110 Quotes About Defeat for Failure, War and Death

One of the things I like best about ‘Biggest Loser’ is being around people who are trying to make the right choices. When you feel defeated about your weight and your health, like there’s no hope, and you still make the choice to fight for it, to make the change happen no matter what people say or think, that’s inspiring to me. Read these Beautiful Quotes about Defeat for failure, war and death with Images and share them.

1. Truth cannot be defeated.

Edwin Louis Cole
quote about defeat

2. War is a defeat for humanity.

Pope John Paul II
defeat quote war is a defeat for humanity

3. Councils of war breed timidity and defeatism.

Jack Kemp
Councils of war breed timidity and defeatism.

4. There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.

Michel de Montaigne
There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.

5. There are many victories worse than a defeat.

George Eliot
There are many victories worse than a defeat.

6. We may be personally defeated, but our principles never!

William Lloyd Garrison
We may be personally defeated, but our principles never!

7. If you learn from defeat, you haven’t really lost.

Zig Ziglar

8. For a gallant spirit there can never be defeat.

Wallis Simpson

9. We are never defeated unless we give up on God.

Ronald Reagan
We are never defeated unless we give up on God.

10. Defeat the fear of death and welcome the death of fear.

G. Gordon Liddy
Defeat the fear of death and welcome the death of fear.

11. Defeat the fear of death and you welcome the death of fear.

G. Gordon Liddy
Defeat the fear of death and you welcome the death of fear.

12. Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.

13. Hope is the last thing a person does before they are defeated.

Henry Rollins
Hope is the last thing a person does before they are defeated.

14. Nothing fails like success nothing is so defeated as yesterday’s triumphant Cause.

Phyllis McGinley
Nothing fails like success nothing is so defeated as yesterday's triumphant Cause.

15. For an adult, eating alone at McDonald’s is admitting a kind of defeat.

Jonathan Carroll
For an adult, eating alone at McDonald's is admitting a kind of defeat.

Quotes About Defeat

16. Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.

Napoleon Bonaparte
Goodreads.com

17. The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.

Robert Green Ingersoll

18. What is defeat? Nothing but education. Nothing but the first step to something better.

Wendell Phillips

19. The things you fear are undefeatable, not by their nature, but by your approach.

Jewel

20. Love is never defeated, and I could add, the history of Ireland proves it.

Pope John Paul II

21. There was never a night or a problem that could defeat sunrise or hope.

Bernard Williams

22. I was now resolved to do everything in my power to defeat the system.

Oskar Schindler

23. Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure.

George Edward Woodberry

24. A good man would prefer to be defeated than to defeat injustice by evil means.

Sallust

25. Success is sweet and sweeter if long delayed and gotten through many struggles and defeats.

Amos Bronson Alcott

26. Back of every mistaken venture and defeat is the laughter of wisdom, if you listen.

Carl Sandburg

27. If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life.

Marcus Garvey

28. Politics has become so expensive that it takes a lot of money even to be defeated.

Will Rogers

29. The study of beauty is a duel in which the artist cries with terror before being defeated.

Charles Baudelaire

30. And this year is going to be the 25th anniversary of the 17-0 team, the only undefeated season.

Don Shula

31. I think everyone should experience defeat at least once during their career. You learn a lot from it.

Lou Holtz

32. There could be no honor in a sure success, but much might be wrested from a sure defeat.

Ann Landers

33. The failure of the Russian Socialist Republic will be the defeat of the proletariat of the whole world.

Karl Liebknecht

34. Life is truly known only to those who suffer, lose, endure adversity and stumble from defeat to defeat.

Anais Nin

35. The Afghans did not have sophisticated weapons like the Soviets did, but with their faith they defeated a superpower.

Abu Bakar Bashir

36. Life can’t defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer’s lover until death.

Edna Ferber

37. The terrorist uses surprise and stealth, and the only way to defeat that is by having accurate and timely intelligence.

Bill Nelson

38. The social object of skilled investment should be to defeat the dark forces of time and ignorance which envelope our future.

John Maynard Keynes

39. When a great team loses through complacency, it will constantly search for new and more intricate explanations to explain away defeat.

Pat Riley

40. They were afraid, never having learned what I taught myself: Defeat the fear of death and welcome the death of fear.

G. Gordon Liddy

41. It is always self-defeating to pretend to a generation younger than your own it simply erases your own experience in history.

Renata Adler

42. Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.

Sun Tzu

43. The mark of a great player is in his ability to come back. The great champions have all come back from defeat.

Sam Snead

44. At the end of the day we want to bring stability and hope to Iraq. That’s the only way to defeat terrorism.

King Abdullah II

45. To defeat the aggressors is not enough to make peace durable. The main thing is to discard the ideology that generates war.

Ludwig von Mises

46. In today’s interdependent world, a threat to one becomes a menace to all. And no state can defeat these challenges and threats alone.

