quotations about mistakes
Everyone thinks I'm a smart arse who can solve any bloody problem. I'm not. I'm just a very old businessman and a very experienced businessman who made every mistake in the book and can recognise one when I see one.
JOHN HARVEY-JONES
The Telegraph, January 10, 2008
Mistakes are the growing pains of wisdom, the assessments we pay on our stock of experience, the raw material of error to be transformed into higher living. Without them there would be no individual growth, no progress, no conquest.
WILLIAM GEORGE JORDAN
The Crown of Individuality
Other kings let their ministers make their mistakes for them, but Louis insisted on making the important mistakes personally.
WILL CUPPY
The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody
When people once are in the wrong,
Each line they add is much too long;
Who fastest walks, but walks astray,
Is only furthest from his way.
MATTHEW PRIOR
Alma
The man who on discovering his errors acknowledges and corrects them, is scarcely less entitled to our esteem than if he had not erred.
JOHN PYE SMITH
Vindiciæ Academicæ
Behold the truth
Whenever heart may ache
There is a glory
In a great mistake.
NATHALIA CRANE
"Imperfection", Swear By the Night and Other Poems
Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
A sound discretion is not so much indicated by never making a mistake, as by never repeating it.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
To go wrong in one's own way is better then to go right in someone else's.
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
Crime and Punishment
There is something to be said for every error; but, whatever may be said for it, the most important thing to be said about it is that it is erroneous.
G. K. CHESTERTON
The Illustrated London News, April 25, 1931
Even honest men mistake oftener in their own favor than in other peoples.
FULKE GREVILLE
Maxims, Characters and Reflections
Mistakes are a form of feedback. Every error tells us what we need to correct. As we correct each mistake, we get nearer to the behavioral sequence that works best.
JOHN BRADSHAW
Healing the Shame that Binds You
Mistakes are road signs pointing you back to the proper path.
DARIN PENZERA
Heroic Egoism
There are two kinds of mistakes. There are fatal mistakes that destroy a theory; but there are also contingent ones, which are useful in testing the stability of a theory.
GIAN-CARLO ROTA
Indiscrete Thoughts
Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth, and if a man does not know what a thing is, it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not.
C. G. JUNG
C. G. Jung: Psychological Reflections
Smart people learn from their mistakes. But the real sharp ones learn from the mistakes of others.
BRANDON MULL
Fablehaven
I could take the greatest deal-makers of all time and they've always had something that didn't quite work out. You never want to put yourself in the position where something not working out is bigger than what you are and therefore takes you down. It's got to be in smaller chunks. In all cases, I want to learn something from things that didn't quite work out and learn, so that it doesn't happen again or so that in the future, you make great decisions. You don't want to make the same mistake twice and you have to learn that early on in your life.
DONALD TRUMP
Forbes, October 3, 2011
The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.
G. K. CHESTERTON
Illustrated London News, April 19, 1924
We all make mistakes, have struggles, and even regret things in our past. But you are not your mistakes, you are not your struggles, and you are here NOW with the power to shape your day and your future.
STEVE MARABOLI
Unapologetically You
At an early age I learned that people make mistakes, and you have to decide if their mistakes are bigger than your love for them.
ANGIE THOMAS
The Hate U Give