Success is never final, failure is never fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts
Not Winston Churchill — earliest full version is a 1938 Budweiser adAnonymous advertising copywriterBudweiser newspaper advertisement, 21 September 1938 · earliest known full wording
?Attribution status: No Churchill source exists. The wording is traceable to 1930s American ad copy, not to Churchill’s speeches, books or letters.?Reuse status: Rights unconfirmed
Winston Churchill never said or wrote this. Quote Investigator ↗ traces the first complete version to a Budweiser advertisement in the Trenton Evening Times of 21 September 1938 — “success was never final and failure never fatal. It was courage that counted” — built from earlier partial sayings; the Churchill label was attached only in the 1960s.
“Success is never final, failure is never fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts” not Winston Churchill. Earliest full version: a Budweiser advertisement, Trenton Evening Times, 21 September 1938. Via Quotle.info
⚠ The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Winston Churchill. Use the credit shown above instead.
Can you use it?
? We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.
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In context
Evoking the themes of resilience, courage and failure. Theme: "Success is never final, failure is never fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts". 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.
Minimalist
Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Success is never final, failure is never fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Provenance
Where the words actually come from
Earliest full wording
Budweiser advertisement, Trenton Evening Times, 21 September 1938, p. 19
Earliest named precursor
George Matthew Adams, “Finality” (syndicated essay, 1921)
Churchill credit first seen
Altoona Mirror, 1 April 1968, p. 26 (Joe Paterno speech)
Churchill sources
None — listed under “Red Herrings: False Attributions” in Churchill by Himself
success was never final and failure never fatal. It was courage that counted.
1938 ad copy
The 1938 advertising wording — past tense, and noticeably rougher than the polished modern sentence people attribute to Churchill.
1921 — George Matthew Adams’ syndicated essay “Finality” runs the line “Your success is not final—nor is your failure. You may always begin again,” per Quote Investigator’s citation trail ↗.
1938 — the first complete success/failure/courage version appears in a Budweiser newspaper advertisement; Quote Investigator suggests an ad copywriter synthesised it from the earlier partial sayings, see the full investigation ↗.
1968 — a Pennsylvania newspaper report of a Joe Paterno banquet speech carries the earliest located Churchill ascription, documented here ↗.
Today — the International Churchill Society still lists it among quotes “found nowhere in his canon,” on its falsely-attributed page ↗.
No rights status can be asserted. The familiar modern wording matches no identified authored work: the closest documented ancestor is anonymous 1938 advertising copy, and the polished sentence circulating today differs from it. With no identifiable author or first publication for the exact line, quotle.info makes no public-domain claim.
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.
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Fact-check
The attribution trail
Churchill is one of the internet’s biggest magnets for unsourced uplift. This line is a textbook case: assembled from anonymous ad copy, then handed to the most quotable statesman available.
✕
The whole quotationWinston Churchill No source
The International Churchill Society states plainly that this and similar lines are “broadly attributed to Winston Churchill… found nowhere in his canon,” and the reference collection Churchill by Himself files it under “Red Herrings: False Attributions” — see the Society’s falsely-attributed list ↗.
✕
How the Churchill credit spreadJoe Paterno, 1968 Earliest Churchill credit
Quote Investigator’s earliest located Churchill ascription is a report in the Altoona Mirror of 1 April 1968, in which the Penn State coach quoted “Success is never final; failure is never fatal; the only thing that counts is courage” as Churchill’s — see the citation trail ↗.
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An earlier rival creditGeorge F. Tilton 1948
Forbes magazine of 1 November 1948 printed “Success is never final and Failure never fatal. It’s courage that counts” credited to George F. Tilton, per Quote Investigator ↗.
✓The oldest full version yet found belongs to no famous person at all: a Budweiser advertisement in the Trenton Evening Times, 21 September 1938 — “success was never final and failure never fatal. It was courage that counted” — as documented by Quote Investigator ↗.
Context
How a beer ad became a Churchill quote
The sentence has an odd pedigree: the pieces existed before anyone assembled them. A 1921 syndicated essay called Finality, by columnist George Matthew Adams, told readers “Your success is not final—nor is your failure. You may always begin again.” The bolt-together version — success, failure and courage in one breath — shows up in a 1938 Budweiser newspaper advertisement ↗.
Churchill enters the story a generation later. By 1968 the Penn State coach Joe Paterno was quoting it to high-school athletes as Churchill’s, and the newspaper report repeated the credit. From there it hardened into internet fact — recited in commencement speeches, printed on posters, and used by Ron DeSantis when he ended his 2024 presidential campaign, which prompted a fresh round of fact-checks ↗.
A slogan written to sell beer, wearing a statesman’s voice.
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Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1878–1962 · American newspaper columnist & syndicate founder
George Matthew Adams was an American columnist who founded the George Matthew Adams Newspaper Service, syndicating columns and comic strips to newspapers for five decades. His 1921 essay Finality carried the line “Your success is not final—nor is your failure. You may always begin again,” the earliest documented statement of the thought under a named author. He did not write the familiar modern sentence — that full wording surfaces later, in anonymous 1930s advertising copy.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Earliest documented appearance
Earliest documented in a Budweiser advertisement, Trenton Evening Times (Trenton, NJ), 21 September 1938, p. 19, as cited in Quote Investigator, “Quote Origin: Success Is Never Final and Failure Never Fatal. It’s Courage That Counts,” 3 September 2013.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Success is never final, failure is never fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts’?” Last verified 22 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/success-is-never-final-failure-is-never-fatal-it-is-the/