Michelle Bachelet

47. The permanent temptation of life is to confuse dreams with reality. The permanent defeat of life comes when dreams are surrendered to reality.

James A. Michener

48. The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy.

Sun Tzu

49. Obstacles are necessary for success because in selling, as in all careers of importance, victory comes only after many struggles and countless defeats.

Og Mandino

50. Emigration is no longer a solution it’s a defeat. People are risking death, drowning every day, but they’re knocking on doors that are not open.

Tahar Ben Jelloun

51. Even though you can’t expect to defeat the absurdity of the world, you must make that attempt. That’s morality, that’s religion. That’s art. That’s life.

Phil Ochs

52. History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats.

B. C. Forbes

53. If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence, you have won even before you have started.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

54. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

55. I don’t believe we are supposed to go through life defeated and not having enough money to pay our bills or send our kids to college.

Joel Osteen

56. In every adversity there lies the seed of an equivalent advantage. In every defeat is a lesson showing you how to win the victory next time.

Robert Collier

57. I’m not going to take this defeatist attitude and listen to all this crap any more from all these people who have nothing except doomsday to predict.

Carroll Shelby

58. Unless there is recognition that women are most vulnerable… and you do something about social and cultural equality for women, you’re never going to defeat this pandemic.

Stephen Lewis

59. There is no failure except in no longer trying. There is no defeat except from within, no really insurmountable barrier save our own inherent weakness of purpose.

Kin Hubbard

60. To try to fashion something from suffering, to relish our triumphs, and to endure defeats without resentment: all that is compatible with the faith of a heretic.

Walter Kaufmann

61. In formal logic, a contradiction is the signal of defeat, but in the evolution of real knowledge it marks the first step in progress toward a victory.

Alfred North Whitehead

62. I know people who grow old and bitter. I want to keep making a fresh start. I don’t want them to defeat me. That would be suicidal.

Robert Wyatt

63. It is a law of human nature that in victory even the coward may boast of his prowess, while defeat injures the reputation even of the brave.

Sallust

64. Many a man has finally succeeded only because he has failed after repeated efforts. If he had never met defeat he would never have known any great victory.

Orison Swett Marden

65. There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.

Malcolm X

66. There is nothing worth having that can he obtained by nuclear war – nothing material or ideological – no tradition that it can defend. It is utterly self-defeating.

George Wald

67. We must expect reverses, even defeats. They are sent to teach us wisdom and prudence, to call forth greater energies, and to prevent our falling into greater disasters.

Robert E. Lee

68. When one is trying to do something beyond his known powers it is useless to seek the approval of friends. Friends are at their best in moments of defeat.

Henry Miller

69. Life is essentially a cheat and its conditions are those of defeat the redeeming things are not happiness and pleasure but the deeper satisfactions that come out of struggle.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

70. Something called ‘the Oklahoma Standard’ became known throughout the world. It means resilience in the face of adversity. It means a strength and compassion that will not be defeated.

Brad Henry

71. Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war.

Ernest Hemingway

72. What differentiates us from animals is the fact that we can listen to other people’s dreams, fears, joys, sorrows, desires and defeats – and they in turn can listen to ours.

Henning Mankell

73. The ‘morality of compromise’ sounds contradictory. Compromise is usually a sign of weakness, or an admission of defeat. Strong men don’t compromise, it is said, and principles should never be compromised.

Andrew Carnegie

74. There’s a victory, and defeat the first and best of victories, the lowest and worst of defeats which each man gains or sustains at the hands not of another, but of himself.

Plato

75. Having in my life been bitten by the jaws of both victory and defeat, I must rush to add that success is to failure as butter pecan ice cream is to death.

Rupert Holmes

76. Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.

Sun Tzu

77. There are no contests in the Art of Peace. A true warrior is invincible because he or she contests with nothing. Defeat means to defeat the mind of contention that we harbor within.

Morihei Ueshiba

78. I can’t understand people calling themselves religious and being hateful. If a preacher is preaching hate, to fear God that’s not religion, that’s not helping humanity, that’s organizing an army to defeat somebody.

Mojo Nixon

79. The boy who is going to make a great man must not make up his mind merely to overcome a thousand obstacles, but to win in spite of a thousand repulses and defeats.

Theodore Roosevelt

80. One of the great intellectual failures of the American intelligence community, and especially the counterterrorism community, is to assume if someone hasn’t attacked us, it’s because he can’t or because we’ve defeated him.

Michael Scheuer

81. Remember you will not always win. Some days, the most resourceful individual will taste defeat. But there is, in this case, always tomorrow – after you have done your best to achieve success today.

Maxwell Maltz

82. In the attempt to defeat death man has been inevitably obliged to defeat life, for the two are inextricably related. Life moves on to death, and to deny one is to deny the other.

