No documented source has the popular “how high he climbs” wording. Its core, “Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom,” is credited to Patton only in Porter B. Williamson’s 1979 book of recollections, I Remember General Patton’s Principles. According to Barry Popik ↗, it has not been found in print during Patton’s lifetime.
“I don't measure a man's success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom” Popularly attributed to George S. Patton. This is a later rewording of a line Porter B. Williamson reported Patton saying in I Remember General Patton's Principles (1979): “Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.”
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? We couldn’t establish where this was first published, so there’s no rights status to give. Credit it as shown above — just don’t present it as public domain, and get permission for commercial or published reuse.
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Evoking the world of George S. Patton — U.S. Army general, World War II. Theme: "I don't measure a man's success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
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Provenance
Where the line actually comes from
Source of the kernel
I Remember General Patton’s Principles
Author
Porter B. Williamson (reporting what Patton told him)
Published
Tucson, AZ: Management and Systems Consultants, 1979, p. 9
Popular wording
Not in this source: the “how high he climbs” form is a later rewording
When I fail he tells me, “The test of success is not what you do when you are on top. Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.”
Williamson, 1979, p. 9
Text as transcribed by Barry Popik from Williamson’s 1979 book. It is in the second person and has no “how high he climbs” clause. The “I don’t measure a man’s success” form on quote sites does not appear in this passage.
Barry Popik’s citation file starts with Porter B. Williamson’s I Remember General Patton’s Principles (1979), p. 9. There Williamson recalls Patton saying, “Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.” Popik ↗
Popik notes that the line “has not been found in print in any publication during Patton’s lifetime” and that its authenticity “depends entirely on Williamson’s work.” Popik ↗
The Internet Archive’s catalog record confirms the book: I remember General Patton’s principles, by Porter B. Williamson (Tucson, Ariz.: Management and Systems Consultants, 1979). Internet Archive ↗
Quote Investigator has no entry for the line, and Wikiquote’s George S. Patton page does not list it. Today’s outlets still print the “how high he climbs” version as Patton’s while admitting that a definitive primary source is hard to locate. 19FortyFive ↗
The popular “how high he climbs” wording has no identifiable published source, so no rights status is asserted for it. The closest documented form appears in Porter B. Williamson’s I Remember General Patton’s Principles, first published in 1979. That book is a post-1931 work and is presumed to be in copyright.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
What’s wrong with the popular version
Quote sites, military outlets and posters all credit this line to Patton. The documented trail is thinner than that, and the popular wording is not the documented one.
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Popular wording“I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he climbs…” Reworded
The documented form is shorter and in the second person: “Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.” It has no “climbs” contrast. Popik’s transcription of Williamson, p. 9 ↗
✕
Patton’s lifetimePatton’s own speeches, letters and diaries No wartime record
The line “has not been found in print in any publication during Patton’s lifetime.” Its attribution rests on one postwar recollection. Popik ↗
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Variant“Success is how high you bounce after you hit bottom” Variant
In 1987 the Daily News of Los Angeles quoted a man named Smith saying this variant. A 1988 Rockmart (Georgia) Journal article credited it to Patton. Popik ↗
✓The idea is credited to Patton only through Porter B. Williamson’s 1979 recollection, “Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.” The “I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he climbs” version is a later rewording that appears in no documented source. Barry Popik ↗
Context
Why it sticks to Patton
The line fits the Patton legend well. He was a famously hard-driving general, and his career had a public fall and comeback: he was temporarily removed from battlefield command after the Sicily slapping incidents, then returned to lead the Third Army in 1944 (Wikipedia ↗). That fit helps a resilience slogan travel under his name.
The documented trail starts with one person’s memory. Porter B. Williamson recalled Patton telling him, after a failure, that “the test of success is not what you do when you are on top.” Later books repeated the shorter line, including Fran Tarkenton’s Playing to Win (1985) and Reader’s Digest Quotable Quotes (1997). The bigger “I don’t measure a man’s success” form came later (Popik ↗).
Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.
Is it possible Patton said something like this?
Yes. A missing wartime printing does not prove he never said it, and Williamson presents it as words Patton spoke to him. But no speech transcript, letter or diary entry has been found, and the polished “how high he climbs” wording is not even in Williamson’s account. The fair summary: the idea is credited to Patton secondhand, and the popular wording is not his documented speech.
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Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
George Smith Patton Jr. was a U.S. Army general. In World War II he commanded the Seventh Army in the Mediterranean, then the Third Army in France and Germany after the Normandy invasion. After he slapped two shell-shocked soldiers in Sicily he was temporarily removed from battlefield command. He returned to lead the Third Army in 1944. Many motivational lines attributed to him come from postwar recollections rather than from his own speeches, letters or diaries.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Kernel documented in
Porter B. Williamson, I Remember General Patton’s Principles (Tucson, AZ: Management and Systems Consultants, 1979), 9, as transcribed in Barry Popik, “Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom,” The Big Apple, July 27, 2013. The popular “how high he climbs” wording appears in no documented source.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘I don't measure a man's success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom’?” Last verified 2 Nov 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/i-dont-measure-a-mans-success-by-how-high-he-climbs-but-how/