1938 Budweiser advertisement · Close wording 1938 · Churchill attribution located by 1965
Did Winston Churchill Say “Success Is Not Final, Failure Is Not Fatal”?
The International Churchill Society reports that the familiar sentence is found nowhere in Churchill’s canon. A close combined version appeared in a 1938 advertisement without his name, and later print examples circulated before a Churchill attribution was located in 1965.
Popular wording
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
Documented wording
“Success was never final and failure never fatal. It was courage that counted.”
Context
How the wording developed
The surviving print trail develops in stages: a close three-part advertising version in 1938, a shorter success-and-failure pair in 1939, a compact café placard reported in 1944, versions credited to George F. Tilton in 1948–1949 and a much later Churchill attribution in 1965. These examples document circulation, not the identity of the original author.
Attribution note
Credit the sentence to “Anonymous” or “Popular twentieth-century saying, often attributed to Winston Churchill; no verified Churchill source located.” The exact original author remains unresolved.
- Popular attribution
- Winston Churchill
- Document
- 1938 Budweiser advertisement
- Earliest close wording
- Earliest close combined wording located
- Later compact wording
- Later compact wording: café placard reported in 1944
- Date
- Close wording 1938 · Churchill attribution located by 1965
Dated attribution chronology
Follow the wording before Churchill’s name was attached.
The archive review establishes that the saying is absent from Churchill’s canon. The supporting chronology records close anonymous wording from 1938 and the later development of the attribution.
International Churchill Society: Quotes falsely attributed to Churchill ↗ International Churchill Society: Media Matters archive review ↗ Fact-check documenting the 1938 advertisement ↗