"Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses"
This passag is talking about how people for example dont do good on english tests or math tets or any test and than make excuses about why they didnt good on it it is probly becasue they circumvent what they are doing or not focusing on what they are doing and if one minute they are doing their studies and then you look at them they are playing with their x-box or something.

" a slip of a foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the toung you may never get over"
-Benjamin Franklin

This Quote or aying is tellin about how if you may do something bad or you beak something that is valuable or eve a bone it may heal. This passage is talking about if you say something to some one that is very powerful even if that person is amiable it can still hurt some one. And that is a hard thing to recover becauser they will always remeber you for what you said or did to them and the might even be affraid of what might happen if they see the person.