Mistakes

One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts. ~~ Samuel Johnson

Lack of pep is often mistaken for patience. ~~ Kin Hubbard

A harmless hilarity and a buoyant cheerfulness are not infrequent concomitants of genius; and we are never more deceived than when we mistake gravity for greatness, solemnity for science, and pomposity for erudition. ~~ Charles Caleb Colton

If you can't make a mistake, you can't make anything. ~~ Marva N. Collins

We're all proud of making little mistakes. It gives us the feeling we don't make any big ones. ~~ Andrew A. Rooney

The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything. ~~ Bishop W. C. Magee

How natural it is for a man when he makes a mistake to correct it by cussing somebody else for it. ~~ Josh Billings

It is a great mistake for men to give up paying compliments, for when they give up saying what is charming, they give up thinking what is charming. ~~ Oscar Wilde

Beware lest we mistake our prejudices for our convictions. ~~ Harry A. Ironside

Be aware that young people have to be able to make their own mistakes and that times change. ~~ Gina Shapira

It is always a bad sign in an army when scapegoats are habitually sought out and brought to sacrifice for every conceivable mistake. It usually shows something very wrong in the highest command. It completely inhibits the willingness of junior commanders to take decisions, for they will always try to get chapter and verse for everything they do. ~~ Erwin Rommel

People who avoid the mistakes their parents made often make the mistakes their parents avoided. ~~ Unattributed

Live all you can; it's a mistake not to. It doesn't so much matter what you do in particular, so long as you have your life. If you haven't had that, what HAVE you had? ~~ Henry James

America makes prodigious mistakes, America has colossal faults, but one thing cannot be denied: America is always on the move. She may be going to Hell, of course, but at least she isn’t standing still. ~~ e. e. cummings

If you find a mistake in this paper, please consider that it was there for a purpose. We publish something for everyone, including those who are always looking for mistakes. ~~ Unattributed

Be ever questioning. Ignorance is not bliss. It is oblivion. You don't go to heaven if you die dumb. Become better informed. Lean from others' mistakes. You could not live long enough to make them all yourself. ~~ Admiral Hyman Rickover

History does not repeat itself; man repeats his mistakes. ~~ Barbara Tuchman

The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his client to plant vines. ~~ Frank Lloyd Wright

Do it tomorrow. You've made enough mistakes for one day. ~~ Bumper Sticker

One must be a god to be able to tell successes from failures without making a mistake. ~~ Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

It is better to be high-spirited even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent. ~~ Vincent van Gogh

We are a people who do not want to keep much of the past in our heads. It is considered unhealthy in America to remember mistakes, neurotic to think about them, psychotic to dwell on them. ~~ Lillian Hellman

The mistake which most critics make is to persist in trying to evaluate pop culture as if it were something else: the equivalent of insisting on considering a bicycle as if it were a horse. ~~ George Melly

A cat who dislikes his name can--and I am reliably informed, often does--go through his entire lifetime without ever, even by a careless mistake, acknowledging that he has ever heard it before, let alone recognizing, in any perceptible manner known to mankind, that it could in any way have any possible connection with him. ~~ Cleveland Amory

It may be a sin to think evil of people, but it is seldom a mistake. ~~ H. L. Mencken

It is very easy to forgive others their mistakes; it takes more grit and gumption to forgive them for having witnessed your own. ~~ Jessamyn West

I never made a mistake in grammar but once in my life and as soon as I done it I seen it. ~~ Carl Sandburg

Nowhere are prejudices more mistaken for truth, passion for reason, and invective for documentation than in politics. ~~ John Mason Brown

The novel remains for me one of the few forms where we can record man's complexity and the strength and decency of his longings. Where we can describe, step by step, minute by minute, our not altogether unpleasant struggle to put ourselves into a viable and devout relationship to our beloved and mistaken world. ~~ John Cheever

Positive, adj. Mistaken at the top of one's voice. ~~ Ambrose Bierce

In competition for prestige it seems only sensible to try to perfect our image rather than ourselves. That seems the most economical, direct way to produce the desired result. Accustomed to live in a world of pseudo-events, celebrities, dissolving forms, and shadowy but overshadowing images, we mistake our shadows for ourselves. To us they seem more real than the reality. Why should they not seem so to others? ~~ Daniel J. Boorstin

