Alain de Botton Quotes

Failure is an indispensable prerequisite of success. It is how you learn the lessons you need.

Too often we just look at these glistening successes. Behind them in many, many cases is failure along the way, and that doesn't get put into the Wikipedia story or the bio. Yet those failures teach you every bit as much as the successes.

It is not ease, but effort-not facility, but difficulty, makes men. There is, perhaps, no station in life in which difficulties have not to be encountered and overcome before any decided measure of success can be achieved.

Many people dream of success. To me, success can only be achieved through repeated failure and introspection.

What people call success is only preparation for the next failure.

Failure will never stand int he way of success if you learn from it.

There is a distinction between failing and being a failure. Few things are learned in life without failing at least once. Did you learn to roller skate without falling a few times? Did you learn to ride a bike without losing your balance? Chances are you didn't. You may have wanted to do those things so intensely that you quickly put unsuccessful attempts behind you and kept trying. Soon you acquired the skill to do the thing you wanted. Even though in the process of learning you may have failed many times, you were not a failure. "Failing" simply became an open door to try again.

Take risks. Fail. Pick yourself back up again. And always, always remember this: there is no adversity capable of stopping you once the choice to persevere is made.

Failure means you've now learned another valuable lesson that pushes you one step closer to success.

But success and failure are not true opposites, and they're not even in the same class. I mean, they're not even a couch and a chair.

The life you want is on the other side of the labor pains it takes to birth it.

Failure is a part of success. There is no such thing as a bed of roses all your life. But failure will never stand in the way of success if you learn from it.

Success makes life easier. It doesn't make living easier.

Don't let failure deter you; use it as a stepping-stone and an educational experience towards making your mark on the world.

Running helped me learn how to deal with failure, and failure is a big part of the Internet business.

There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.

The important thing is to learn a lesson every time you lose. Life is a learning process and you have to try to learn what's best for you. Let me tell you, life is not fun when you're banging your head against a brick wall all the time.

A man's life is interesting primarily when he has failed—I know well. For it is a sign that he tried to surpass himself.

I didn't get in to 'Strictly' the first time, but my determination and enthusiasm shone through and got me a job on the show the following year. Don't give up and turn the no's and setbacks into a positive!

There is a huge difference between failing and failure. Failing is trying something that you learn doesn't work. Failure is throwing in the towel and giving up. True success comes from failing repeatedly and as quickly as possible, before your cash or your willpower runs out.

If anything is worth trying at all, it's worth trying at least 10 times.

My music career has been very rewarding, but success never came easily.

It pays no matter what comes after it, to try and do things, to accomplish things in this life and not merely to have a soft and pleasant time.

Success is sometimes the outcome of a whole string of failures.