Amazing Facts About Success & Failure

"Our greatest glory is not in ever falling but in rising every time we fall." --Confucius

Albert Einstein did not speak until he was 4 and did not read until he was 7. His teacher described him as "mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in foolish dreams." He was expelled from school and was refused admittance to the Zurich Polytechnic School.

Sigmund Freud was booed from the podium when he first presented his ideas to the scientific community of Europe. He returned to his office and kept on writing.

Thomas Edison's teachers said he was "too stupid to learn anything." He was fired from his first two jobs for being "non-productive."

Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because "he lacked imagination and had no good ideas." He went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland. In fact, the proposed park was rejected by the city of Anaheim on the grounds that it would only attract riffraff.

French acting legend Jeanne Moreau was told by a casting director that her "head was too crooked and she was not beautiful enough to make it in films." She said to herself, "I guess I will have to make it my own way." After making nearly 100 films her own way, in 1997 she received the European Film Academy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Sidney Poitier was told by a casting director, "Why don't you stop wasting people's time and go out and become a dishwasher or something?" It was at that moment, recalls Poitier, that he decided to devote his life to acting.

Beethoven's teacher called him "hopeless as a composer." We all know that he wrote some of his greatest symphonies while completely deaf.

Van Gogh sold only one painting during his life. This did not stop him from completing over 800 paintings.

An art dealer refused Picasso shelter when he asked if he could bring in his paintings from out of the rain. Stravinsky was run out of town by an enraged audience and critics after the first performance of the Rite of Spring.

A young reporter asked Pablo Casals when he was 95 "Mr. Casals, you are 95 and the greatest cellist that ever lived, why do you still practice six hours a day?" Mr. Casals answered, "Because I think I'm making progress."

Leo Tolstoy flunked out of college. He was described as both "unable and unwilling to learn."

Emily Dickinson had only seven poems published in her lifetime.

English crime novelist John Creasey had 753 rejection slips before he published 564 books.

John Milton wrote Paradise Lost 16 years after losing his eyesight.