177 Mistakes Quotes

Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again.

Mistakes are part of the game. It's how well you recover from them, that's the mark of a great player.

Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error.

I usually never stay at the board after a game. Especially against Spassky. I made a dumb suggestion and he refuted it instantly! I know I'm going to have to play him some day and it was really stupid to look like such a jerk in front of him.

Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.

How many times will Davey put a disc into his CD player before realizing it's a DVD?

At least half of my life's many mistakes can be safely put down to impetuosity: the other half derive from inertia.

If it is a mistake of the head and not the heart don't worry about it, that's the way we learn.

The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.

Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit.

Weaknesses in men of genius are usually an exaggeration of their personal feeling; in the hands of feeble imitators they become the most flagrant blunders. Entire schools have been founded on misinterpretations of certain aspects of the masters. Lamentable mistakes have resulted from the thoughtless enthusiasm with which men have sought inspiration from the worst qualities of remarkable artists because they are unable to reproduce the sublime elements in their work.

A real failure does not need an excuse. It is an end in itself.

Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement.

I've learned that mistakes can often be as good a teacher as success.

Now, there's no use crying over spoiled milk.

Some of the worst mistakes of my life have been haircuts.

The public seldom forgive twice.

If all else fails immortality can always be assured by adequate error.

The politician who never made a mistake never made a decision.

I never make stupid mistakes. Only very, very clever ones.

In general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes.

I learn from my mistakes. It's a very painful way to learn, but without pain, the old saying is, there's no gain.

It's only those who do nothing that make no mistakes, I suppose.

As long as the world is turning and spinning, we're gonna be dizzy and we're gonna make mistakes.

The wise are not wise because they make no mistakes. They are wise because they correct their mistakes as soon as they recognize them.

In this business if you're good, you're right six times out of ten. You're never going to be right nine times out of ten.

The best plan is to profit by the folly of others.

Life's errors cry for the merciful beauty that can modulate their isolation into a harmony with the whole.

If I reprehend anything in this world, it is the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice derangement of epitaphs!

I went camping and borrowed a circus tent by mistake. I didn't notice until I got it set up. People complained because they couldn't see the lake.

The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.

There is a similarity between juggling and composing on the typewriter. The trick is, when you spill something, make it look like a part of the act.

Indignor quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus. I'm aggrieved when sometimes even excellent Homer nods.

Why not do what you really think, even if it's a mistake?

There are three things I'll never do again - eat Play-Doh, run with scissors and keep my ice-cube collection in a shoebox.

Happy is he that grows wise by other men's harms.

(After playing 'Higher State Of Consciousness' by Josh Wink for the second time:) I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that sounded better when I played it the other night, at the wrong speed.

There are uncertain truths - even true statements that we may take to be false - but there are no uncertain certainties. Since we can never know anything for sure, it is simply not worth searching for certainty; but it is well worth searching for truth; and we do this chiefly by searching for mistakes, so that we have to correct them.

Mistakes that are perceived as mistakes are often not mistakes at all.

Those who do not know their history are doomed to keep stepping in it.

Better to err with Pope, than shine with Pye.

I'm proud to say I have never been wrong about anything.

In a successful attempt to thwart a seduction I had ended up with two whores and a whore house. And I was just eighteen.

'The hardest freedom to maintain is the freedom of making mistakes.'

Be kind to each other in your homes. Be kind to those who surround you. I prefer that you make mistakes in kindness rather than that you work miracles in unkindness. Often just for one word, one look, one quick action, and darkness fills the heart of the one we love.

People say, I miss my prediction, cause the fight went ten rounds. First I said Jones in four, then I said Jones in six. Six & four is what???.

Brilliant young people who were nevertheless silly with love-or youth, as if it made a difference.

We don't mean to mess things up, but mess them up we do. And then it's 'Oh, I'm sorry.' Here's a smiling photograph of love when it was new. At a birthday party. Make a wish and close your eyes; surprise, surprise, surprise.

The better a man is, the more mistakes will he make--for the more new things he will try. I would never promote a man into a top level job who had not made mistakes, and big ones at that. Otherwise he is sure to be mediocre. -- The Practice of Management (1954)

I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. Of course, you only live one life, and you make all your mistakes, and learn what not to do, and that's the end of you.

I'll never forget the time I tried Cocaine. Horrible experience. Of course, I was on Acid at the time... (Monologue from his Saturday Night Live appearance)

I bought a self-learning record to learn Spanish. I turned it on and went to sleep; the record had a skip. The next day I could only stutter in Spanish.

I put my air conditioner in backwards. It got cold outside. The weatherman on TV was confused. 'It was supposed to be hot today.'

This proves that you're not infallible... Well, nobody is. Whoever thinks they're infallible is gonna really fall into a big hole some day. I've fallen into holes and I will watch out for them now, and I don't fall in as deep as I used to. But, I mean, I've been in some big holes - but I climbed out.

I bought her this handkerchief... and I didn't even know her size.

Sex is only dirty if it's done right.

Sometimes, chaos is a good thing. Some guitar players are afraid of making mistakes, hitting the wrong notes or their equipment failing or different factors that are going to make them look unprofessional. For me, that's what makes the show interesting. ...When I was a kid and would go see a rock show and something f--ed up would happen, there was a riot or all the gear got broken, that's more exciting than going up and having the most perfectly executed show go off without a hitch ... We put a show on that people are going to talk about and maybe change people's views on what rock 'n' roll has to be.

