Failure is one of life’s most uncomfortable teachers, but also one of its most effective. You could be chasing a big goal or just trying to get through a tough season. Either way, it’s often the moments where things fall apart that we begin to truly understand what we’re made of. These inspirational quotes about failure can help ease the burden of setbacks and address the fears we all have.
While it’s easy to view failure as a setback, the truth is, every great success story has a few hard chapters. The key is learning how to move through them, without giving up, and with self-compassion, courage and a willingness to keep trying. Whether you’re looking for reassurance and motivation, experiencing the common fear of failure or simply feeling like a failure, these powerful insights offer perspective and hope.
Many of these quotes explore different perspectives on failure and why it’s not as scary as it seems. Browse these inspirational quotes about failure and get the motivation and encouragement you need.
Quotes About Failure to Help You Face It Without Fear
Failure can feel personal. It can feel like a reflection of who we are, rather than a result of what we’ve done. But the truth is, everyone fails, and generally more often than they admit. These “fear of failure” quotes remind us that failure isn’t something to hide from. It’s something to expect, accept and learn from.
- “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” —Henry Ford
- “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” —Thomas Edison
- “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” —Robert F. Kennedy
- “There is no failure except in no longer trying.” —Chris Bradford, Young Samurai: The Way of the Sword
- “It’s not how far you fall, but how high you bounce that counts.” —Zig Ziglar
- “Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street.” —Zig Ziglar
- “Don’t be afraid to fail. Be afraid not to try.” —Michael Jordan
- “The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.” —Elbert Hubbard
- “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” —Winston Churchill
- “The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.” —Stephen McCranie, Brick by Brick
Related: Why Failure is Good For Success
Encouraging Quotes About Failure to Help Overcome It
Once the sting of failure hits, it can be hard to see past it. These reflections offer comfort, strength and the quiet encouragement to get back up even if your confidence is shaken. These “overcoming failure” quotes are just the beginning. Let them remind you: you’re not starting over, you’re starting wiser.
- “Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.” —J.K. Rowling, Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination
- “Fall seven times, stand up eight.” —Japanese Proverb
- “Failure is not falling down, but refusing to get up.” —Chinese Proverb
- “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall.” —Confucius
- “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” —Michael Jordan
- “Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat.” —Denis Waitley
- “You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.” —Richard Branson
- “My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.” —Abraham Lincoln
- “The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” —Henry Ford
Related: 60 Resilience Quotes That Will Give You Strength
Motivational Sayings About Success & Failure for a New Perspective
It’s easy to separate failure and success and label them as good and bad. But in reality, they’re often part of the same process. These “fail better” quotes show how failure can teach, redirect and even accelerate success when we let it. Sometimes the detour is the path.
- “Failure isn’t fatal, but failure to change might be.” —John Wooden
- “Failure is success in progress.” —Albert Einstein
- “Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes.” —John Dewey
- “You can’t let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you.” —Barack Obama
- “Confidence is built upon the experience of success.” —Denis Waitley, The Psychology of Winning
- “It doesn’t matter how many times you fail… No one is going to know or care about your failures… All you have to do is learn from them… Then everyone can tell you how lucky you are.” —Mark Cuban
- “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” —Albert Einstein
- “Every failure brings with it the seed of an equivalent success.” —Napoleon Hill
- “It’s not WHETHER you get knocked down. It’s WHETHER you get up.” —Vince Lombardi
- “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” —Samuel Beckett, Worstward Ho
Quotes That Inspire Self-Compassion & Growth After Failure
We’re often our harshest critics. But real growth doesn’t come from shame or self-blame. It comes from reflection and a willingness to try again. If you’re feeling like a failure, these words are here to soften that inner voice and remind you that failure doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means you’re brave enough to try.
- “Talk to yourself like you would to someone you love.” —Brené Brown, Dare to Lead
- “It becomes understood that happiness is not dependent on circumstances being exactly as we want them to be… knowing that joy and pain, strength and weakness, glory and failure are all essential to the full human experience.” —Kristin Neff, Self‑Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself
- “Self‑compassion simply requires being a good friend to ourselves.” —Kristin Neff
- “Let go of who you think you should be in order to be who you are. Be imperfect and have compassion for yourself. Connection is the result of authenticity.” —Brené Brown
- “When we deny our stories…they define us. Our job is not to deny the story, but to defy the ending.” —Brené Brown, Rising Strong
- “Our successes and failures come and go—they neither define us nor do they determine our worthiness.” —Kristin Neff, Self‑Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself
- “Self‑compassion is key because when we’re able to be gentle with ourselves in the midst of shame, we’re more likely to reach out, connect, and experience empathy.” —Brené Brown, Daring Greatly
- “There are people standing up and saying, ‘You will not harm me anymore. This is not okay. You can not treat me unjustly.’ That’s self-compassion.” —Kristin Neff, in interview on Verywell Mind podcast
- “I needed a close encounter with my imposter syndrome… I needed to stare it down.” —Jessamyn Stanley, Yoke: My Yoga of Self‑Acceptance
- “There is no way to learn to stand without falling.” —Jessamyn Stanley, Yoke: My Yoga of Self‑Acceptance
Quotes That Motivate Us to Keep Trying, Even After We’ve Failed
The hardest part of failing isn’t always the fall. What it comes down to is deciding whether or not to get back up. These quotes about trying and failing offer a gentle push forward. They speak to the power of effort and persistence—even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.
- “The best way out is always through.” —Robert Frost
- “It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.” —Theodore Roosevelt
- “When the going gets tough, put one foot in front of the other and just keep going. Don’t give up.” —Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
- “Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.” —Dale Carnegie, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living
- “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” —Thomas Edison
- “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” —Confucius, The Analects
- “Do not fear failure but rather fear not trying.” —Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Hear
- “Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure.” —George Edward Woodberry
- “Let me tell you the secret that has led to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity.” —Louis Pasteur
- “Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.” —James A. Michener
Why Failure Isn’t the End of the Story
Failure may slow you down, but it doesn’t define you. In fact, it often becomes the soil where your strongest qualities grow, be that resilience and clarity or creativity and grit. Whether you’re in the middle of a failure or still carrying the weight of an old one, let these words remind you: failure is not a verdict. It’s a chapter. And you are allowed to turn the page.
Take a quote with you today. Write it down. Sit with it. Let it change the way you see the past and the way you walk into the future.
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