quotations about mistakes
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 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
You are not a mistake. You are not a problem to be solved. But you won't discover this until you are willing to stop banging your head against the wall of shaming and caging and fearing yourself.
GENEEN ROTH
Women, Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything
To rectify past blunders is impossible, but we might profit by the experience of them.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to Fielding Lewis, July 6, 1780
Life, like war, is a series of mistakes; and he is not the best Christian nor the best general who makes the fewest false steps. Poor mediocrity may secure that; but he is the best who wins the most splendid victories by the retrieval of mistakes. Forget mistakes; organize victory out of mistakes.
FREDERICK WILLIAM ROBERTSON
attributed, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers
What a waste my life would be without all the beautiful mistakes I've made.
ALICE BAG
Violence Girl
The cautious seldom err.
CONFUCIUS
Analects
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
The noblest spirits are most sensible of the possibility of Error: and the weakest do most hardly lay down an Error.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
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.
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
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
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
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
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
Truly even he errs that is wiser than the wise.
AESCHYLUS
fragment
The wise man corrects his own errors by observing those of others.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
The Moral Sayings of Publilius Syrus
Mistake, error, is the discipline through which we advance.
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
Address on the Present Age
They say we learn from mistakes,
that's why they mistake me.
LIL WAYNE
"Blunt Blowin", Tha Carter IV
It is only an error of judgment to make a mistake, but it argues an infirmity of character to adhere to it when discovered.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought