Winston Churchill
• “People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.” – George Bernard Shaw
• “Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than the one with all the facts.” – Albert Einstein
• “The world’s greatest achievers have been those who have always stayed focused on their goals and have been consistent in their efforts.” – Dr. Roopleen
• “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” – Nelson Mandela
• “If you fall behind, run faster. Never give up, never surrender, and rise up against the odds.” – Jesse Jackson
• “The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack in will.” – Vince Lombardi
• “Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” – Dale Carnegie
• “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” – Thomas Edison
• “When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.” – Harriet Beecher Stowe
• “Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.” – Newt Gingrich
• “If you believe it will work out, you’ll see opportunities. If you believe it won’t, you will see obstacles.” – Wayne Dyer
• “Don’t give up. There are too many nay-sayers out there who will try to discourage you. Don’t listen to them. The only one who can make you give up is yourself.” – Sidney Sheldon
• “Never give in and never give up.” – Hubert H. Humphrey
• “You just can’t beat the person who won’t give up.” – Babe Ruth
• “Courage doesn’t always roar, sometimes it’s the quiet voice at the end of the day whispering ‘I will try again tomorrow.'” – Mary Anne Radmacher

Failure and Learning Quotes

What lessons can you learn from failure?

• “The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” – Henry Ford
• “Mistakes are the growing pains of wisdom.” – William Jordan
• “Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.” – Napoleon Hill
• “I’ve learned that mistakes can often be as good a teacher as success.” – Jack Welch
• “Failure is a bend in the road, not the end of the road. Learn from failure and keep moving forward.” – Roy T. Bennett
• “Failure is a great teacher, and I think when you make mistakes and you recover from them and you treat them as valuable learning experiences, then you’ve got something to share.” – Steve Harvey
• “Failure is simply an opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” – Henry Ford
• “You learn more from failure than from success. Don’t let it stop you. Failure builds character.” – Unknown
• “Mistakes are proof that you are trying.” – Anonymous
• “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” – Benjamin Franklin
• “The only thing that we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.” – Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
• “Don’t worry about failures, worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.” – Jack Canfield
• “An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.” – Niels Bohr
• “Don’t fear failure. Fear being in the exact same place next year as you are today.” – Unknown
• “Mistakes have the power to turn you into something better than you were before.” – Anonymous
• “Failure isn’t fatal, but failure to change might be.” – John Wooden

“Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.” – C.S. Lewis

• “Remember the two benefits of failure. First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn’t work; and second, the failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach.” – Roger Von Oech
• “A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.” – John C. Maxwell
• “You make mistakes. Mistakes don’t make you.” – Maxwell Maltz
• “Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
• “Success is not a good teacher; failure makes you humble.” – Shah Rukh Khan
• “Failure is success in progress.” – Albert Einstein
• “A mistake is a crash course in learning.” – Billy Anderson
• “When you take risks you learn that there will be times when you succeed and there will be times when you fail, and both are equally important.” – Ellen DeGeneres
• “Your best teacher is your last mistake.” – Ralph Nader
• “It’s not about failure; it’s about learning and growing and continuing on your journey.” – Brittany Burgunder

Failure Quotes about Friends

• “Friends are the ones who lift you when your wings forget how to fly.” – Anonymous
• “A true friend knows your weaknesses but shows you your strengths.” – Anonymous
• “In the face of failure, friends are the best antidote to despair.” – Anonymous
• “A friend is one who believes in you when you have ceased to believe in yourself.” – Anonymous
• “A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.” – Anonymous
• “Friends pick us up when we fall down, and if they can’t pick us up, they lie down and listen for a while.” – Anonymous
• “Success isn’t about the end result; it’s about the friends who support you along the way.” – Anonymous
• “Failure is a lonely road, but a friend’s support can make the journey bearable.” – Anonymous
• “A friend’s encouragement during a failure is worth more than an hour of praise after success.” – Anonymous
• “One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives.” – Euripides

“Failure can either break friendships or forge them in steel; it’s the trying times that show you who’s really there for you.” – Anonymous

• “A true friend encourages us, comforts us, supports us like a big easy chair, offering us a safe refuge from the world.” – Anonymous
• “True friends never let you face your failures alone; they share your pain and help you rise again.” – Anonymous
• “The best way to mend a broken heart after failure is time and the company of good friends.” – Anonymous

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• “A faithful friend is the medicine of life and the cure for failure’s wounds.” – Anonymous
• “Friends give us the courage to face our failures, not because they erase the failures, but because they make them bearable.” – Anonymous
• “In prosperity, our friends know us; in adversity, we know our friends.” – John Churton Collins
• “Friends help us find the strength to rise from failure and encourage us to try again.” – Anonymous
• “True friendship is seen through the heart, not through the eyes of success and failure.” – Anonymous
• “Your friends will believe in your potential; your best friends will believe in you even when you fail.” – Anonymous
• “The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of confusion or despair, that is a friend indeed.” – Anonymous
• “Friendship multiplies the good of life and divides the evil of failure.” – Anonymous
• “It is not the failures that define us so much as how we respond to them, and our friends are often the mirrors to our most authentic responses.” – Anonymous
• “The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own, especially in times of failure.” – Anonymous
• “A friend is someone who helps you up when you’re down, and if they can’t, they lay down beside you and listen.” – Anonymous
• “True friends are like stars; they shine brightest on the darkest nights of failure.” – Anonymous
• “Success is measured by the quality of our friendships, not by the heights we attain.” – Anonymous

Failure Quotes about Business

Running a business can be extremely stressful.

