"If you don't accept failure as a possibility, you don't set high goals, you don't branch out, you don't try - you don't take the risk"
About this Quote
Rosalynn Carter frames failure less as a personal flaw than as an entrance fee for a meaningful life, and she does it with the plainspoken moral authority of someone who spent decades turning “supporting role” into real governance. The line moves like a staircase: don’t accept failure, and you won’t set high goals; don’t set high goals, and you won’t branch out; don’t branch out, and you won’t try; don’t try, and you won’t risk. The repetition is the point. It’s a rhetorical trapdoor that makes timidity look less like caution and more like self-sabotage.
The intent is pragmatic, not motivational-poster piety. Carter is arguing for tolerance of uncertainty as a prerequisite for civic and personal ambition. As First Lady, she was unusually policy-embedded, especially on mental health and caregiving, pushing reforms that were politically delicate and easy to caricature. In that context, “failure” isn’t abstract; it’s hearings that go nowhere, legislation that stalls, programs that get underfunded, headlines that flatten complex work into a punchline. Her warning reads like hard-earned counsel from someone who watched how quickly public life punishes deviation from the safe script.
The subtext is also gently feminist without announcing itself: if the cost of trying is the possibility of failing, women in public-facing roles are often charged a higher premium. Carter’s sentence refuses the perfectionism that keeps people - especially those expected to be flawless - from entering the arena at all. Risk, she implies, is not recklessness. It’s the only route to scale.
The intent is pragmatic, not motivational-poster piety. Carter is arguing for tolerance of uncertainty as a prerequisite for civic and personal ambition. As First Lady, she was unusually policy-embedded, especially on mental health and caregiving, pushing reforms that were politically delicate and easy to caricature. In that context, “failure” isn’t abstract; it’s hearings that go nowhere, legislation that stalls, programs that get underfunded, headlines that flatten complex work into a punchline. Her warning reads like hard-earned counsel from someone who watched how quickly public life punishes deviation from the safe script.
The subtext is also gently feminist without announcing itself: if the cost of trying is the possibility of failing, women in public-facing roles are often charged a higher premium. Carter’s sentence refuses the perfectionism that keeps people - especially those expected to be flawless - from entering the arena at all. Risk, she implies, is not recklessness. It’s the only route to scale.
Quote Details
| Topic | Failure |
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