Need Inspiration? 60 Quotes About Trying

Lady Manson Staff

Updated: Dec 6, 2024

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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Need Inspiration? 60 Quotes About Trying

Need Inspiration? 60 Quotes About Trying

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Advertisement

Reach for the stars

Reach for the stars

Advertisement

Even a fool knows you can't touch the stars, but it doesn't stop a wise man from trying.

Even a fool knows you can't touch the stars, but it doesn't stop a wise man from trying.

Advertisement

Doing your best means you never stop trying.

Doing your best means you never stop trying.

Advertisement

The right angle to approach a difficult problem is the try-angle.

The right angle to approach a difficult problem is the try-angle.

Advertisement

Make the decision

Make the decision

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The thing to try when all else fails is again.

The thing to try when all else fails is again.

Advertisement

The best way to fly is to try.

The best way to fly is to try.

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Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try.

Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try.

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Don't expect too much

Don't expect too much

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There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that lost by not trying.

There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that lost by not trying.

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If at first you don’t succeed, try to hide your astonishment.

If at first you don’t succeed, try to hide your astonishment.

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To try and fail is at least to learn; to fail to try is to suffer the inestimable loss of what might have been.

To try and fail is at least to learn; to fail to try is to suffer the inestimable loss of what might have been.

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Even failing can improve

Even failing can improve

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Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

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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.

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.

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Try to be the best of what you are, even if what you are is no good.

Try to be the best of what you are, even if what you are is no good.

Advertisement

Stay hopeful

Stay hopeful

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I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward.

I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward.

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The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way.

The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way.

Advertisement

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.

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.

Advertisement

Don't be a downer

Don't be a downer

Advertisement

Pessimism is an excuse for not trying and a guarantee to a personal failure.

Pessimism is an excuse for not trying and a guarantee to a personal failure.

Advertisement

You never know what you can do till you try.

You never know what you can do till you try.

Advertisement

I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone.

I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone.

Advertisement

Fail in a variety of ways

Fail in a variety of ways

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