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Success Quote by Herbert Bayard Swope

"I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure - which is: Try to please everybody"

About this Quote

Swope’s line lands like a newsroom shrug sharpened into a weapon: stop hunting for a master key to success and start noticing the habits that reliably wreck it. The move is clever because it flips the reader’s expectation. People love “formulas” because they promise control; Swope refuses the con, then offers a darker, more believable certainty. He can’t hand you a map to the mountaintop, but he can point to the cliff edge.

The subtext is editorial to the bone. An editor’s job is choosing: what to run, what to cut, what to prioritize, who gets offended, who gets ignored. “Try to please everybody” isn’t just naive; it’s a professional sin. It produces mushy prose, timid positions, and institutional cowardice. Swope is really talking about standards - the kind you can defend when the room turns hostile. Pleasing everyone is framed as “failure” because it collapses your center of gravity; you stop making judgments and start making accommodations.

Context matters here: Swope comes out of an era when mass media was consolidating power, when newspapers and magazines were becoming national arbiters - and targets. The broader the audience, the louder the pressure to sand down edges, avoid clarity, and play both sides. His cynicism isn’t nihilism; it’s a warning about what consensus-chasing does to authority. The line works because it’s not moralistic. It’s practical, even diagnostic: if your choices are guided by universal approval, you’ve already outsourced your spine.

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TopicSuccess
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Swope, Herbert Bayard. (2026, January 17). I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure - which is: Try to please everybody. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-cannot-give-you-the-formula-for-success-but-i-60420/

Chicago Style
Swope, Herbert Bayard. "I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure - which is: Try to please everybody." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-cannot-give-you-the-formula-for-success-but-i-60420/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure - which is: Try to please everybody." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-cannot-give-you-the-formula-for-success-but-i-60420/. Accessed 3 Feb. 2026.

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Formula for Failure: Try to Please Everybody - Herbert Bayard Swope Quote
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About the Author

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Herbert Bayard Swope (January 5, 1882 - June 20, 1958) was a Editor from USA.

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