Doing is overrated, and success undesirable, but the bitterness of failure even more so.

O human race! Born to ascend on wings, Why do ye fall at such a little wind?

Nothing more aggravates ill success than the near approach to good.

One is always more vexed at losing a game of any sort by a single hole or ace, than if one has never had a chance of winning it.

There is no loneliness greater than the loneliness of a failure. The failure is a stranger in his own house.

There is no failure except in no longer trying.

There is not a fiercer hell than the failure in a great object.

We are neurotically haunted today by the imminence, and by the ignominy, of failure. We know at how frightening a cost one succeeds: to fail is something too awful to think about.

Men fall from great fortune because of the same shortcomings that led to their rise.

We may stop ourselves when going up, never when coming down.