Success Quote by Herbert Kaufman

Kaufman dresses grit up as destiny, turning failure from a verdict into a scheduling issue. "Failure is only postponed success" is a classic morale engine: it steals failure's finality and reframes it as a delay, not a defeat. The trick is the conditional he sneaks in next. Success is postponed only "as long as" courage coaches ambition. Not courage as a vague feeling, but courage as a disciplinarian - a mentor that keeps ambition from curdling into ego, panic, or quit-while-youre-behind rationalization. The line works because it flatters the reader while also assigning homework: your outcome is not a referendum on talent or luck, but on whether you can keep showing up when the story stops being inspiring.

"The habit of persistence is the habit of victory" doubles down on the era's faith in self-making. Kaufman wrote in a period when American boosterism, salesmanship, and early self-help rhetoric were booming - decades marked by rapid industrial change, economic shocks, and a culture that needed narratives of personal control. Calling persistence a "habit" is key subtext: victory isn't an epiphany, it's a practiced routine, almost boring in its repetition. He isn't offering a pep talk so much as a behavioral model, one that shifts attention away from grand goals toward daily conduct.

There's also a quiet moral hierarchy here. Courage "coaches" ambition, implying ambition alone is juvenile, even dangerous. The mature version of wanting is trained wanting - persistence as character, victory as the visible side effect.