quotations about mistakes
To err is human, but it feels divine.
MAE WEST
The Wit and Wisdom of Mae West
When people once are in the wrong,
Each line they add is much too long;
Who fastest walks, but walks astray,
Is only furthest from his way.
MATTHEW PRIOR
Alma
A sound discretion is not so much indicated by never making a mistake, as by never repeating it.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Everyone thinks I'm a smart arse who can solve any bloody problem. I'm not. I'm just a very old businessman and a very experienced businessman who made every mistake in the book and can recognise one when I see one.
JOHN HARVEY-JONES
The Telegraph, January 10, 2008
However temperate we may be, we shall be sure to make mistakes enough in the world, and bring upon ourselves enough of trouble.
GEORGE MOGRIDGE
Old Humphrey's Address
I never made a mistake in my life; at least, never one that I couldn't explain away afterwards.
RUDYARD KIPLING
Under the Deodars
If you want to condemn yourself for the mistakes you've made, let's be fair, that means you've got to congratulate yourself for all the good things you've done. It's okay to say, "God, I wish I'd done this; yeah, but I did do that." Then it kind of balances out.
TIM ALLEN
Reader's Digest, October 2001
Mistakes are the growing pains of wisdom, the assessments we pay on our stock of experience, the raw material of error to be transformed into higher living. Without them there would be no individual growth, no progress, no conquest.
WILLIAM GEORGE JORDAN
The Crown of Individuality
Other kings let their ministers make their mistakes for them, but Louis insisted on making the important mistakes personally.
WILL CUPPY
The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody
To go wrong in one's own way is better then to go right in someone else's.
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
Crime and Punishment
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.
When you find your path, you must not be afraid. You need to have sufficient courage to make mistakes. Disappointment, defeat, and despair are the tools God uses to show us the way.
PAULO COELHO
Brida
Behold the truth
Whenever heart may ache
There is a glory
In a great mistake.
NATHALIA CRANE
"Imperfection", Swear By the Night and Other Poems
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
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
What an unchallenging life it would be if we always got things right on the first go.
RANSOM RIGGS
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
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
Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it's a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from.
AL FRANKEN
Oh, the Things I Know
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
Even honest men mistake oftener in their own favor than in other peoples.
FULKE GREVILLE
Maxims, Characters and Reflections