Show me a man who makes no mistakes and I will show you a man who doesn't do things. ~~ Theodore Roosevelt

You've always made the mistake of being yourself. ~~ Eugene Ionesco

Well, I tell you, if I have been wrong in my agnosticism, when I die I'll walk up to God in a manly way and say, Sir, I make an honest mistake. ~~ H. L. Mencken

I am a man of peace, God knows how I love peace; but I hope I shall never be such a coward as to mistake oppression for peace. ~~ Louis Kossuth

The chess board is the world; the pieces are the phenomena of the universe; the rules of the game are what we call the Laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. ~~ Thomas Huxley

My garden is an honest place. Every tree and every vine are incapable of concealment, and tell after two or three months exactly what sort of treatment they have had. The sower may mistake and sow his peas crookedly: the peas make no mistake but come and show his line. ~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Why make the same mistake twice, when there are so many new ones available? ~~ Unattributed

Never mistake motion for action. ~~ Ernest Hemingway

If you have made a mistake, cut your losses as quickly as possible. ~~ Bernard M. Baruch

Children are so afraid of us because they know we may try to keep them from making their biggest and most important mistakes. ~~ Brenda Ueland

I had to fight hard against loneliness, abuse, and the knowledge that any mistake I made would be magnified because I was the only black man out there. Many people resented my impatience and honesty, but I never cared about acceptance as much as I cared about respect. ~~ Jackie Robinson

An opinion, right or wrong, can never constitute a moral offense, nor be in itself a moral obligation. It may be mistaken; it may involve an absurdity, or a contradiction. It is a truth; or it is an error; it can never be a crime or a virtue. ~~ Frances Wright

Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety. ~~ Edmund Burke

Why did Nature create Man? Was it to show that she is big enough to make mistakes, or was it pure ignorance? ~~ Holbrook Jackson

Make no mistake. There is no such thing as a conventional nuclear weapon. ~~ Lyndon B. Johnson

There is no greater mistake and no graver danger than not to see that in our own society we are faced with the same phenomenon that is fertile soil for the rise of Fascism anywhere: the insignificance and powerlessness of the individual. ~~ Erich Fromm

Just because you MADE a mistake doesn't mean you ARE a mistake. ~~ Georgette Mosbacher

To approach a city, or even a city neighborhood, as if it were a larger architectural problem, capable of being given order by converting it into a disciplined work of art, is to make the mistake of attempting to substitute art for life. The results of such profound confusion between art and life are neither life nor art. They are taxidermy. ~~ Jane Jacobs [The Death and Life of Great American Cities]

Some people mistake weakness for tact. If they are silent when they ought to speak and so feign an agreement they do not feel, they call it being tactful. Cowardice would be a much better name. ~~ Frank Medlicott

If I'm elected, at the end of four years or eight years I hope the people will say, "You know, Jimmy Carter made a lot of mistakes, but he never told a lie." ~~ Jimmy Carter

I have made mistakes, but I have never made the mistake of claiming that I never made one. ~~ James Gordon Bennett

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. ~~ Hussein, King of Jordan

The snows of childhood are gentle, each falling flake a benediction and an eyelid kiss. The stuff is no threat to the young. Flake on flake, layer on layer, it forms a mantle over nature's scars and man's mistakes. It decorates the child. Forget the impermanence, the melting days and the slush. It is enough for the child that now the day is white and bright with snow, each crystal signaling another delight: a snowball fight, an igloo to be made, a hill and a sled, and a fireplace-and-cocoa haven at the end of the day. Snow promises all of that to the child, and like any other child I still believe in snow that way. ~~ Herbert Burkholz [The Snow Gods]

'Tis the good reader that makes the good book; in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakably meant for his ear; the profit of books is according to the sensibility of the reader; the profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until it is discovered by an equal mind and heart. ~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Any statistic that appears interesting is almost certainly a mistake. ~~ A. S. C. Ehrenberg

