Anne Morrow Lindbergh and the Courage of Failure
Anne Morrow Lindbergh was one of the twentieth century’s most celebrated writers. Yet modern readers know her primarily as the wife of famous aviator Charles Lindbergh. Born in 1906 into privilege—her father was a prominent diplomat and banker—Anne herself was a remarkable figure. Her accomplishments were frequently overshadowed by her husband’s fame. Tragically, the kidnapping and murder of their infant son in 1932 also affected her legacy. This crime was one of the most sensational in American history. Despite these circumstances, Lindbergh carved out her own distinguished career as a pioneering aviator, author, and philosopher of human relationships. Her quote about courage and failure emerged not from success but from a lifetime of navigating profound loss, public scrutiny, and the persistent struggle to define herself beyond her circumstances.
The Origin of This Powerful Quote
Lindbergh likely drew her observation about courage and failure from her 1955 bestselling book “Gift from the Sea.” She wrote this slim but profound meditation on women’s lives while staying alone on an island. The book addressed relationships and personal fulfillment. It became a modern classic because it spoke to the quiet desperation many people felt trying to balance competing demands. Women especially recognized themselves in its pages. In this context, her reflection on courage takes on particular poignancy. She wrote about the courage required simply to try and experiment with new ways of living and being. The results did not matter. The quote captures her belief that society celebrates only visible success. Meanwhile, the internal fortitude required to risk failure goes largely unacknowledged and unrewarded.
Before becoming a writer, Lindbergh was an accomplished aviator in her own right. Popular accounts frequently downplay this aspect of her life. She learned to fly as a young woman. She served as a navigator and radio operator for her husband during long-distance flights. In 1931, they completed a record-breaking journey from North America to China. She was a co-pilot in both aviation and adventure. Yet history primarily remembered her as accompanying her famous husband rather than as an equal partner undertaking dangerous pioneering work. This personal experience likely deeply informed her thinking about courage and failure. She understood intimately how attempting something difficult—whether an untested transatlantic flight or a personal reinvention—required tremendous courage whether it ended in triumph or catastrophe.
It takes as much courage to have tried and failed as it does to have tried and succeeded
The context of the 1950s and 1960s also shaped her perspective. This was when her most influential writing emerged. Post-World War II American society intensely focused on measurable achievement and visible success. This was particularly true for women entering the workforce in new numbers. Lindbergh made a gentle but insistent argument that courage itself had intrinsic value. This was almost revolutionary. She suggested that a woman who attempted to balance motherhood, marriage, and meaningful work exhibited the same courage as someone who achieved visible success. This was even if she “failed” by conventional measures. This democratization of courage made it accessible to ordinary people in their everyday struggles. It was no longer the province only of famous explorers and adventurers. The idea proved deeply resonant.
Lindbergh’s philosophy contrasted sharply with the mythology surrounding her own life. She lived in an era and a marriage where failure was heavily scrutinized. Every mistake or misadventure involving her or her family became newspaper fodder and gossip. The kidnapping of her son became a spectacular public tragedy. She endured not only private grief but intense public judgment and curiosity. Her ability to develop a philosophy that honored attempted-but-failed efforts while living in such a spotlight suggests remarkable psychological resilience. She was not writing from a position of having successfully navigated life’s challenges. Rather, she wrote from the midst of ongoing struggle with how to live meaningfully despite setbacks and heartbreak.
Why This Message Still Resonates Today
The quote has resonated particularly strongly with modern audiences. It addresses a fundamental human anxiety: the fear of failure. In our contemporary culture of endless self-optimization and social media performance, people curate highlight reels of their successes. Lindbergh’s assertion that failure itself is courageous strikes a countercultural note. Therapists and life coaches frequently cite her words when encouraging clients to take risks and pursue passions. They use it to help people recover from setbacks. The quote has become something of a comfort to entrepreneurs, artists, students, and anyone attempting something difficult. It offers permission to view the attempt itself as worthy regardless of outcome. In this sense, her words function almost as a corrective to our winner-take-all mentality. They suggest that the distribution of courage is more democratic than we typically assume.
What makes this quote particularly powerful is its implicit challenge to our metrics of success. Lindbergh is not suggesting that failure and success are equivalent in outcome. She is not saying that trying and succeeding produce identical results—clearly they do not. Rather, she makes a subtler and more profound argument about the internal resources required to attempt something difficult without guaranteed success. She recognizes that the person who tries and fails must overcome not only the practical challenges of the task but also the psychological weight of that failure, the disappointment, and the temptation to never try again. In this way, such a person may actually require more courage to persist in the face of setbacks.