• “Failure is not the opposite of success; it’s part of success.” – Arianna Huffington
• “In business, failure is not the end; it’s just a new beginning.” – Anonymous
• “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas Edison
• “Success is not built on success. It’s built on failure. It’s built on frustration. Sometimes its built on catastrophe.” – Sumner Redstone
• “Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat.” – Denis Waitley
• “The biggest risk is not taking any risk. In a world that is changing quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” – Mark Zuckerberg
• “The fastest way to succeed is to double your failure rate.” – Thomas J. Watson
• “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston S. Churchill
• “Don’t worry about failure; you only have to be right once.” – Drew Houston
• “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” – Henry Ford
• “Sometimes by losing a battle, you find a new way to win the war.” – Donald Trump
• “The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure.” – John C. Maxwell
• “There’s no success like failure, and failure’s no success at all.” – Bob Dylan

“In the real world, the smartest people are people who make mistakes and learn. In school, the smartest people don’t make mistakes.” – Robert Kiyosaki

• “Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.” – Richard Branson
• “I failed my way to success.” – Thomas Edison
• “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” – Albert Einstein
• “The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.” – Vidal Sassoon
• “Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.” – Henry David Thoreau
• “Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.” – Richard Branson
• “Fail often so you can succeed sooner.” – Tom Kelley
• “There is no failure except in no longer trying.” – Elbert Hubbard
• “Success is not in never failing, but rising every time you fall.” – Vince Lombardi
• “Failure is feedback. Learn from it and move on.”
• “The only real failure in life is the failure to try.”
• “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” – Bill Gates
• “Failures are the stepping stones to success.” – Unknown

Failure Slogans

How many times have you failed and gotten back up?

• Failure fuels growth.
• Fail big, win bigger.
• Embrace the stumble.
• Learn from loss.
• Grow through failure.
• Failure’s a fresh start.
• Stumble, rise, succeed.
• Mistakes make masters.
• Failure is a teacher.
• Dare to fail.
• Triumph through trials.
• Failures forge futures.
• Risks reveal rewards.
• Failure: a new beginning.
• Cherish every mistake.
• Stumble today, stride tomorrow.
• Find wisdom in failure.
• Failure to flourish.
• In loss, learn.
• Fail, learn, lead.
• Falling forwards.
• Embrace, endure, evolve.
• Fail well, learn more.
• From mistakes to milestones.
• Failing is learning.
• Failure’s the first step.
• Grow from the fall.

Failure Captions

Failure is growth in disguise.

• Mistakes are lessons in progress.
• Embrace failure, it teaches success.
• Fall down seven, rise eight.
• Failing? You’re learning. Keep going!
• Fail. Learn. Grow. Repeat.
• Stumble today, conquer tomorrow.
• Every failure is a new start.
• Failure’s just a detour, not defeat.
• Turn failure into a stepping stone.
• Failing is a sign you’re trying.
• Through failure, wisdom emerges.
• Mistakes mean you’re moving forward.
• Your last failure is your teacher.
• Dare to fail, dare to grow.
• Failure: a rehearsal for success.
• Rise stronger from each failure.
• Failing forward is still progress.
• Every mistake is a future win.
• Learn from failure, don’t linger.
• Failures are life’s best lessons.
• Embrace failure, and find your path.
• Fall, learn, rise, repeat.
• Success is built on failures.
• Failure’s the first step to growth.
• Mistakes: The roadmap to success.
• Find victory in every failure.

Can Embracing Failure Help You Succeed in Business?

Would you take the leap?

Colonel Harland David Sanders, the face behind the globally renowned Kentucky Fried Chicken is a testament to the power of perseverance and learning from failure. His journey to success is nothing short of inspirational, proving that age is just a number and that success can knock on your door at any stage of life.

Born in 1890, Sanders faced a series of professional setbacks before he became the fast-food magnate we know today. Early in his career, he dabbled in various professions. Sanders tried his hand at law but had to abandon it due to a courtroom brawl with a client. Later Sanders ventured into sales, slinging everything from lamps to insurance and tires. But none of these pursuits resulted in the level of success Sanders yearned for.

However, it was his passion for cooking and a secret chicken recipe that would eventually pave his way to success. But this path was not without its challenges. Sanders believed in his unique chicken recipe and thought it had the potential to be a big hit. With this belief, he approached various restaurants and food joints, attempting to franchise his recipe. Time and time again, he was met with rejection. Imagine the determination it took to keep going after being turned down hundreds of times! But Sanders was undeterred. He once famously said, “I made a resolve then that I was going to amount to something if I could.”

It was this unwavering spirit that kept him going, even after facing over 1,000 rejections. It was only on his 1,010th attempt that he finally struck a deal, and the world got its first taste of what would become the legendary KFC.

Colonel Sanders’s story is a powerful reminder that success is not always immediate. It often comes after countless failures and rejections. What set Sanders apart was his ability to learn from each setback and his refusal to give up on his dream. In the face of adversity, Sanders chose to see each “no” as a stepping stone to his eventual “yes,” shaping the fast-food industry in ways no one could have imagined.

What Lessons Can We Learn from Failure?

Grow from failure.

Failure, although often viewed negatively, can be an invaluable teacher. The lessons we can learn from failure encompass personal growth, resilience, and innovation. Here are a few ways failure can be a valuable teacher.

• Identify our mistakes and weaknesses: When we encounter failure, it allows us to understand what went wrong and how we can improve. This process of self-reflection often leads to personal growth and the development of critical problem-solving skills.
• Build resilience and perseverance: It encourages a mindset where obstacles become opportunities for growth rather than insurmountable barriers.
• Spur creativity and innovation: Failure challenges us to think outside the box and explore new approaches.

In both personal and professional settings, embracing failure as a learning opportunity can lead to greater success and fulfillment in the long run. Keep going!