Success and Failure

Desperation is like stealing from the mafia: you stand a good chance of attracting the wrong attention.

Doug Horton, in Success and Failure

Change occurs in direct proportion to dissatisfaction, but dissatisfaction never changes.

Doug Horton, in Success and Failure

Action cures fear, inaction creates terror.

Doug Horton, in Success and Failure

Success is like a fart -- only your own smells nice.

James P. Hogan, in Success and Failure

Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account.

Doug Hofstadter, in Success and Failure

Prophecy is many times the principal cause of the events foretold.

Thomas Hobbes, in Science and Religion and Success and Failure

The first myth of management is that it exists. The second myth of management is that success equals skill.

Robert Heller, in Success and Failure

Never try to out-stubborn a cat.

Robert A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long, in Success and Failure

It's not over until it's over.

Yogi Berra, in Success and Failure

You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there.

Yogi Berra, in Success and Failure

No man who needs a monument ever ought to have one.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, in Success and Failure

You can pretend to be serious; you can't pretend to be witty.

Sacha Guitry, in Success and Failure

Happiness: An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, in Love and Hate and Success and Failure

A celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness.

Daniel Boorstin, in Success and Failure

A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking.

Arthur Block, in Success and Failure

The majority of the time, the thing that gets in the way of success... is your brain.

Chris Blake, in Success and Failure

Hatred: A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's superiority.

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, in Love and Hate and Success and Failure

When everyone is against you, it means you are absolutely wrong -- or you are absolutely right.

Albert Guinon, in Success and Failure

Misfortune: The kind of fortune that never misses.

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, in Success and Failure

To deny we need and want power is to deny that we hope to be effective.

Liz Smith, in Success and Failure