Quotes about Mistakes

Here's the next section of quotes from my book 1000 Great Quotations for Business, Management & Training.


An updated version of the book is newly available as part of my Almost Free Kindle titles both in the UK and in the USA.

Mistakes are the portals of discovery.

James Joyce, Irish author, poet (1882-1941)

One cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs – but it is amazing how many eggs one can break without making a decent omelette.

No man ever became great or good except through many and great mistakes.

William Ewart Gladstone, British Prime Minister (1809-1898)

He who never made a mistake never made a discovery.

Samuel Smiles, British author (1812-1904)

Show me a person who has never made a mistake and I’ll show you somebody who has never achieved much.

Joan Collins, British actress (b. 1933)

Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.

Mahatma Gandhi, Indian nationalist leader (1869-1948)

To swear off making mistakes is very easy. All you have to do is swear off having ideas.

Leo Burnett, US advertising executive (1891-1971)

Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.

Carl Gustav Jung, Swiss psychiatrist, analytical psychologist (1876-1961)

From error to error discovers the entire truth.

Sigmund Freud, Austrian psychiatrist, founder of psychoanalysis (1856-1939)

Don’t ‘tolerate’ mistakes. Embrace them!

Tom Peters, US management author, presenter (b. 1942)

Experience is simply the name we give to our mistakes.

Oscar Wilde, Irish dramatist, poet (1854-1900)

Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.

Nasreddin, Turkish cleric (c. 13^th Century AD)

I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge.

Igor Stravinsky, Russian composer (1882-1971)

A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his client to plant vines.

Frank Lloyd Wright, US architect (1869-1959)