Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

The saying distills a familiar Edison-associated lesson about perseverance: apparent “failure” often results not from inability but from stopping too soon, sometimes just before a breakthrough. It frames success as a process of iteration and endurance rather than a single decisive act, implying that the distance between near-success and failure can be only the decision to continue. In motivational terms, it encourages resilience under uncertainty—since one rarely knows how close one is to a solution—and it recasts setbacks as part of progress. Even if frequently attributed to Edison, the sentiment aligns with his public image as an inventor who emphasized experimentation and persistence.