Quotes About Defeats

Chicago is the greatest of all baseball cities. I make no exception, although I have been treated well wherever I have been. It is the greatest city because the fans will stick to a loser season after season. I have had my share of defeats, so I should know.

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

Alexander the Great would have found it difficult to succeed in forcing a breach in the German line in 1914-1915, and the defeats Haig's armies suffered in 1916 and 1917 - those notorious disasters on the Somme and at Passchendaele - should not obscure the fact that it was Haig who commanded the British armies that spearheaded the Allied victory in 1918 and showed the other armies how this war should be fought; even General Foch admitted that.

There should be a new way to record standings in this league; one column for wins, one for losses and one for gifts.

No doubt I shall go on writing, stumbling across tundras of unmeaning, planting words like bloody flags in my wake. Loose ends, things unrelated, shifts, nightmare journeys, cities arrived at and left, meetings, desertions, betrayals, all manner of unions, adulteries, triumphs, defeats…these are the facts.

Wisdom grows along with age. When we are young we feel we can conquer anything. As we age we realize it's a journey, with all its victories and defeats, sorrows and joys, that matter the most.

Spirituality without a prayer life is no spirituality at all, and it will not last beyond the first defeats. Prayer is an opening of the self so that the Word of God can break in and make us new. Prayer unmasks. Prayer converts. Prayer impels. Prayer sustains us on the way. Pray for the grace it will take to continue what you would like to quit.

Glorious victories make fine songs, Yarvi, but inglorious ones are no worse once the bards are done with them. Glorious defeats, meanwhile, are just defeats.

Maybe this is what human history was: the brief illusion of happy victories set in a long continuum of bitter, disillusioning defeats.

We pay just as dearly for our triumphs as we do for our defeats. Go ahead and fail. But fail with wit, fail with grace, fail with style. A mediocre failure is as insufferable as a mediocre success.

Life is not all about profundity. Life is about little things that piss you off, little triumphs, little defeats. So, you can't spend all your time being profound.

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

Sometimes when you make mistakes at big clubs you get punished. With Arsenal, people always seem to blame the defence for defeats. But I feel really safe behind them.

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.

The humiliations and defeats, given with a primitive honesty, end not in frustration, despair or futility, but in hunger, an ecstatic devouring hunger—for more life." - Anais Nin

You forget your victories, but you remember the losses.

Victories and defeats form part of everyone's life - everyone, that is, except cowards, as you call them, because they never lose or win.

I also know that every person faces adversity in life. Abraham Lincoln held this seat in Congress in one term. But few faced as many defeats in his personal, business and public life as he did.

It is an axiom of political life that you never raise expectations, whether in a political or military campaign, because your defeats are then magnified and your victories discounted.

Discipline of mind and body is one of the most difficult things one has to acquire, but in the long run it is a valuable ingredient of education and a tremendous bulwark in time of trouble. Certainly, it is essential in meeting defeats and recovering from disaster. No matter how hard hit you are, you can face what has to be faced if you have learned to master your own fears.

I think that most players enjoy playing football, but, like in everything, there are good moments and bad moments.

I have written a considerable amount - both fiction and nonfiction - about the Caribbean. My love for this part of the world is centered on a deep admiration for its people - a people who are both tough and romantic, dreamers and cynics, people who face a thousand defeats and are never defeated.

I like the people. They have imagination to take them out of the commonplace, to forget the defeats of reality and feed on the triumphs of dreams.

Old truths and ancient magic, revolution and invention, all conspire to distract us from the passion that in one way or another defeats us all.