A small paper kite caught on a twig with a spool of thread on the ground.

Original artwork, not a still

Theodore Roosevelt

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

The speaker puts two painful outcomes side by side: an attempt that fails and a chance never taken. Failure is acknowledged as hard, but avoiding the attempt receives the harsher judgment. The comparison gives willingness to try a value beyond the result.

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