133 Quotes About Mistakes

Navigating the journey of life, we inevitably encounter mistakes—those unexpected detours that often carry the most profound lessons. They might cause temporary setbacks or discomfort, but they also open doors to growth, understanding, and resilience. Embracing our imperfections can not only lead to personal development but also foster empathy and innovation. In this exploration of life's imperfections, we present a collection of 133 quotes that shed light on the multifaceted nature of mistakes. Each quote offers a unique perspective, encouraging us to view our missteps as stepping stones toward self-discovery and improvement. Dive in to find wisdom and inspiration that will transform how you perceive and respond to life's inevitable challenges.

1. “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” - Napoleon Bonaparte

2. “I never made a mistake in my life; at least, never one that I couldn't explain away afterwards.” - Rudyard Kipling

3. “It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.” - Mahatma Gandhi

4. “Well, we all make mistakes, dear, so just put it behind you. We should regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry them forward into the future with us.” - L.M. Montgomery

5. “We often need to lose sight of our priorities in order to see them.” - John Irving

6. “Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.” - Oscar Wilde

7. “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” - Albert Einstein

8. “Mistakes are a part of being human. Precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it's a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from.” - Al Franken

9. “We learn from failure, not from success!” - Bram Stoker

10. “To err is human, to forgive, divine.” - Alexander Pope

11. “I'm afraid that we all make mistakes. One of the things that defines our character is how we handle mistakes. If we lie about having made a mistake, then it can't be corrected and it festers. On the other hand, if we give up just because we made a mistake, even a big mistake, none of us would get far in life.” - Terry Goodkind

12. “The 50-50-90 rule: anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong.” - Andy Rooney

13. “There is such a thing as the poetry of a mistake, and when you say, "Mistakes were made," you deprive an action of its poetry, and you sound like a weasel.” - Charles Baxter

14. “A mistake is simply another way of doing things.” - Katherine Graham

15. “Some of the worst mistakes in my life were haircuts” - Jim Morrison

16. “In this world everything changes except good deeds and bad deeds; these follow you as the shadow follows the body.” - Anonymouse

17. “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.” - Edna St. Vincent Millay

18. “It drains the bars and cafes after hours, concentrates the wicked and the guilty along its chipped Formica counter, and thrums with the gossip of criminals, policemen, shtarkers,and schlemiels, whores and night owls ... three or four floaters, solitaries, and drunks between benders lean against the sparkly resin counter, sucking the tea from their shtekelehs and working the calulations of their next big mistake.” - Michael Chabon

19. “We made too many wrong mistakes.” - Yogi Berra

20. “Men are born to sin…What does matter most, is not that we err, it is that we do benefit from our mistakes, that we are capable of sincere repentance, of genuine contrition.” - Sharon Kay Penman

21. “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” - Bill Gates

22. “But what if I make a mistake?' Will asked.Gilan threw back his head and laughed. 'A mistake? One mistake? You should be so lucky. You'll make dozens! I made four or five on my first day alone! Of course you'll make mistakes. Just don't make any of them twice. If you do mess things up, don't try to hide it. Don't try to rationalize it. Recognize it and admit it and learn from it. We never stop learning, none of us.” - John Flanagan

23. “In life, there are no mistakes, only lessons.” - Vic Johnson

24. “When the ax came into the forest the trees said the handle is one of us.” - Alice Walker

25. “... one flaw throws the loveliness of [everything else] into focus. I remember reading that Shakers deliberately introduced a mistake into the things they made, to show that man shouldn't aspire to the perfection of God. Flawed can be more perfect than perfection.” - Gretchen Rubin

26. “If you insist on disavowing that which is ugly about what you do," said Magnus, still looking at Alec, "you will never learn from your mistakes.” - Cassandra Clare

27. “Don't confuse poor decision-making with destiny. Own your mistakes. It’s ok; we all make them. Learn from them so they can empower you!” - Steve Maraboli

28. “It is important that we forgive ourselves for making mistakes. We need to learn from our errors and move on.” - Steve Maraboli

29. “I have learned all kinds of things from my many mistakes. The one thing I never learn is to stop making them.” - Joe Abercrombie

