Getting motivated to try can be difficult. Luckily, there are countless quotes that promote the benefits of trying, even if it means that you will fail. Here are just a few of them.
01
Reach for the stars
Even a fool knows you can't touch the stars, but it doesn't stop a wise man from trying.
Harry Anderson
Doing your best means you never stop trying.
Anonymous
The right angle to approach a difficult problem is the try-angle.
Anonymous
02
Make the decision
The thing to try when all else fails is again.
Anonymous
The best way to fly is to try.
Anonymous
Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try.
Anonymous
03
Don't expect too much
There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that lost by not trying.
Francis Bacon
If at first you don’t succeed, try to hide your astonishment.
Harry F. Banks
To try and fail is at least to learn; to fail to try is to suffer the inestimable loss of what might have been.
Chester Barnard
04
Even failing can improve
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
Samuel Beckett
Don’t fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have.
Louis E. Boone
Try to be the best of what you are, even if what you are is no good.
Ashleigh Brilliant
05
Stay hopeful
I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward.
Charlotte Bronte
The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way.
Dale Carnegie
Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.
Dale Carnegie
06
Don't be a downer
Pessimism is an excuse for not trying and a guarantee to a personal failure.
Bill Clinton
You never know what you can do till you try.
William Cobbett
I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone.
Bill Cosby
07
Fail in a variety of ways
Try as hard as we may for perfection, the net result of our labors is an amazing variety of imperfectness. We are surprised at our own versatility in being able to fail in so many different ways.
Samuel McChord Crothers
Trying is a part of failing. If you are afraid to fail then you're afraid to try.
Evelyn Cunningham
Whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do it well; whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself completely; in great aims and in small I have always thoroughly been in earnest.
Charles Dickens
08
Give it your all
Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail their failure must be but a challenge to others.
Amelia Earhart
Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value.
Albert Einstein
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.
T.S. Eliot
09
Challenge yourself to improve
Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.
William Faulkner
To develop working ideas efficiently, I try to fail as fast as I can.
Richard P. Feynman
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then give up. There’s no use in being a damn fool about it.
W.C. Fields
10
Ignore the naysayers
Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.
Ella Fitzgerald
When people keep telling you that you can't do a thing, you kind of like to try it.
Margaret Fuller
I try. I am trying. I was trying. I will try. I shall in the meantime try. I sometimes have tried. I shall still by that time be trying.
Diane Glancy
11
Trying in rhyme
I am not judged by the number of times I fail, but by the number of times I succeed: and the number of times I succeed is in direct proportion to the number of times I fail and keep trying.
Tom Hopkins
There is no failure except in no longer trying. There is no defeat except from within, no insurmountable barrier except our own inherent weakness of purpose.
Elbert Hubbard
The timid and fearful first failures dismay but the stout heart stays trying by night and by day He values his failures as lessons that teach The one way to get to the goal he would reach.
Edgar A. Guest
12
At least you tried
Do, or do not. There is no try.
George Lucas, as Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back
The men who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try to do nothing and succeed.
Lloyd Jones
I can accept failure, but I can’t accept not trying.
Michael Jordan
13
Experimentation is the key to success
Trying to get everything, you often get nothing.
Ivatan
If it turns out that my best wasn’t good enough, at least I won’t look back and say that I was afraid to try; failure makes me work even harder.
Michael Jordan
Try and fail, but don't fail to try.
Stephen Kaggwa
14
Quitting is the only defeat
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.
Charles F. Kettering
There is no failure except in no longer trying. There is no defeat except from within, no insurmountable barrier save our own inherent weakness of purpose.
Frank McKinney
Remember the two benefits of failure. First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn’t work; and second, the failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach.
Roger Von Oech
15
Keep getting back up
Supposing you have tried and failed again and again. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call "Failure" is not the falling down, but the staying down.
Mary Pickford
If at first you do succeed, try something harder.
Proverb
If you trust before you try, you may repent before you die.
Proverb
16
There's always tomorrow
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
Proverb
Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow.
Mary Anne Radmacher
Do not wait for extraordinary circumstances to do good actions; try to use ordinary situations.
Jean Paul Richter
17
Try to please yourself
Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.
Will Rogers
It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
There just isn't any pleasing some people. The trick is to stop trying.
Joel Rosenberg
18
Failure isn't always a mistake
You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.
Beverly Sills
Trying is the first step towards failure.
Homer Simpson
A failure is not always a mistake; it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.
B.F. Skinner
19
Working on 10,000 hours
Fear of failure must never be a reason not to try something.
Frederick Smith
Try, try, try, and keep on trying is the rule that must be followed to become an expert in anything.
W. Clement Stone
The only time you don’t fail is the last time you try anything—and it works.
William Strong
20
Find the courage
I can’t give you a sure-fire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time.
Herbert Bayard Swope
What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?
Vincent Van Gogh
The worst thing one can do is not to try, to be aware of what one wants and not give in to it, to spend years in silent hurt wondering if something could have materialized - and never knowing.
David Viscott
21
In the end, at least you tried
The greatest failure is the failure to try.
William A. Ward
Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.
Booker T. Washington
I'm trying as hard as I can, and sometimes things don't go your way, and that's the way things go.
Tiger Woods
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