quotations about mistakes
She had an unequalled gift, especially pen in hand, of squeezing big mistakes into small opportunities.
HENRY JAMES
"Greville Fane", The Real Thing and Other Tales
The errors of a man are what make him really lovable.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
There is something to be said for every error; but, whatever may be said for it, the most important thing to be said about it is that it is erroneous.
G. K. CHESTERTON
The Illustrated London News, April 25, 1931
It is with pleasure I receive reproof, when reproof is due, because no person can be readier to accuse me, than I am to acknowledge an error, when I am guilty of one; nor more desirous of atoning for a crime, when I am sensible of having committed it.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to Governor Dinwiddie, August 27, 1757
To go wrong in one's own way is better then to go right in someone else's.
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
Crime and Punishment
If you live long enough, you'll make mistakes. But if you learn from them, you'll be a better person.
BILL CLINTON
attributed, Wit and Wisdom of the American Presidents: A Book of Quotations
An error is not a mistake until you refuse to correct it.
GRENVILLE KLEISER
Dictionary of Proverbs
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
I am glad that I paid so little attention to good advice; had I abided by it I might have been saved from some of my most valuable mistakes.
GENE FOWLER
Skyline
If you insist on disavowing that which is ugly about what you do ... you will never learn from your mistakes.
CASSANDRA CLARE
City of Bones
Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Cambridge Thirty Years Ago
Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth, and if a man does not know what a thing is, it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not.
C. G. JUNG
C. G. Jung: Psychological Reflections
I never made a mistake in my life; at least, never one that I couldn't explain away afterwards.
RUDYARD KIPLING
Under the Deodars
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
Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.
PEARL S. BUCK
What America Means to Me
He that finds out he's changed his lot for worse,
Let him betimes the untoward choice reverse:
For still, when all is said, the rule stands fast,
That each man's shoe be made on his own last.
HORACE
Epistles
I was born with the wrong sign
In the wrong house
With the wrong ascendancy
I took the wrong road
That led to the wrong tendencies
I was in the wrong place at the wrong time
For the wrong reason and the wrong rhyme
On the wrong day of the wrong week
I used the wrong method with the wrong technique
Wrong
DEPECHE MODE
"Wrong"
I never make the same mistake twice. I make it five or six times, you know, just to be sure.
ANONYMOUS
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.