Any being, any agent, who can truly say, “Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time!” is standing on the threshold of brilliance.

If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.

People driven by a pursuit that puts them on the edges are often not on the periphery, but on the frontier, testing the limits of what it is possible to withstand and discover.

In a fear-based, failure-averse culture, people will consciously or unconsciously avoid risk. They will seek instead to repeat something safe that’s been good enough in the past. Their work will be derivative, not innovative. But if you can foster a positive understanding of failure, the opposite will happen.

I’m not the first to say that failure, when approached properly, can be an opportunity for growth.

Failure saves lives. In the airline industry, every time a plane crashes the probability of the next crash is lowered by that. The Titanic saved lives because we’re building bigger and bigger ships. So these people died, but we have effectively improved the safety of the system, and nothing failed in vain.

Failure doesn’t define you. It’s what you do after you fail that determines whether you are a leader or a waste of perfectly good air.

We don’t need to celebrate failure. We do need to make it safe to admit failure – that’s how we learn from mistakes.

You must have long term goals to keep you from being frustrated by short term failures.

The only risk of failure is promotion.

Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.

In a crowded marketplace, fitting in is a failure. In a busy marketplace, not standing out is the same as being invisible.

Short term pain has more impact on most people than long-term benefits do, which is why it’s so important for you to amplify the long-term benefits of not quitting.

Most competitors quit long before they’ve created something that makes it to the top.

If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.

You gotta act. And you gotta be willing to fail… if you’re afraid of failing, you won’t get very far.

We don’t have to do all of it alone. We were never meant to.

Failure and invention are inseparable twins.

Don’t worry about failure – you only have to be right once.

Work finally begins when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly.

When it comes to creative endeavors, the concept of zero failures is worse than useless. It’s counterproductive.

Don’t wait for things to be perfect before you share them with others. Show early and show often. It’ll be pretty when we get there, but it won’t be pretty along the way.

Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better? Carol S. Dweck

You must always be prepared to place a bet on yourself, on your future, by heading in a direction that others seem to fear.