So you think that you’re a failure, do you? Well, you probably are. What’s wrong with that? In the first place, if you’ve any sense at all you must have learned by now that we pay just as dearly for our triumphs as we do for our defeats. Go ahead and fail. But fail with wit, fail with grace, fail with style. A mediocre failure is as insufferable as a mediocre success. Embrace failure! Seek it out. Learn to love it. That may be the only way any of us will ever be free.
—Tom Robbins
A man can be destroyed but not defeated.
—Ernest Hemingway
We may be personally defeated, but our principles never!
—William Lloyd Garrison
The power of words is immense. A well-chosen word has often sufficed to stop a flying army, to change defeat into victory, and to save an empire.
—Émile de Girardin
The goal of all inanimate objects is to resist man and ultimately defeat him.
—Russell Baker
There are two things to remember about a revolution: first, we're gonna get our asses kicked, and second, we're gonna win.
—Unknown
Intent is not a thought, or an object, or a wish. Intent is what can make a man succeed when his thoughts tell him that he is defeated. It operates in spite of the warrior's indulgence. Intent is what makes him invulnerable. Intent is what sends a shaman through a wall, through space, to infinity.
—Carlos Castaneda
The mountain remains unmoved at seeming defeat by the mist.
—Rabindranath Tagore
Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure.
—George Edward Woodberry
Exile, for no other motive than ease, would be the last defeat, with no seed of future victory in it.
—Lois McMaster Bujold
Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary.
—Mahatma Gandhi
There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.
—Michel de Montaigne
You can take from every experience what it has to offer you. And you cannot be defeated if you just keep taking one breath followed by another.
—Oprah Winfrey
When defeat is inevitable, it is wisest to yield.
—Quintilian
Be careful that victories do not carry the seed of future defeats.
—Ralph W. Sockman