quotations about mistakes
To go wrong in one's own way is better then to go right in someone else's.
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
Crime and Punishment
It is a very hard and troublesome thing to dispose of whole, half, and quarter-mistakes; to sift them and assign the portion of truth to its proper place.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
Man undertakes nothing in which he is not more or less puzzled; he must try numberless experiments before he can bring his undertakings to anything like perfection; and these experiments imply a succession of mistakes.
JANE TAYLOR
The Contributions of Q. Q.
When you make a mistake, don't make a second one -- keeping it to yourself. Own up. The time to sort out rotten eggs is at the nest. The deeper you hide them in the case the longer they stay in circulation, and the worse impression they make when they finally come to the breakfast table.
GEORGE HORACE LORIMER
Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son
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
Lack of recent information is responsible for more mistakes of judgment than erroneous reasoning.
MATTHEW ARNOLD
attributed, "The Living Law", Harper's Weekly, February 26, 1916
Mistakes occur through haste, never through doing a thing leisurely.
CHINESE PROVERB
What a waste my life would be without all the beautiful mistakes I've made.
ALICE BAG
Violence Girl
The term of man's life is half wasted, before he has done with his mistakes, and begins to profit by his lessons.
JANE TAYLOR
The Contributions of Q. Q.
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
No error is infused into the young mind, to lie there dormant, or to be reproduced only when the subject of thought or action recurs to which the error belongs; but the error becomes a model or archetype, after whose likeness the active powers of the mind create a thousand other errors.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
The cautious seldom err.
CONFUCIUS
Analects
I never made a mistake in my life; at least, never one that I couldn't explain away afterwards.
RUDYARD KIPLING
Under the Deodars
Let the answers be wrong, let the philosophy be mistaken -- errors are more valuable than truths: truth is of the machine, error is alive; truth reassures, error disturbs.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
On Literature, Revolution, Entropy, and Other Matters
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
Multi-tasking means you can make five mistakes in the time it used to take to make just one!
TOM WILSON
Ziggy, May 30, 2000
They say we learn from mistakes,
that's why they mistake me.
LIL WAYNE
"Blunt Blowin", Tha Carter IV
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
Truly even he errs that is wiser than the wise.
AESCHYLUS
fragment
Mistake, error, is the discipline through which we advance.
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
Address on the Present Age