Daring Greatly

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

That  is a quote from Teddy Roosevelt, from 1910, speaking at the Sorbonne. A book I read recently took its title from this quote and when I shared it with Thing One he asked me to print it out on some nice paper so he could put it in his wallet. 

How much do I love that?

Recently, he keeps running into the message that failure is part of the path to success. It's a good thing for all of us to remember. At least fail while daring greatly.