Twenty-two years ago Judge [then-Senator Stephen] Douglas and I first became acquainted. We were both young then; he a trifle younger than I. Even then, we were both ambitious; I, perhaps, quite as much so as he. With me, the race of ambition has been a failure--a flat failure; with him it has been one of splendid success.
Kipling said that Success and Failure are both imposters, and we should all listen to Kipling, if only because none of us are likely to know anybody else named Rudyard. But having been bitten in my life by the jaws of both victory and defeat, I must rush to add that success is to failure as butter pecan ice cream is to death.
I think I've always been somebody, since the deaths of my father and brother, who was afraid to hope. So, I was more prepared for failure and for rejection than for success.
Success and failure are both difficult to endure. Along with success come drugs, divorce, fornication, bullying, travel, meditation, medication, depression, neurosis and suicide. With failure comes failure.
Everything has a price, including both success and failure. Choose either one and be prepared to pay the price.
I was always prepared for success but that means that I have to be prepared for failure, too.
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.
I wish I had been wiser. I wish I had been more effective, I wish I'd been more unifying, I wish I'd been more principled.
When I was younger, I definitely wish I had felt more... I just wish I had started actually putting out my music earlier because I didn't do it until I graduated high school and felt like I was leaving. That's mostly because I have never liked my voice a lot or been like a particularly great singer.
You can learn more from failure than success. In failure you're forced to find out what part did not work. But in success you can believe everything you did was great, when in fact some parts may not have worked at all. Failure forces you to face reality.
Cultivate your desire for success to be greater than the fear of failure; Failure is merely a pitstop between where you stand and success. Failure allows you to learn the fastest; Failure inspires winners and defeats losers.
The line between failure and success is so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it. How many a person has thrown up his or her hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience, would have achieved success. A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success.
When I was younger I wish there had been more opportunities to just go out and enjoy myself. So, now that I am in a privileged position I want to try and be a positive influence if I can.
I wish I had been a better mother and a more compassionate and understanding wife in both of my marriages.
Make no cry in failure! Make no noise in success! In failure, silence; in success, silence! Fly with the same attitude both in the high and in the low altitudes!
I wish I would have been more of a maker. I wish I would have been more of a writer. I wish I would have not subsumed my will to every boy I had a passing fancy about. That's the part that is horrifying.