Henry Miller

83. From Caesar’s legions to the Napoleonic wars. From the Reformation, the Enlightenment and the industrial revolution to the defeat of nazism. We have helped to write European history, and Europe has helped write ours.

David Cameron

84. What can we put into the hands of people under oppressive regimes to help them? For me, a big part of it is information, knowledge – the ability to defeat propaganda by understanding it.

Jimmy Wales

85. I trust, that your readers will not construe my words to mean, that I would not have gone to a 3 o’clock in the morning session, for the sake of defeating the Nebraska bill.

Gerrit Smith

86. We experience problem-solving sessions as war zones, we view competing ideas as enemies, and we use problems as weapons to blame and defeat opposition forces. No wonder we can’t come up with real lasting solutions!

Margaret J. Wheatley

87. As soon as you concern yourself with the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ of your fellows, you create an opening in your heart for maliciousness to enter. Testing, competing with, and criticizing others weaken and defeat you.

Morihei Ueshiba

88. I’m old enough to remember the end of World War II. On Aug. 14, 1946, a year after the Japanese were defeated, most newspapers and magazines had single articles commemorating the end of the war.

Harry Browne

89. Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.

Denis Waitley

90. Enough of this occupation, terror and abuse. We are not in need of your help. We are able to combat and defeat terrorism, and achieve unity. We are not in need of your bases, your experience and etc.

Muqtada al Sadr

91. I never thought of losing, but now that it’ s happened, the only thing is to do it right. That’s my obligation to all the people who believe in me. We all have to take defeats in life.

Muhammad Ali

92. There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.

Sophia Loren

93. Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.

Muhammad Ali

94. Watergate enabled the Democrats to cut off all aid to South Vietnam and ensure American defeat in a war their party entered and had effectively lost, before Nixon salvaged a non-Communist South Vietnam while effecting a complete American withdrawal.

Conrad Black

95. I understand the harsh feelings and sentiments from my opponents and their supporters because I myself have been defeated twice in my political life in the past and I understand very well it is hard to accept your own failure.

Chen Shui-bian

96. My greatest point is my persistence. I never give up in a match. However down I am, I fight until the last ball. My list of matches shows that I have turned a great many so-called irretrievable defeats into victories.

Bjorn Borg

97. They know the importance of their mission and of America’s commitment to combating and defeating terrorism abroad, and they know that they are making a real difference in bringing freedom to a part of the world that has known only tyranny.

John Boehner

98. The pursuit of peace and progress cannot end in a few years in either victory or defeat. The pursuit of peace and progress, with its trials and its errors, its successes and its setbacks, can never be relaxed and never abandoned.

Dag Hammarskjold

99. Fear nothing but what thy industry may prevent be confident of nothing but what fortune cannot defeat it is no less folly to fear what is impossible to be avoided than to be secure when there is a possibility to be deprived.

Francis Quarles

100. Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt

101. Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success.

Mark Skousen

102. Before success comes in any man’s life, he’s sure to meet with much temporary defeat and, perhaps some failures. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and the most logical thing to do is to quit. That’s exactly what the majority of men do.

Napoleon Hill

103. Jews survived all the defeats, expulsions, persecutions and pogroms, the centuries in which they were regarded as a pariah people, even the Holocaust itself, because they never gave up the faith that one day they would be free to live as Jews without fear.

Jonathan Sacks

104. When the British came to Ibo land, for instance, at the beginning of the 20th century, and defeated the men in pitched battles in different places, and set up their administrations, the men surrendered. And it was the women who led the first revolt.

Chinua Achebe

105. For us artists there waits the joyous compromise through art with all that wounded or defeated us in daily life in this way, not to evade destiny, as the ordinary people try to do, but to fulfil it in its true potential – the imagination.

Lawrence Durrell

106. After the desperate years of their own war, after six years of repression inside Spain and six years of horror in exile, these people remain intact in spirit. They are armed with a transcendent faith they have never won, and yet they have never accepted defeat.

Martha Gellhorn

107. Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure. The way you think about a fact may defeat you before you ever do anything about it. You are overcome by the fact because you think you are.

Norman Vincent Peale

108. Art is only a means to life, to the life more abundant. It is not in itself the life more abundant. It merely points the way, something which is overlooked not only by the public, but very often by the artist himself. In becoming an end it defeats itself.

Henry Miller

109. Winning is great, sure, but if you are really going to do something in life, the secret is learning how to lose. Nobody goes undefeated all the time. If you can pick up after a crushing defeat, and go on to win again, you are going to be a champion someday.

Wilma Rudolph

110. But you say, does it represent change? The change is that we are fighting an insurance industry that has killed health reform for generations. They’re spending tens of millions of dollars right now to defeat this bill, and we’re on the doorstep of winning a great victory for the American people.

David Axelrod

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