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Quotes of the Day for 5 December 2004 - Failure

George Armstrong Custer was born at New Rumley, Ohio on this day in 1839, and lived most of his youth with his half-sister at Monroe, Michigan. He was accepted at West Point after graduating from high school, and finished last in his class. He was officer of the guard at the campus and failed to stop a fight between two cadets, he was court martialed for the first time and stayed in the army only because of the manpower needs of the Civil War. He led his troops into battle with flair and recklessness, winning several decisive battles but taking unusually high casualties in the process. After the war he served in the West, but after a muddled campaign against the Southern Cheyenne he was court martialed again and suspended from duty for a year. Slated to attack the Lakota tribe in the Black Hills, he was suspended again by President Grant, outraged at Custer's testimony about Indian Service corruption. Reinstated again, he was to lead one of three troops in an attack on a Lakota force, an attack carefullyplanned to come simultaneously from three sides. General Crook's forces were stopped by Crazy Horse, General Gibbon's forces moved as planned, and Custer's troops raced in ahead of plan and recklessly attacked alone. As is well known, Custer and his entire force were killed. Today's quotes make the case that failure is necessary for learning, Custer seems to have only had the failure.

My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.
     - Abraham Lincoln, 1809 - 1865

The men who have done big things are those who were not afraid to attempt big things, who were not afraid to risk failure in order to gain success.
     - B. C. Forbes, 1880 - 1954

Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.
     - Charles F. Kettering, 1876 - 1958

Notice the difference between what happens when a man says to himself, I have failed three times, and what happens when he says, I'm a failure.
     - Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa, 1906 - 1992

Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know.
     - William Saroyan, 1908 - 1981

I always turn to the sports pages first, which records people's accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man's failures.
     - Earl Warren, 1891 - 1974

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