30. “Makin' mistakes ain't a crime, you know. What's the use of having a reputation if you can't ruin it every now and then?” - Simone Elkeles

31. “We have to make mistakes, it's how we learn compassion for others.” - Curtis Sittenfeld

32. “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. ” - Carl G. Jung

33. “To some people, I am kind of a Merlin who takes lots of crazy chances, but rarely makes mistakes. I've made some bad ones, but fortunately, the successes have come along fast enough to cover up the mistakes. When you go to bat as many times as I do, and continually improve upon your mistakes, you're bound to get a good average.” - Walt Disney

34. “You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by. Man, when I was young I shoved my ignorance in people's faces. They beat me with sticks. By the time I was forty my blunt instrument had been honed to a fine cutting point for me. If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn.” - Ray Bradbury

35. “In school we learn that mistakes are bad, and we are punished for making them. Yet, if you look at the way humans are designed to learn, we learn by making mistakes. We learn to walk by falling down. If we never fell down, we would never walk.” - Robert T. Kiyosaki

36. “The sooner you make your first five thousand mistakes the sooner you will beable to correct them.” - Kimon Nicolaides

37. “The past doesn't exist. There is nothing to be sorry for. Today is when we start to live. Look... look at the sea. The sea has no past. It is just there. It will never ask us to explain. The stars, the moon are there to light our way, to shine for us. What do they care what might have happened in the past? They are accompanying us, and are happy with that; can you see them shine? The stars are twinkling in the sky; would they do that if the past mattered? Wouldn't there be a huge storm if God wanted to punish us? We are alone, you and I, with no past, no memories, no guilt, nothing that can stand in the way of... our love.” - Ildefonso Falcones

38. “It was one thing to make a mistake; it was another thing to keep making it. I knew what happened when you let yourself get close to someone, when you started to believe they loved you: you'd be disappointed. Depend on someone, and you might as well admit you're going to be crushed, because when you really needed them, they wouldn't be there. Either that, or you'd confide in them and you added to their problems. All you ever really had was yourself, and that sort of sucked if you were less than reliable.” - Jodi Picoult

39. “Oh no," I said, because if our life is just one endless song about hope and regret, then "oh no" is apparently that song's chorus, the words we always return to.” - Brock Clarke

40. “Maybe you expected marriage to be perfect - I guess that's where you and I are different. See, I thought it would be all about making mistakes, but doing it with someone who's there to remind you what you learned along the way.” - Jodi Picoult

41. “God knows I'm not perfect, either. I've made tons of stupid mistakes, and later I regretted them. And I've done it over and over again, thousands of times; a cycle of hollow joy and vicious self-hatred. But even so, every time I learned something about myself-Misato Katsuragi” - Hideaki Anno

42. “We are all mistaken sometimes; sometimes we do wrong things, things that have bad consequences. But it does not mean we are evil, or that we cannot be trusted ever afterward.” - Alison Croggon

43. “I've made so many mistakes, so many corrections. I'm so far from perfect so many imperfections. But I'm a go getta I get up and go get it, so if you preaching prosperity, i wanna hit it.... ” - 50 cent

44. “I'd learned enough from life's experiences to understand that destiny's interventions can sometimes be read as invitation for us to address and even surmount our biggest fears. It doesn't take a great genius to recognize that when you are pushed by circumstance to do the one thing you have always most specifically loathed and feared, this can be, at the very least, an interesting growth opportunity.” - Elizabeth Gilbert

45. “Curiosity is the lust of the mind.” - Thomas Hobbes

46. “To make no mistakes is not in the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes the wise and good learn wisdom for the future.” - Plutarch

47. “We have all made mistakes, each and every one of us. The trick is to not keep making them over and over.” “I don’t,” I said, not modestly but truthfully. “I keep finding new mistakes to make. I suspect that I have a genius for it.” - Sara Poole

48. “one who makes no mistakes makes nothing” - Giacomo Casanova

49. “Scars are but evidence of life," Coquette said. "Evidence of choices to be learned from...evidence of wounds...wounds inflicted of mistakes...wounds we choose to allow the healing of. We likewise choose to see them, that we may not make the same mistakes again.” - Marcia Lynn McClure

