quotations about mistakes
Even honest men mistake oftener in their own favor than in other peoples.
FULKE GREVILLE
Maxims, Characters and Reflections
We ought not to look back, unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dear bought experience. To enveigh against things that are past and irremediable, is unpleasing; but to steer clear of the shelves and rocks we have struck upon, is the part of wisdom, equally as incumbent on political as other men, who have their own little bark, or that of others, to navigate through the intricate paths of life, or the trackless ocean, to the haven of security and rest.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to Major-General Armstrong, March 26, 1781
Mistakes are like accidents: they are bound to happen, but if we take precautions we have a fairly good chance of minimizing their number and their impact. If we do that, there is no reason to worry: we have enough protection.
GABOR FORRAI
Reference, Truth and Conceptual Schemes: A Defense of Internal Realism
To rectify past blunders is impossible, but we might profit by the experience of them.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to Fielding Lewis, July 6, 1780
Makin' mistakes ain't a crime, you know. What's the use of having a reputation if you can't ruin it every now and then?
SIMONE ELKELES
Perfect Chemistry
You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true, and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
My Early Life: A Roving Commission
Our mistakes are especially interesting because they are a major source of wreckage in our relationships, careers, and lives, leading to needless conflict and misunderstanding. Our mistakes lead to ineffective solutions to some of society's biggest problems, and they can send nations into needless wars with the worst of consequences. Fortunately for improvement's sake, the mistakes we make trying to understand the minds of others are predictable and therefore correctable.
NICHOLAS EPLEY
Mindwise
No man's error becomes his own law, nor obliges him to persist in it.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
The wise man corrects his own errors by observing those of others.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
The Moral Sayings of Publilius Syrus
Error is certainty's constant companion. Error is the corollary of evidence. And anything said about truth may equally well be said about error: the delusion will be no greater.
LOUIS ARAGON
Paris Peasant
Those who make no mistakes are making the biggest mistakes of all -- they are attempting nothing new.
ANTHONY DE MELLO
One Minute Nonsense
Brother, brother; we are both in the wrong.
JOHN GAY
Beggar's Opera
Man's attitude towards his mistakes is various and peculiar; some do not see them; some will not see them; some see without changing; some see and deplore, but keep on; some make the same mistakes over and over again, in principle not in form; some blame others for their own mistakes; some condemn others for mistakes seemingly unconscious that they themselves are committing similar ones; some excuse their mistakes by saying that others do the same thing, as though a disease were less dangerous when it becomes epidemic in a community.
WILLIAM GEORGE JORDAN
The Crown of Individuality
I have learned all kinds of things from my many mistakes. The one thing I never learn is to stop making them.
JOE ABERCROMBIE
Last Argument of Kings
Unhappy is he who mistakes the branch for the tree, the shadow for the substance.
RABBI SIMON
attributed, Day's Collacon
I can bear to hear of imputed or real errors. The man who wishes to stand well in the opinion of others must do this; because he is thereby enabled to correct his faults, or remove prejudices which are imbibed against him.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to Joseph Reed, January 14, 1776
Mistakes have the power to turn you into something better than you were before.
ANONYMOUS
Mistakes are the knots, the tangles, the broken threads, the dropped stitches in the web of our living. They are the misdeals in judgment, our unwise investments in morals, the profit and loss account of wisdom.
WILLIAM GEORGE JORDAN
The Crown of Individuality
Mistakes are there to teach you how to do things right. Contained in every mistake is a lesson. By doing it wrong this is often how you learn to do it right.
DARIN PENZERA
Heroic Egoism
Mistake, error, is the discipline through which we advance.
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
Address on the Present Age