Success Quotes (19)

99 percent of success is built on failure.

A great part of its [higher arithmetic] theories derives an additional charm from the peculiarity that important propositions, with the impress of simplicity on them, are often easily discovered by induction, and yet are of so profound a character that we cannot find the demonstrations till after many vain attempts; and even then, when we do succeed, it is often by some tedious and artificial process, while the simple methods may long remain concealed.
Quoted in H. Eves, Mathematical Circles (1977) .
See also:  |  Induction (3)  |  Mathematics (127)

A thesis has to be presentable... but don't attach too much importance to it. If you do succeed in the sciences, you will do later on better things and then it will be of little moment. If you don't succeed in the sciences, it doesn't matter at all.
Quoted in Leidraad (periodical of the University of Leiden, Holland), 2, 1985.
See also:  |  Hypothesis (34)

An inventor fails 999 times, and if he succeeds once, he's in. He treats his failures simply as practice shots.
See also:  |  Failure (14)  |  Inventor (8)

An inventor is simply a fellow who doesn't take his education too seriously. You see, from the time a person is six years old until he graduates form college he has to take three or four examinations a year. If he flunks once, he is out. But an inventor is almost always failing. He tries and fails maybe a thousand times. It he succeeds once then he's in. These two things are diametrically opposite. We often say that the biggest job we have is to teach a newly hired employee how to fail intelligently. We have to train him to experiment over and over and to keep on trying and failing until he learns what will work.
See also:  |  Experiment (111)  |  Failure (14)  |  Inventor (8)

Any policy is a success by sufficiently low standards and a failure by sufficiently high standards.
'Penetrating the Rhetoric', The Vision of the Anointed (1996), 102.
See also:  |  Failure (14)

As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information.
Endymion (1880), 156.
See also:  |  Information (2)

Believe and act as if it were impossible to fail.
See also:  |  Failure (14)

Every great improvement has come after repeated failures. Virtually nothing comes out right the first time. Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.
See also:  |  Failure (14)

Finally, two days ago, I succeeded - not on account of my hard efforts, but by the grace of the Lord. Like a sudden flash of lightning, the riddle was solved. I am unable to say what was the conducting thread that connected what I previously knew with what made my success possible.
Quoted in H. Eves, Mathematical Circles Squared, (1972).

I tried and failed. I tried again and again and succeeded.
See also:  |  Failure (14)  |  Persistence (2)

It is on record that when a young aspirant asked Faraday the secret of his success as a scientific investigator, he replied, 'The secret is comprised in three words— Work, Finish, Publish.'
J. R. Gladstone, Michael Faraday (1872), 122.
See also:  |  Publication (30)  |  Work (18)

Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My only strength lies in my tenacity.
Quoted in René Dubos, Louis Pasteur: Freelance of Science (1950). In W.I.B. Beveridge, The Art of Scientific Investigation (1953), 140.

No one wants to learn by mistakes, but we cannot learn enough from successes to go beyond the state of the art
To Engineer is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design (1992), 62.
See also:  |  Engineering (25)  |  Error (58)

One of the characteristics of successful scientists is having courage. Once you get your courage up and believe that you can do important problems, then you can. If you think you can't, almost surely you are not going to.
You and Your Research', Bell Communications Research Colloquium Seminar, 7 Mar 1986.
See also:  |  Courage (4)

Success in research needs four Gs: Glück, Geduld, Geschick und Geld. Luck, patience, skill and money.
Quoted in M. Perutz, 'Rita and the Four Gs', Nature, 1988, 332, 791.
See also:  |  Luck (8)  |  Money (29)  |  Research (129)

Success is the child of audacity.
The Wonderous Tale of Alroy: The Rise of Iskander (1833), Vol. 2, 149.

The only time you mustn't fail is the last time you try.
See also:  |  Failure (14)

The real secret of success is enthusiasm.
See also:  |  Enthusiasm (4)

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Original words on great scientific discoveries.
Darwin considers pros and cons of marriage.
James Clerk Maxwell's electric but poetic Valentine.
I have little patience with scientists who take a board of wood, look for its thinnest part and drill a great number of holes where drilling is easy. --Albert Einstein
I try to identify myself with the atoms...I ask what I would do if I were a carbon atom or a sodium atom. --Linus Pauling




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