It’s a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American Christmas fantasy drama film that is widely regarded as an American Christmas classic. In the ending, the protagonist’s guardian angel inscribed this in a book:
   
“Dear George, remember no man is a failure who has friends. Thanks for the wings, Love Clarence.”
 
The saying had been used before. “No man can be a failure who has friends who believe in him or enemies who fear him” was printed in The American Hereford Journal on December 15, 1916. “No man’s life is a failure who has friends” was printed in the Birmingham (AL) News on July 12, 1925.
   
           
Wikipedia: It’s a Wonderful Life
It’s a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American Christmas fantasy drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra, based on the short story and booklet The Greatest Gift, which Philip Van Doren Stern wrote in 1939 and published privately in 1943. The film is one of the most beloved in American cinema, and has become traditional viewing during the Christmas season.
 
The film stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a man who has given up his dreams to help others, and whose imminent suicide on Christmas Eve brings about the intervention of his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers). Clarence shows George all the lives he has touched, and how different life in his community of Bedford Falls would be if he had never been born.
 
Wikiquote: It’s a Wonderful Life
It’s a Wonderful Life is a 1946 film about an angel-in-training who gives a despondent man a look at what the world would be like if he had never been born.
 
Directed by Frank Capra. Screenplay by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, and Frank Capra.
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Clarence Oddbody
[Inscribed in a copy of Tom Sawyer] “Dear George, remember no man is a failure who has friends. Thanks for the wings, Love Clarence.”
 
Wikiquote: The Colbert Report
The Colbert Report (October 17, 2005 - December 18, 2014) is an American comedy television program starring political humorist Stephen Colbert, formerly of The Daily Show. The show satirizes personality-driven political pundit programs, particularly Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor.
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Stephen: (05-15-2009) No man is a failure who has friends… unless his friends are failures! This Is the Colbert Report!
   
Google Books
15 December 1916, The American Hereford Journal, pg. 58, col. 1:
REDUCE SELLING TO A FINE ART.
The Sothams Have Mastered the Business of Holding Public Sales.
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No man can be a failure who has friends who believe in him or enemies who fear him.
 
Newspapers.com
12 July 1925, Birmingham (AL) News, “Confectioners Of Alabama And Their Share In Everybody’s Life,” Social Section, pg. 12, col. 5:
No man’s life is a failure who has friends.
     
Newspapers.com
26 December 1946, Valley Times (North Hollywood, CA), pg. 13, col. 1:
‘IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE’:
Considering Suicide? See Capra’s New Film
By HAZEL FLYNN
If you’ve ever reached the point where you were considering suicide or just wishing you’d never been born, this will have special interest for you. It should convince you that it really is a wonderful life after all and that no person is poor or a failure who has friends.
 
2 January 1947, Dayton (OH) Herald, “Let’s Go Places” with Arthur S. Kany, pg. 9, col. 3:
Shakespeare put it this way: “The friends though hast and their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.”
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The story concludes with the thought that “no man is a failure who has friends.”
   
YouTube
No Man Is A Failure Who Has Friends
Nov 28, 2010
lovinstufflive
Beautiful ending from the Holiday classic- “It’s A Wonderful Life”
 
YouTube
No Man Is a Failure Who Has Friends
Dec 25, 2011
Leonardo Kurtz
Final scene of “It’s a Wonderful Life”, directed by Frank Capra in 1946.
 
Even if it was nominated for five Oscars without winning any, it is recognized as one of the 100 best American films ever made.
 
This scene is definitely well-worth watching.