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What does 'Success has many fathers but failure is an orphan' mean?
It is not a question to be answered but a common expression describing ownership of success and failure. It means many people are willing to take the credit for a success action while none take the credit if an action turns to failure.
by your grandfather's grandfather's grandfather. Likely an untraceable axiom with very slight variations, Mussolini's son-in-law Count Ciano used in his WWII diaries. John F. Kennedy made it...
It means that wherever there is a successful event or person, there are many people who want to take credit for it while defeat, on the other hand, is an orphan and no one wants to take credit for it.