Success is falling nine times and getting up ten.

The line defines success not as uninterrupted achievement but as persistence: repeated failure is expected, and the decisive factor is the willingness to rise again. Its arithmetic (“nine times…ten”) emphasizes that resilience must outnumber setbacks, reframing failure as a normal stage in any meaningful pursuit. As a motivational maxim, it aligns with a long tradition of proverbs about perseverance and grit, suggesting that character and endurance—rather than talent or luck—are what ultimately produce “success.”