50. “A mistake made with good in your heart is still a mistake, but it is one for which you must forgive yourself.” - Linda Sue Park

51. “What good has impatience ever brought? It has only served as the mother of mistakes and the father of irritation.” - Steve Maraboli

52. “One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn't exist.....Without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist” - Stephen Hawking

53. “It is part of the human nature always to judge others very severely and,when the wind turns against us,always to find an excuse for our own misdeeds,or to blame someone else for our mistakes.” - Paulo Coelho

54. “After each dream, Frankie woke with a start, soaked in tears. But she found no relief in the peaceful silence of her room, because there everything was real. And the guilt was too immense to bear. Each time she opened her eyes, she'd quickly shut them. And wish that she had woken up for the very last time.” - Lisi Harrison

55. “I don't want to give advice to a 19-year-old, because I want a 19-year-old to make mistakes and learn from them. Make mistakes, make mistakes, make mistakes. Just make sure they're your mistakes.” - Fiona Apple

56. “Do you think there is heaven or hell? he signed.‘I don’t know. Not in the Christian way, if that’s what you mean. I think people have a right to believe in whatever they want. I just don’t.’…If someone came in here and gave you positive proof, would you do anything different?She shook her head. ‘I think it’s just as likely that someone could say that this place, right here, is heaven, hell and earth all at the same time. And we still wouldn’t know what to do differently. Everyone just muddles through, trying not to make too many mistakes.” - David Wroblewski

57. “One mistake does not have to rule a person's entire life.” - Joyce Meyer

58. “You must never feel badly about making mistakes ... as long as you take the trouble to learn from them. For you often learn more by being wrong for the right reasons than you do by being right for the wrong reasons.” - Norton Juster

59. “And a step backward, after making a wrong turn, is a step in the right direction.” - Kurt Vonnegut

60. “As long as the world is turning and spinning, we're gonna be dizzy and we're gonna make mistakes.” - Mel Brooks

61. “Jules could have sworn there was a devilish glint in the shopkeepers eye. 'I find today I am in need of a bonnet.'Mr. Postlethwaite was silent. And then his eyes crept toward the marquess's hairline.'It will be a gift for a woman, Mr. Postlethwaite.''Of course, sir.' The marquess wished the 'of course' sounded a bit more sincere. He'd scarcely been in the shop for more than three minutes and already his dignity was fraying.” - Julie Anne Long

62. “You need to be buried deep in the dirt before you can find your bloom.” - Roz Inga

63. “Sometimes life seems like a match between oneself and one's gaolors. The gaolers, of course, are one's mistakes; and the question is, who'll hold out longest? When I think of that, life instead of being too long, seems as short as a winter day....” - Edith Wharton

64. “What a waste my life would be without all the beautiful mistakes I've made.” - Alice Bag

65. “Mistakes are painful when they happen, but years later a collection of mistakes is what is called experience.” - Denis Waitley

66. “After Carol had left, as Symons threw away a pile of used tissues and rearranged the cushions on the couch, he remarked that the most common and unhelpful illusion plaguing those who came to see him [as a career counselor] was the idea that they ought somehow, in the normal course of events, to have intuited--long before they had finished their degrees, started families, bought houses and risen to the top of law firms--what they should properly be doing with their lives. They were tormented by a residual notion of having through some error or stupidity on their part missed out on their true 'calling.” - Alain De Botton

67. “Everything has happened before - not once, but over and over again. We may not be able to solve our problems through what are pompously called "the lessons of history," but at least we should be able to recognize the issues and perhaps avoid some of the solutions that have failed in the past. And we can take heart in our own dilemma by realizing that other people in other times have survived worse.” - Elizabeth Peters

68. “It's much easier, after all, to learn mathematics from someone who's made a few mistakes. It's impossible to learn it from someone who always gets it right.” - John Lennox