It's best that pilots learn in other people's planes.

It's no use firing an employee who made an involuntary mistake is his action was triggered by an eagerness to succeed.

Jail Inmates: Eighty fff....Eighty fff....Eighty fff....Eighty fff....Eighty Six!

don't spread the discontent don't spread the lies don't make the same mistakes with your own life

It was like a bunch of children, doing something they knew they shouldn't ought to, and then their pa comes along and catches them at it. Having been caught in such mischief himself sometimes, he almost felt a little sympathy

How is it less bearable than that beautiful boy who wanted so badly to do the right thing that he did it all wrong, lost his chance, and now is caught in the sum of all his wrong turns? I got on the road they all wanted to take, and I reached the top, but it wasn't where I should have gone, I'm still that boy. I did not have to lie when I went home to her

[as a stoned NASA scientist] Okay, okay check this out. The Mars lander...I did the calculations in feet...but I programmed it in meters! Oops! So instead of landing, fucker buried! 180 million dollar, whoopsie! Two years, SPLAT! Oh, oh, this is great, this is, shh, shh...the Hubble telescope...I forgot to put in the lens! *covers one eye* 'Read the top line for me?' 'Uh, Alpha Centauri, uh...Sirius, the rest is just a black hole!'

Intelligence is not to make no mistakes, but quickly to see how to make them good.

We should face reality and our past mistakes in an honest, adult way. Boasting of glory does not make glory, and singing in the dark does not dispel fear.

Now this is... talk about not being able to pronounce things, I'm in real trouble with this next one, because the name of the band... well it's spelt K-U-K-L. Now how would you pronounce that? I mean given that it's some kind of nordic language that you're not entirely familiar with. Well I checked around a bit, with people who know the band and they said, well, it's pronounced 'Curcle'. So I said 'Curcle', I mean that seems, you know, feasible... daft, but feasible... so K-U-K-L, Curcle, so I went ahead and that's what I said when I did a radio programme featuring this domestically, and a member of the band phoned up and said 'No, it's not Curcle at all, it's...' he didn't say it like this at all but he said '... it's pronounced Krchk'. And I said, well how can it be pronounced Krchk, I said, cause there's no 'R' in it... there's an 'L'... and the 'L' is at the end, you know, all that kind of thing. Anyway, he says it's Krchk, so this is Krchk, and frankly the title of the piece I have no intention at all of trying to pronounce, it's spelt S-O-N-G-U-L-L and it's almost certainly pronounced 'Lester'. (plays the record) That's Kukl, pronounced Krchk and this is John Peel's Music, pronounced 'Excuse me, but isn't that my ladder?'

There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted, but now it happens to everybody.

Error is the price we pay for progress.

Great services are not cancelled by one act or by one single error.

'By the Lion's Mane, a strange device,' said King Peter, 'to set a lantern here where the trees cluster so thick about it and so high above it that if it were lit it should give light to no man!' (ch. 17)

You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination.

None but a fool is always right.

Though experience be our only guide in reasoning concerning matters of fact; it must be acknowledged, that this guide is not altogether infallible, but in some cases is apt to lead us into errors.

'I've wiped the file? .... I've wiped all the files? .... I've wiped the INTERNET? I don't even have a modem!'

Where the fuck was I? What was I talking about? (Leans ear toward audience) Breasts, yes I know generally, but how far down the breast line was I? Oh yes oh yes, exploding in aeroplanes. True, true, true. Except for the lies.

It's no use crying over spilt evils. It's better to mop them up laughing.

Il n'y a point de gens qui aient plus souvent tort que ceux qui ne peuvent souffrir d'en avoir.

I did a bond tour during the Second World War... We were raising money, and we played Boston and Philadelphia and most of the big cities. And we got to Minneapolis. There wasn't any big theater to play there, so we did our show in a railroad station. Then I told the audience, that I knew a girl in Minneapolis. She was also known in St.Paul, she used to come over to visit me. She was known as 'The Tail Of Two Cities.' I didn't sell any more bonds, but eh... they didn't allow me to appear anymore.

One cannot too soon forget his errors and misdemeanors. To dwell long upon them is to add to the offense. Repentance and sorrow can only be displaced by something better, which is as free and original as if they had not been.

She had an unequalled gift, especially pen in hand, of squeezing big mistakes into small opportunities.

I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.

Bob: Welcome to the Lucky Strike Program. In just a few minutes, you'll see our star, Gypsy Rose Benny.

Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?

Learn from your mistakes and build on your successes.

How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?

There is no harm in being sometimes wrong - especially if one is promptly found out.

He made a mistake, you know? And if he hadn't done this particular thing that night, it wouldn't have been... but he was... it happened. (1995)

If you haven't made some mistakes by 28, it's abnormal.

I have many regrets, and I'm sure everyone does. The stupid things you do, you regret if you have any sense, and if you don't regret them, maybe you're stupid.

Nothing is more intolerable than to have to admit to yourself your own errors.

Our greatest stupidities may be very wise. (p. 39e)