Success and Failure

Perfection is only achieved on the point of collapse.

Unknown, (from Bjarne Stroustrup's book on C++), in Success and Failure

Putt's Law: Technology is dominated by two types of people: Those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand.

Unknown, in Success and Failure

Reach for the moon and if you miss at least you will land among the stars.

Unknown, in Success and Failure

Silverman's Law: If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.

Unknown, in Success and Failure

Small minds are the first to condemn great ideas.

Unknown, in Success and Failure

Smile, it makes people wonder what you are thinking.

Unknown, in Success and Failure

Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.

Henry Ford, in Success and Failure

Whether you think that you can or that you can't, you are usually right.

Henry Ford, in Success and Failure

To accomplish great things, you must not only act but also dream, not only dream but also believe.

Anatole France, in Success and Failure

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked throughout the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, in Success and Failure

Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.

Benjamin Franklin, in Success and Failure and Work and Recreation

Anything not worth doing is worth not doing well. Think about it.

Elias Schwartz, in Success and Failure

Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.

Albert Schweitzer, in Success and Failure

Talkers are no good doers.

William Shakespeare, Henry VI, in Success and Failure

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

George Bernard Shaw, in Success and Failure

When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work.

George Bernard Shaw, in Success and Failure and Work and Recreation

You see things and you say, "Why?" But I see things that never were; and I say, "Why not?"

George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah, Part I, Act I (1921), in Success and Failure