69. “The MistakeWith the mistake your life goes in reverse.Now you can see exactly what you didWrong yesterday and wrong the day beforeAnd each mistake leads back to something worseAnd every nuance of your hypocrisyTowards yourself, and every excuseStands solidly on the perspective linesAnd there is perfect visibility.What an enlightenment. The colonnadeRolls past on either side. You needn't move.The statues of your errors brush your sleeve.You watch the tale turn back — and you're dismayed.And this dismay at this, this big mistakeIs made worse by the sight of all those whoKnew all along where these mistakes would lead — Those frozen friends who watched the crisis break.Why didn't they say? Oh, but they did indeed — Said with a murmur when the time was wrongOr by a mild refusal to assentOr told you plainly but you would not heed.Yes, you can hear them now. It hurts. It's worseThan any sneer from any enemy.Take this dismay. Lay claim to this mistake.Look straight along the lines of this reverse.” - James Fenton

70. “Everyone makes mistakes. The important thing is to not make the same mistake twice.” - Stephanie Perkins

71. “An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject, and how to avoid them.” - Werner Heisenberg

72. “Wise is the one who learns from another´s mistakes. Less wise is the one who learns only from his own mistakes. The fool keeps making the same mistakes again and again and never learns from them.” - Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

73. “So many roads. So many detours. So many choices. So many mistakes.” - Sarah Jessica Parker

74. “Because he has never forgiven himself any fault, he can forgive no one else's.” - Linda Berdoll

75. “The Duke would not pay for the works. He says that the Castle can never be taken. That is called hubris, Giacomo, the belief that you are never wrong. Believing you are never wrong is an error that afflicts great men. I have learned that to be right you must first be wrong many times. Without making errors--and learning from them--a man cannot find the truth.” - Christopher Peter Grey

76. “Did you have a rough month? I did :( but, you know what? There’s no time to dwell on a missed opportunity or worry about what I should’ve done or said, beating myself up & making myself miserable about my mistakes. That doesn’t work. So will take notes from that, put it behind me, move on & finish the year STRONG” - Pablo

77. “Let go of the mistakes and the sins of others. You'll have plenty of time to make your own mistakes, the rest of your life to commit your own sins.” - C. JoyBell C.

78. “Success does not consist in never making blunders, but in never making the same one a second time.” - Josh Billings

79. “I had the chance to make every possible mistake and figure out a way to recover from it. Once you realize there is life after mistakes, you gain a self-confidence that never goes away.” - Bob Schieffer

80. “Everyone's life is a mess. Everyone's. We all make mistakes . . . and not just little slip-ups. Major mistakes that hurt us and other people.” - James Alan Gardner

81. “You have a right to experiment with your life. You will make mistakes. And they are right too. No, I think there was too rigid a pattern. You came out of an education and are supposed to know your vocation. Your vocation is fixed, and maybe ten years later you find you are not a teacher anymore or you're not a painter anymore. It may happen. It has happened. I mean Gauguin decided at a certain point he wasn't a banker anymore; he was a painter. And so he walked away from banking. I think we have a right to change course. But society is the one that keeps demanding that we fit in and not disturb things. They would like you to fit in right away so that things work now.” - Anais Nin

82. “Survivors lived with their mistakes.” - Nora Roberts

83. “karapatan kong madapa at bumangon sa buhay nang walang tatawa, magagalit, magtatanong, o magbibilang kung ilang beses na 'kong nagkamali at ilang ulit ako dapat bumawi” - Bob Ong

84. “I wanted to wash away our past misgivings in those tears that would run from our eyes and weave a new start by folding her in my arms.I wanted to, but I did not!” - Faraaz Kazi

85. “You got one choice at the beginning but if you didn't choose right, things got narrow real quick.” - Ron Rash

86. “Mistakes, mistakes, it's all I seem capable of at times.” - Markus Zusak

87. “There are certain things in life that you'll be forgiven for, no matter how thoughtless or stupid or reckless, but if you do that same thing twice, you're on your own.” - Jennifer E. Smith

88. “Mistake is a single page in a part of Life ....but Relation is a book of dictionary -----So don't lose a full Book for a single page.” - Rubeccapalm Rose

89. “Some mistakes... Just have greater consequences than others. But you don't have to let the result of one mistake be the thing that defines you. You, Clark, have the choice not to let that happen.” - Jojo Moyes

90. “There's one good thing about a mistake. As long as you're alive, you still have time to fix it.” - Benjamin Bayani

91. “This is a dynamic and mysterious universe and human life is, no doubt, conditioned by imponderables of which we are only dimly aware. People sometimes say, "the strangest coincidence happened." Coincidences may seem strange, but they are never a result of caprice. They are orderly laws in the spiritual life of man. They affect and influence our lives profoundly. These so-called imponderables are so important that you should become spiritually sensitized to them. Indeed, the more spiritually minded you become the more acute your contact will be with these behind-the-scenes forces. By being alive to them through insight, instruction, and illumination, you can make your way past errors and mistakes on which, were you less spiritually sensitive, you might often stumble.” - Norman Vincent Peale

92. “O The irony of man, he thinks he's past generation did not repeat the same way of thinking, either intelligently or foolishly.” - A Gentleman

93. “There’s a difference between a mistake and a regret. Everything up to this moment has made this moment. If you can change a mistake, then go out and do what you can to change it. If you can’t change it, there’s no use regretting it because it will just make you miserable. Live right now, even if that involves dealing with the consequences of your actions. Time travel always ends badly.” - Rebecca McKinsey

94. “I'll be quite for now because I make mistakes too... but once The Perfect Almighty One judges you, there are no excuses.” - A Gentlemen

95. “I know I should just leave. Just go. Because there's a point where a mistake turns into a big mistake, and I should probably come to my senses before I get there.” - David Levithan

96. “Regard mistakes as teachers, not judges!” - Tae Yun Kim

97. “Sometimes it takes falling apart to see exactly how or what loosened the mortar. Sometimes we find we are responsible for the how & the what. As unpleasant as it is when it happens, one cannot help but appreciate these times for what you learn serves as a beacon. Of course this is only half the battle. Which means you're already half way there.” - Colleen Truscott Fry

98. “I had written a book of short stories which was published under the title of "Uncle Tom's Children". When the review of that book began to appear, I realized that I had made an awful naive mistake. I found that I had written a book which even bankers' daughters could read and weep over and feel good about. I swore to myself that if I ever wrote another book, no one would weep over it; that it would be so hard and deep that they would have to face it without the consolation of tears.” - richard wright

99. “A moment of brilliance is not good enough to pay for your mistakes, it's taking responsibility” - Mohamed Mohamed Adel

100. “The formula was simple: E + F + C = M. That is, excitement plus fatigue, plus confusion equals mistakes.” - Rutledge Etheridge

101. “You're the same as you were yesterday and the day before. Nothing has changed. Not really. Forget what troubles you. Regret nothing, but learn from any mistakes you make. Tomorrow will be a brighter day, I promise.” - Morgan Rhodes

102. “Even monkeys fall from trees.” - Chris Bradford

103. “We are not perfect. We make mistakes. We screw up but then we forgive and move forward.” - Nicholas Sparks

104. “We are all flawed, my dear. Every one of us. And believe me, we've all made mistakes. You've just got to take a good hard look at yourself, change what needs to be changed, and move on, pet.” - Lauren Myracle

105. “And just when I though things were starting to get better, everything had gone wrong again.” - Rachel Ward

106. “Refuse to give up, your mistakes don't define youThey don't dictate where you're headed, they remind you” - T.I. Harris

107. “Confidence turns into pride only when you are in denial of your mistakes.” - Criss Jami

108. “In the end, the only way is to be better than that person who let you down... and better than the monster you used to be...” - Paul Nat

109. “Sometimes… Sometimes doubt is the opposite of faith, but sometimes doubt can be a pathway to faith. Sometimes weakness is the opposite of strength, but sometimes weakness can be the pathway to strength. Sometimes addiction is the opposite of sobriety, but sometimes addiction can be the pathway to sobriety. Sometimes infidelity is the opposite of fidelity, but sometimes infidelity can be a pathway to fidelity. Sometimes failure is the opposite of success, but sometimes failure can be the pathway to success.” - David W. Jones

110. “Constant effort and frequent mistakes are the stepping stones to genius.” - Elbert Hubbard

111. “Everyone makes mistakes, but only a person with integrity owns up to them.” - Nicole Guillaume

112. “A person who makes few mistakes makes little progress.” - Bryant McGill

113. “Anyone can make a mistake.... It's how they learn from it and recover from it that shows their true worth.” - John Flanagan

114. “How in hell did those bombers get up there every single second of our lives! Why doesn't someone want to talk about it! We've started and won two atomic wars since 2022! Is it because we're having so much fun at home we've forgotten the world? Is it because we're so rich and the rest of the world's so poor and we just don't care if they are? I've heard rumors; the world is starving, but we're well fed. Is it true, the world works hard and we play? Is that why we're hated so much? I've heard the rumors about hate too, once in a long while, over the years. Do you know why? I don't, that's sure! Maybe the books can get us half out of the cave. They just might stop us from making the same damn insane mistakes!” - Ray Bradbury

115. “Welcome to BigMistake.comPopulation: untold millons” - Claire Cross

116. “If there was anything I learned from John the Baptist, it was that the sooner you confess a mistake, the quicker you can get on to making new and better mistakes.” - Christopher Moore

117. “If you are afraid to take a chance, take one anyway. What you don't do can create the same regrets as the mistakes you make.” - Iyanla Vanzant

118. “Every life is a story. Every story has mistakes. If you focus too much on the mistakes, you will miss the story. In doing that, you are making a dreadful mistake yourself. Sometimes, it is the mistakes that enrich and give the story so much more meaning than it would have had otherwise.” - Beverly S. Harless

119. “People who make no mistakes lack boldness and the spirit of adventure. They are the brakes on the wheels of progress.” - Norman Vincent Peale

120. “If people are not making mistakes, they are not trying new things. If they are making the same mistake twice, they are not learning new things!” - Walter C. Wright Jr.

121. “I looked at her. Sheila was my girl--the girl I wanted--and wanted for keeps. But it wasn't any use having illusions about her. Sheila was a liar and probably always would be a liar. It was her way of fighting for survival--the quick easy glib denial. It was a child's weapon--and she'd probably never got out of using it. If I wanted Sheila, I must accept her as she was--be at hand to prop up the weak places. We've all got our weak places. Mine were different from Sheila's, but they were there.” - Agatha Christie

122. “Sometimes … I think parents work so hard to keep us from making their mistakes, they won’t allow us to make our own.” - Charles Sheehan-Miles

123. “There are few things worse than mistaking an enemy for a friend.” - Wayne Gerard Trotman

124. “I don’t think it's weak to admit you made a mistake. That takes strength, if you ask me.” - Terry Pratchett

125. “I have to live with my mistakes, but I don’t have to regret them. I regret my actions but I can’t regret the consequences. We all make our own paths in life. Everyone we meet, everything we do, it changes us. It makes us who we are. And, if we’re lucky, we’re given the chance to make things right again.” - Karina Halle

126. “the greater number of a man's errors come before him disguised under the specious form of necessity; then, after error has been committed in a moment of excitement, of delirium, or of fear, we see that we might have avoided and escaped it.” - Alexandre Dumas

127. “It's difficult to get your creative juices flowing if you're always being practical, following rules, afraid to make mistakes, not looking into outside areas, or under the influence of any of the other mental locks.” - Roger Von Oech

128. “It is only those who do nothing who makes no mistake.” - Peter Kropotkin

129. “We all have to face our faults and mistakes, and then choose to overcome them or let them drag us down.” - Jessica Lave

130. “No matter how many sins you make or how slow you travel back toward God's valley, you are still way ahead of a person who never made a mistake and doesn't know what it is like to climb out of a pit of shame and rise above their temptations.” - Shannon L. Alder

131. “Recognising our own mistakes helps us to empathise non-judgementally with others and helps enable us to understand their issues.” - jay woodman

132. “The problem with Christianity is more people profess the truth than live it. So much hypocrisy abounds that I can no longer say I count myself among them without being held to the same unachievable standard.” - Shannon L. Alder

133. “Stay away from any minute of joy that can bring you a lifetime of sorrow.” - Dennis E. Adonis