Mistakes are the portals of discovery.
—James Joyce
How small the vastest of human catastrophes may seem at a distance of a few million miles.
—H. G. Wells
Right actions in the future are the best apologies for bad actions
in the past.
—Tryon Edwards
Mistakes are really not that big of a deal. In fact, as most of us acknowledge, we need to make mistakes in order to learn and to grow.
—Richard Carlson in The Big Book of Small Stuff
I make mistakes; I'll be the second to admit it.
—Jean Kerr
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 in Sins & Needles
To avoid situations in which you might make mistakes may be the biggest mistake of all.
—Peter McWilliams
Everyone makes mistakes. The important thing is to not make the same mistake twice.
—Stephanie Perkins in Lola and the Boy Next Door
I’m human and every human makes mistakes. It’s just up to the person who made that mistake to let it rule their lives or put it behind them and go on.
—Amanda Heath in This Beautiful Thing
Young men make great mistakes in life; for one thing, they idealize love too much.
—Benjamin Jowett
The incompetent with nothing to do can still make a mess of it.
—Laurence J. Peter
I never guess. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.
—Arthur Conan Doyle
Acceptance is hard. To accept my pain means holding it in my arms, like a package handed to me, my proper burden to be carried. The package may be heavy as lead, or burning hot, or stuck through with razors, but I must concede that it is my package, simply because it has arrived in my life. It is not a mistake. It has not been sent by accident to the wrong person. I may not welcome it, but accepting it means I carry it without protest for as long as necessary — and then I lay it down.
—Jeanne Duprau
If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.
—Tallulah Bankhead
No one who cannot rejoice in the discovery of his own mistakes deserves to be called a scholar.
—Donald Foster