Ben Carson Quotes

I have not failed 10,000 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 10,000 ways will not work.

Mr. Edison worked endlessly on a problem, using the method of elimination. If a person asked him if he were discouraged because so many attempts proved unavailing, he would say, "No, I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.".

Exactly 5,126 attempts to make the first bagless vacuum cleaner were failures-some catastrophic disappointments, some minor defects. It took 15 years. Prototype 5,127 was the success ... Failure is painful, but it spurs on improvement like nothing else.

Nothing in life is worthwhile unless you take risks. Fall forward. Every failed experiment is one step closer to success.

Every great improvement has come after repeated failures. Virtually nothing comes out right the first time. Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.

If you are not successful, that means you're not making enough mistakes.

One reason people who spend a lot of time thinking about and working on a problem or a craft seem to find breakthroughs more often than everyone else is that they've failed more often than everyone else.

Every time you find something that doesn't work, you're a step closer to what does work.

If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate.

If anything is worth trying at all, it's worth trying at least 10 times.

Fall forward. Here's what I mean: Reggie Jackson struck out 2,600 times in his career - the most in the history of baseball. But you don't hear about the strikeouts. People remember the home runs. Fall forward. Thomas Edison conducted 1,000 failed experiments. Did you know that? I didn't either - because number 1,001 was the light bulb. Fall forward. Every failed experiment is one step closer to success.

Embrace failure. Never never quit. Get very comfortable with that uneasy feeling of going against the grain and trying something new. It will constantly take you places you never thought you could go. This has been my mantra for years. I always remember I won't do things right on the first try. So failure is mandatory for success!

You must expect failure after failure after failure before you succeed.

The nature of process, to one degree or another, involves failure. You have at it. It doesn’t work. You keep pushing. It gets better. But it’s not good. It gets worse. You got at it again. Then you desperately stab at it, believing “this isn’t going to work.” And it does!

If failure is not an option, neither is success. Innovation is just repeated failure till you come up with something that works.

I made 5,127 prototypes of my vaccum before I got it right. There were 5,126 failures. But I learned from each one. That’s how I came up with a solution. So I don’t mind failure.

People ask me, "How do I succeed?" Whatever it is they do, I say, "Go and find 20 ways of messing it up. By 21, you'll be getting there." Life is an adventure, go back with cuts, scars and bruises.

If everything you try works, you aren't trying hard enough.

It takes 10 million failures to find the right stuff.

The space shuttle was often used as an example of why you shouldn't even attempt to make something reusable. But one failed experiment does not invalidate the greater goal. If that was the case, we'd never have had the light bulb.

An inventor fails 999 times, and if he succeeds once, he's in. He treats his failures simply as practice shots.

If you want to bring change to any field, beat away at a problem until you solve it.

An inventor is simply a person who doesn't take his education too seriously. He tries and fails maybe a 1000 times. If he succeeds once, then he's in.

It's OK when something doesn't work. It gives you another data point when things do work.

'Fail hard, fail fast, fail often. It's the key to success.' This one I learned from experience!