Famous advice to young man wanting work - "Work with books" - fails (4,2,3)
I believe the answer is:
goes to pot
'fails' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I cannot tell whether it can be defined by this definition.
'famous advice to young man wanting work work with books' is the wordplay.
'famous advice to young man' becomes 'gowest' (reference to the phrase 'Go west, young man').
'wanting' suggests deleting specific letters (to want something can mean to lack it or need it).
'work' becomes 'w' (physics abbreviation).
'work with' becomes 'op' (abbreviation for opus. I am not sure about the 'with' bit.**).
'books' becomes 'ot' (Old Testament).
'gowest' with 'w' taken away is 'goest'.
'goest'+'op'+'ot'='GOES TO POT'
(Other definitions for goes to pot that I've seen before include "loses form" , "cracks up" , "Prepares to follow snooker player" , "Become ruined" , "Becomes ruined" .)