quotations about mistakes
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
Every step that I take is another mistake to you.
LINKIN PARK
"Numb"
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
Do you know what it is like,
to lie in bed awake;
with thoughts to haunt
you every night,
of all your past mistakes.
LANG LEAV
Love & Misadventure
A step backward, after making a wrong turn, is a step in the right direction.
KURT VONNEGUT
Player Piano
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
Truly even he errs that is wiser than the wise.
AESCHYLUS
fragment
The cautious seldom err.
CONFUCIUS
Analects
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
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
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
What a waste my life would be without all the beautiful mistakes I've made.
ALICE BAG
Violence Girl
To rectify past blunders is impossible, but we might profit by the experience of them.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to Fielding Lewis, July 6, 1780
Mistakes occur through haste, never through doing a thing leisurely.
CHINESE PROVERB
To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact.
CHARLES DARWIN
letter to A. Stephen Wilson, March 5, 1879
I don't make mistakes. I make predictions which immediately turn out to be wrong.
TONY BENN
Arguments for Socialism
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
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
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
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