Skip to main content

Motivation Quote by Jack Nicklaus

"Focus on remedies, not faults"

About this Quote

"Focus on remedies, not faults" reads like a locker-room bromide until you remember who’s saying it: Jack Nicklaus, the golfer who made a career out of winning not by being flashy, but by being relentlessly correct. The line’s intent is brutally practical. It’s not urging you to ignore mistakes; it’s insisting you stop worshipping them. In sports, fault-finding can masquerade as seriousness: you replay the bad swing, the blown putt, the mental lapse, and call it accountability. Nicklaus is calling that bluff. Diagnosis matters, but obsession is procrastination dressed up as rigor.

The subtext is about agency. Faults point backward, toward blame, ego, and the comfort of a narrative where the problem is already understood. Remedies point forward, toward decisions you can make under pressure. That shift is the difference between a competitor who spirals and one who adjusts. It also hints at Nicklaus’s famed course management: you don’t litigate the shot you should’ve taken; you choose the highest-percentage shot you can take next.

Contextually, the quote sits inside a particular mid-century athletic ethos: discipline over drama, process over confession. That’s why it lands beyond golf. In workplaces and politics, “faults” become a social currency - who’s responsible, who’s embarrassed, who’s to be dunked on. “Remedies” is an unfashionable word because it implies boring follow-through. Nicklaus makes boredom sound like a superpower: the calm ability to move from critique to correction before the moment closes.

Quote Details

TopicLearning from Mistakes
SourceHelp us find the source
Cite

Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Nicklaus, Jack. (2026, January 15). Focus on remedies, not faults. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/focus-on-remedies-not-faults-54276/

Chicago Style
Nicklaus, Jack. "Focus on remedies, not faults." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/focus-on-remedies-not-faults-54276/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Focus on remedies, not faults." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/focus-on-remedies-not-faults-54276/. Accessed 8 Feb. 2026.

More Quotes by Jack Add to List
Focus on remedies not faults - Wisdom from Jack Nicklaus
Click to enlarge Portrait | Landscape

About the Author

USA Flag

Jack Nicklaus (born January 21, 1940) is a Athlete from USA.

27 more quotes available

View Profile

Similar Quotes

Henry Ford, Businessman
Henry Ford
John Florio, Writer