The real story

No substantive evidence supports this attribution to Churchill. The saying appears in "Churchill by Himself," the authoritative Churchill quotation reference, in a special appendix titled "Red Herrings: False Attributions." Quote Investigator traces the earliest complete version to a 1938 Budweiser beer advertisement in the Trenton Evening Times: "success was never final and failure never fatal. It was courage that counted." A copywriter for Anheuser-Busch is the likely originator. The attribution to Churchill became entrenched after college football coach Joe Paterno cited it as Churchill's in a 1968 newspaper report, and John Wooden repeated it as Churchill's in his 1972 memoir. Partial precursors appeared in syndicated columns by George Matthew Adams (1921), but the full modern version is a 1930s advertising creation.