Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.

What would you do if you knew you could not fail?

Big companies are like marching bands. Even if half the band is playing random notes it still sounds kind of like music. The concealment of failure is built into them.

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not, nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not, unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not, the world is full of educated failures. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

In all my perplexities and distresses the Bible has never failed to give me light and strength.

Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure.

So while I will never minimize the costs involved in military action, I am convinced that a failure to act in Libya would have carried a far greater price for America.

It has always seemed strange to me... the things we admire in men kindness and generosity openness honesty understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest sharpness greed acquisitiveness meanness egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.

One of the reasons people stop learning is that they become less and less willing to risk failure.

There is the greatest practical benefit in making a few failures early in life.

No man fails who does his best.

What charitable 1 percenters can't do is assume responsibility - America's national responsibilities: the care of its sick and its poor the education of its young the repair of its failing infrastructure the repayment of its staggering war debts.

They never fail who die in a great cause.

Failure is not a single cataclysmic event. You don't fail overnight. Instead failure is a few errors in judgement repeated every day.

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders but they have never failed to imitate them.

Crime and bad lives are the measure of a State's failure all crime in the end is the crime of the community.

In Torch Song I did that character almost non-stop from 1978 until I made the movie in 1987. Then I had some failure which also colors how you react to doing other things.

The only guide to man is his conscience, the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations, but with this shield however the fates may play we march always in the ranks of honor.

At best spiritual voices help us replace madness with clarity & violence, with compassion and peace. But we will live up to the promise only if we overcome the temptation to promote our own narrow comfort and individual peace of mind. If we fail this challenge we will not get a spiritual "new age" but a spiritual dead end.