The usual devastating put-downs imply that a person is basically bad, rather than that he is a person who sometimes does bad things. Obviously, there is a vast difference between a "bad" person and a person who does something bad.
Besides, failure is an event, it is not a person — yesterday ended last night.

Though the river's current never fails, the water passing, moment by moment, is never the same. Where the current pools, bubbles form on the surface, bursting and disappearing as others rise to replace them, none lasting long. In this world, people and their dwelling places are like that, always changing.

[Captain Steven Hiller: Knight Three, pull up!] Complete failure in the stators! [Captain Steven Hiller: Pull UP!]

My debts are large, my failures great, my shame secret and heavy; yet I come to ask for my good, I quake in fear lest my prayer be granted.

Hell is not a place you go, if you ain't a christian, it's the failure, of your life's greatest ambition.

I really believe that entrepreneurship is about being able to face failure, manage failure, and succeed after failing

Learning from experience, however, can be complicated. It can be much more difficult to learn from success than from failure. If we fail, we think carefully about the precise cause. Success can indiscriminately reinforce all our prior actions.

Failure has been correctly identified as the line of least persistence.