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I can assure you that there is the greatest practical benefit in making a few failures early in life. You learn that which is of inestimable importance - that there are a great many people in the world who are just as clever as you are. You learn to put your trust, by and by, in an economy and frugality of the exercise of your powers, both moral and intellectual; and you very soon find out, if you have not found it out before, that patience and tenacity of purpose are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness.

Thomas Henry Huxley#13

Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

LearningCharacterFailurePerseverance

About this quote

What does it mean?
Early failures teach humility, economy of effort, and that persistence matters more than cleverness.
In plain terms
Failing early helps you learn to be patient and save effort.
What can you take from it?
Failure early in life builds valuable habits like patience and thrift.

Where it applies

  • career development
  • education
  • self-improvement

Putting it to work

  • embrace early failure
  • cultivate patience and frugality

Questions to consider

  • What did your early failures teach you?
  • How do you balance cleverness and persistence?

Another view

Repeated failures without guidance can discourage learning.

More from Thomas Henry Huxley

  1. If some great Power would agree to make me always think what is true and do what is right, on condition of being turned into a sort of clock and wound up every…

    Permalink to quote #12
  2. That mysterious independent variable of political calculation, Public Opinion.

    Permalink to quote #14
  3. The great tragedy of Science - the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.

    Permalink to quote #11

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