A man can be destroyed but not defeated.
A man is not defeated by his opponents but by himself.
Believe you are defeated, believe it long enough, and it is likely to become a fact.
Commonly, people believe that defeat is characterized by a general bustle and a feverish rush. Bustle and rush are the signs of victory, not of defeat. Victory is a thing of action. It is a house in the act of being built. Every participant in victory sweats and puffs, carrying the stones for the building of the house. But defeat is a thing of weariness, of incoherence, of boredom. And above all of futility.
Defeat doesn't finish a man — quit does. A man is not finished when he's defeated. He's finished when he quits.
Defeat is a school in which truth always grows strong.
Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure.
Defeat never comes to any man until he admits it.
For by superior energies; more strict affiance in each other; faith more firm in their unhallowed principles, the bad have fairly earned a victory over the weak, the vacillating, inconsistent good.
I give the fight up: let there be an end, a privacy, an obscure nook for me. I want to be forgotten even by God.
I think everyone should experience defeat at least once during their career. You learn a lot from it.
I've learned that something constructive comes from every defeat.
It is defeat that turns bone to flint; it is defeat that turns gristle to muscle; it is defeat that makes men invincible.
Making a comeback is one of the most difficult things to do with dignity.
Most human organizations that fall short of their goals do so not because of stupidity or faulty doctrines, but because of internal decay and rigidification. They grow stiff in the joints. They get in a rut. They go to seed.
My lowest days as a Christian [and There Were Low Ones–Seven Months Worth Of Them In Prison, To Be Exact] have been more fulfilling and rewarding than all the days of glory in the White House.
Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.
The injustice of defeat lies in the fact that its most innocent victims are made to look like heartless accomplices. It is impossible to see behind defeat, the sacrifices, the austere performance of duty, the self-discipline and the vigilance that are there — those things the god of battle does not take account of.
The man who wins may have been counted out several times but he didn't hear the referee.
The mark of a great player is in his ability to come back. The great champions have all come back from defeat.