"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"
About this Quote
B. C. Forbes points to a pattern that history loves to retell: the path to notable achievement winds through failure, doubt, and heartbreak. The decisive factor is not an absence of defeat but a refusal to let defeat harden into discouragement. That stance is more than stubbornness. It is an active discipline of reframing setbacks as information, preserving motivation when evidence seems to argue against it, and returning to the work with adjustments rather than resignation.
Forbes was a Scottish-born financial journalist who founded Forbes magazine in 1917, and he built a career profiling business leaders and distilling lessons about character. Writing through eras of boom, bust, and war, he championed an ethic that blended ambition with moral fiber. His audience was entrepreneurs and executives navigating volatile markets, and his aphorisms emphasize virtues that endure when strategy fails. By highlighting heartbreak, he resists the myth that winners enjoy smooth ascents; by stressing refusal to be discouraged, he elevates emotional steadiness and resilience as core business assets.
The claim also anticipates insights from modern psychology. Grit and growth mindset research suggest that sustained effort, coupled with learning from errors, strongly predicts mastery. The key is not blind persistence but adaptive persistence: extracting lessons from losses, revising tactics, and keeping identity and purpose intact. Even the language of defeat matters; calling a setback a defeat can be honest, but deciding it will not define the future keeps options open.
There are limits worth noting. Not every person who endures will prevail, and structural barriers can outlast any single effort. Yet the counsel retains power because it describes a controllable lever. Discouragement is a natural response; surrendering to it is a choice. The figures we call winners did not avoid pain. They metabolized it into insight and momentum, proving that the arc of success is often drawn by how one rises after falling rather than by the fact of falling itself.
Forbes was a Scottish-born financial journalist who founded Forbes magazine in 1917, and he built a career profiling business leaders and distilling lessons about character. Writing through eras of boom, bust, and war, he championed an ethic that blended ambition with moral fiber. His audience was entrepreneurs and executives navigating volatile markets, and his aphorisms emphasize virtues that endure when strategy fails. By highlighting heartbreak, he resists the myth that winners enjoy smooth ascents; by stressing refusal to be discouraged, he elevates emotional steadiness and resilience as core business assets.
The claim also anticipates insights from modern psychology. Grit and growth mindset research suggest that sustained effort, coupled with learning from errors, strongly predicts mastery. The key is not blind persistence but adaptive persistence: extracting lessons from losses, revising tactics, and keeping identity and purpose intact. Even the language of defeat matters; calling a setback a defeat can be honest, but deciding it will not define the future keeps options open.
There are limits worth noting. Not every person who endures will prevail, and structural barriers can outlast any single effort. Yet the counsel retains power because it describes a controllable lever. Discouragement is a natural response; surrendering to it is a choice. The figures we call winners did not avoid pain. They metabolized it into insight and momentum, proving that the arc of success is often drawn by how one rises after falling rather than by the fact of falling itself.
Quote Details
| Topic | Overcoming Obstacles |
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