quotations about mistakes
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
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 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
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
Brother, brother; we are both in the wrong.
JOHN GAY
Beggar's Opera
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
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
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
The wise man corrects his own errors by observing those of others.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
The Moral Sayings of Publilius Syrus
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
Those who make no mistakes are making the biggest mistakes of all -- they are attempting nothing new.
ANTHONY DE MELLO
One Minute Nonsense
Only while sleeping one makes no mistakes. Making mistakes is the privilege of the active--of those who can correct their mistakes and put them right.
INGVAR KAMPRAD
"The Testament of a Furniture Dealer"
Error, by force of contrast, enhances the triumph of Truth.
MARCEL PROUST
Swann's Way
With the mistake your life goes in reverse.
Now you can see exactly what you did
Wrong yesterday and wrong the day before
And each mistake leads back to something worse.
JAMES FENTON
"The Mistake", Out of Danger
No man's error becomes his own law, nor obliges him to persist in it.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
Mistake, error, is the discipline through which we advance.
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
Address on the Present Age
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
Falsity cannot keep an idea from being beautiful; there are certain errors of such ingenuity that one could regret their not ranking among the achievements of the human mind.
JEAN ROSTAND
"A Biologist's Thoughts", The Substance of Man