quotations about mistakes
Mistakes are information about what works and what doesn't work. They have nothing to do with your worth or intelligence. They are merely steps to a goal.
JOHN BRADSHAW
Healing the Shame that Binds You
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
When you find your path, you must not be afraid. You need to have sufficient courage to make mistakes. Disappointment, defeat, and despair are the tools God uses to show us the way.
PAULO COELHO
Brida
To err is human, but it feels divine.
MAE WEST
The Wit and Wisdom of Mae West
I am glad that I paid so little attention to good advice; had I abided by it I might have been saved from some of my most valuable mistakes.
GENE FOWLER
Skyline
Our failures or mistakes give us important feedback on what we need to change or concentrate on in the future.
DANA LIGHTMAN
Power Optimism
Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Cambridge Thirty Years Ago
The errors of a man are what make him really lovable.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
I never make the same mistake twice. I make it five or six times, you know, just to be sure.
ANONYMOUS
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
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
If you want to condemn yourself for the mistakes you've made, let's be fair, that means you've got to congratulate yourself for all the good things you've done. It's okay to say, "God, I wish I'd done this; yeah, but I did do that." Then it kind of balances out.
TIM ALLEN
Reader's Digest, October 2001
An error is not a mistake until you refuse to correct it.
GRENVILLE KLEISER
Dictionary of Proverbs
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
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
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
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
Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it's a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from.
AL FRANKEN
Oh, the Things I Know
A step backward, after making a wrong turn, is a step in the right direction.
KURT VONNEGUT
Player Piano
What an unchallenging life it would be if we always got things right on the first go.
RANSOM RIGGS
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children