Nobody likes to fail but failure is an essential part of life and of learning. If your uniform isn't dirty, you haven't been in the game.
Ben Bernanke
Princeton University Commencement 2013, 2013
Video starts at 10:29 — the moment this quote was spoken
The Story Behind This Quote
Returning to the Princeton campus where he had taught economics for seventeen years, Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke offered graduates his 'Ten Suggestions' — a deliberately humble alternative to the Ten Commandments. Suggestion number eight was the most concise and memorable: a sports metaphor that distilled a lifetime of experience in economics, policymaking, and navigating the 2008 financial crisis into two sentences. For a man who had steered the nation's central bank through its greatest test since the Great Depression, the advice carried particular authority.