110 Top-Notch Quotes about Mistakes

"Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes."

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish writer, poet, and prominent aesthete. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. Today he is remembered for his many epigrams, his plays which are still revived, and the tragedy of his imprisonment and early death.


"The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything."

E.J. Phelps (-)


"Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way."

Alan Stuart "Al" Franken (born May 21, 1951) is the junior United States Senator from Minnesota.


"An error of several millimeters will lead to a mistake of thousands of miles."

The Liji (-) ("Collection of Treatises on the Rules of Propriety and Ceremonial Usages") is one of four extant collections of ritual matters of the Chinese Zhou Dynasty.


"From error to error one discovers the entire truth."

Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud (6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was a Jewish Austrian neurologist who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychiatry.


"To make a mistake is natural, to make the same mistake again is character."

Unknown [Help Us] (-)


"Where I do think I excel in recognizing my mistakes...that is the secret to my success."

George Soros, born as Schwartz György (August 12, 1930) is a Hungarian-American currency speculator, stock investor, businessman, philanthropist, and liberal political activist. He became known as "the Man Who Broke the Bank of England" after he made a reported $1 billion during the 1992 Black Wednesday UK currency crisis.


"One learns the most from mistakes, not successes."

Paul Tudor Jones II (born September 28, 1954) is the founder of Tudor Investment Corporation, a multi-billion dollar hedge fund. He is worth an estimated $6.3 billion in 2009 and was ranked by Forbes in March 2007 as the 369th richest person in the world. According to media reports, he made $750 million in 2006.


"An error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it."

Orlando Aloysius Battista (June 20, 1917 - October 3, 1995) also frequently referred to as O.A. Battista, was a Canadian-American chemist and author. A devout Catholic, he was notable in his writing for not shying away from advertising his religious beliefs as well as his scientific ones.


"It's a true mistake if you don't correct your errors."

Confucius (September 28, 551 BC – 479 BC) was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher.