Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
What These Words Mean
There is a small moment right before you do something that scares you. Your stomach feels a little hollow, your hands are almost-but-not-quite shaking, and the room seems a bit too quiet, like the air is waiting to see what you will do. This quote lives exactly in that moment.
"Try and fail, but don't fail to try."
First come the words: "Try and fail." On the surface, this is simple: you make an attempt at something, and it does not work. You apply for a job and they say no. You tell someone how you feel and they do not feel the same. You launch a small project and it fizzles. The saying is not pretending this will turn into an instant victory. It names the possibility that you will put yourself out there and watch the outcome slip through your fingers.
Beneath that, "Try and fail" is an invitation to welcome the uncomfortable part of growth. It suggests that stumbling, messing up, feeling foolish, and hearing no are not side effects to avoid, but part of the path you are actually supposed to walk. It is saying: let your attempts be real enough that they can go wrong. Let your courage be visible enough that disappointment has a chance to find you. To me, there is something quietly respectful about that; it treats you as someone capable of bearing discomfort in exchange for a fuller life.
Then the turn: "but don't fail to try." The words set up a clear contrast. The first kind of failure is what happens after effort. This second kind is what happens before effort, or rather, when effort never happens at all. Here, the picture is you standing still while life moves around you. The opportunity passes, the conversation never starts, the idea stays in your head. Nothing technically "goes wrong," but nothing is born either.
Deeper down, "don't fail to try" is about the more invisible kind of loss: the loss of becoming someone you might have been. It is asking you to fear that quiet erosion more than you fear embarrassment or rejection. When you fail to try, you protect your pride but abandon your possibility. You keep your record clean, but only because you never played the game.
Think about a very ordinary scene: you are sitting in your car outside a building where interviews are happening. Your resume is in your bag. The air conditioner hums softly, and the steering wheel is warm under your hands from the sun. You could start the engine, drive away, and tell yourself this job probably was not right for you anyway. You could also turn off the engine, open the door, and walk in, heart beating too fast. "Try and fail, but don't fail to try" speaks to that crossroads. It is not promising that you will get the job. It is arguing that only one of those choices lets you look yourself in the mirror later without wondering who you might have become.
I also think these words slightly overstate the case, and that is worth being honest about. There are moments when you need to rest, to step back, to not try again for a while. There are times when pulling back is not failure; it is wisdom or self-preservation. The saying is not a perfect rule for every situation. But it is a sharp reminder for the many times when fear dresses itself up as "being realistic" and quietly talks you out of your own life.
The Setting Behind the Quote
John Quincy Adams lived in a world shaped by risk, upheaval, and experiment. Born in 1767, he grew up in the shadow of revolution, war, and the building of a new country in North America. The United States in his lifetime was an unfinished project: fragile, ambitious, uncertain. Public life demanded people who were willing to make bold moves without any guarantee that those moves would work.
In that environment, the idea of "trying and failing" was not abstract. New laws, new alliances, new institutions, new moral debates were constant. Efforts at progress could succeed beautifully or fall apart painfully. People of Adams's era watched experiments in government and policy fail, sometimes with heavy consequences, but the alternative—doing nothing—looked like drifting backward into chaos or tyranny.
These words fit that moment by honoring action over paralysis. A young republic could not afford leaders or citizens who avoided every risk just to preserve a spotless record. The deeper danger was in failing to act when action was needed, failing to take a stand, failing to engage with problems that would not solve themselves.
It is also worth noting that many quotes from historical figures are passed down more through repetition than firm documentation, and this one is often attributed to Adams in that loose way. Still, the spirit of the saying matches the demands of his time: a call to participate fully in life and public duty, even when the outcome is uncertain, rather than standing safely on the sidelines and calling that safety "success."
About John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams, who was born in 1767 and died in 1848, was the sixth president of the United States and a lifelong public servant. He grew up close to the center of early American politics as the son of John Adams, the second president, but he built his own path through decades of diplomatic and political work. He served as a diplomat in Europe, negotiated important treaties, became secretary of state, and eventually won the presidency.
His single term as president was difficult and often frustrating, marked by fierce political opposition. After losing re-election, he did something unusual for a former president: he went back into government as a member of the House of Representatives. There, he became a strong, stubborn voice against slavery and for civil liberties, repeatedly pressing issues that were unpopular or uncomfortable.
He is remembered as principled, independent, and sometimes rigid, but also deeply committed to doing what he believed was right even when it cost him popularity or power. That pattern of his life fits closely with the spirit of the quote. Adams knew from experience what it meant to try and fail in public, to back causes that would not triumph quickly, and to risk reputation for the sake of conscience.
These words about trying and failing, and especially about not failing to try, echo the way he lived: treating effort, conviction, and persistence as more important than securing a flawless record or an easy legacy.
