Failure
Illustration★★★★Once, when Mark Twain was asked the difference between a mistake and a
blunder, he replied, “If you walk into a restaurant and walk out with someone’s
silk umbrella and leave your own cotton one, that is a mistake. But if you pick
up someone’s cotton umbrella instead of your own silk one, that is a blunder.”
Better try to do something,
And fail in the deed,
Than try to do nothing,
And always succeed.
The point
Mark Twain distinguishes mistake from blunder with an umbrella anecdote, then urges that attempting something and failing beats never trying and always succeeding.
Audience
Adults
Tone
Humorous · Encouraging
To tell aloud
under a minute · 75 words