Parents are allowed 20,000 mistakes before they have to apply for a refill. ~~ Lawrence Kuiner

Your work is mortal, your mistakes will be too. ~~ Robert B. Parker

It is a great mistake to fancy oneself greater than one is, and to value oneself at less than one is worth. ~~ Goethe

Assert your right to make a few mistakes. If people can't accept your imperfections, that's their fault. ~~ David M. Burns, MD

If only one could have two lives: the first in which to make one's mistakes, which seem as if they have to be made; and the second in which to profit by them. ~~ D. H. Lawrence

Assimilate every mistake without dwelling on it. By all means, you should do whatever you can to get off your own back. ~~ Dr. Richard M. Suinn

To make mistakes is human; to stumble is commonplace; to be able to laugh at yourself is maturity. ~~ William Arthur Ward

Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life. ~~ Sandra Carey

Most mistakes in politics arise from flat and invincible disregard of the plain maxim that it is possible for the same thing to be and not be. ~~ John Morley

Men often mistake notoriety for fame, and would rather be remarked for their vices and follies than not be noticed at all. ~~ Harry S Truman

Experience enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again. ~~ Franklin P. Jones

Gigantic organizations make gigantic mistakes. ~~ Robert Lekachman

I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect. ~~ Edward Gibbon

A mistake proves that someone stopped talking long enough to do something. ~~ Phoenix Flame

Experience, the name men give to their mistakes. ~~ Oscar Wilde

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. ~~ George Bernard Shaw

Weak men are apt to be cruel because they stick at nothing that may repair the ill effect of their mistakes. ~~ George, Lord Halifax

Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken. ~~ Jane Austen [Emma]

An expert is a man who makes his mistakes quietly. ~~ Unattributed

His mistaken belief in his own superiority cut him off from reality as completely as if he were living in a colored glass jar. ~~ Margery Allingham

Nothing is so frequent as to mistake an ordinary human gift for a special and extraordinary endowment. ~~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

Humor: The ability to laugh at any mistake you survive. ~~ Jerry Tucker

No one is exempt from talking nonsense; the mistake is to do it solemnly. ~~ Michel de Montaigne

Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions. ~~ Edward R. Murrow

Bad enough to make mistakes, without going ahead and marrying them. ~~ Craig Rice [Georgiana Ann Randolph]

Victory goes to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake. ~~ Unattributed

It is the common failing of totalitarian regimes hat they cannot really understand the nature of our democracy. They mistake dissent for disloyalty … They mistake a few committees for a country. They misjudge individual speeches for public policy. ~~ Lyndon Baines Johnson

It is a mistake for a taciturn, serious-minded woman to marry a jovial man, but not for a serious-minded man to marry a lighthearted woman. ~~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I've made mistakes in drama. I thought drama was when actors cried. But drama is when the audience cries. ~~ Frank Capra (see Said Who?)

The essence of success is that it is never necessary to think of a new idea oneself. It is far better to wait until somebody else does it, and then to copy him in every detail, except his mistakes. ~~ Aubrey Menen

It's more important to know where you are going than to get there quickly. Do not mistake activity for achievement. ~~ Mabel Newcomer

[There is] a mistaken belief that the word [Indian] refers somehow to the country, India. When Columbus washed up on the beach in the Caribbean, he was not looking for a country called India. Europeans were calling that country Hindustan in 1492… Columbus called the people he met "Indio," from the Italian in dio, meaning "in God." ~~ Russell Means

The fool mistakes power for virtue, acclaim for merit, nonconformity for dangerousness, conviction for truth, revenge for justice, license for liberty, and kindness for weakness. ~~ Unattributed

Men don't make different mistakes at different periods of their lives. They make the same mistake over and over again and they pay a bigger and bigger price for it. ~~ Vicki Baum

For seven and a half years I've worked alongside President Reagan. We've had triumphs. Made some mistakes. We've had some sex … uh … setbacks. ~~ George Bush

It's a mistake that there is no bath that will cure people's manners. But drowning would help. ~~ Mark Twain

It is the true nature of mankind to learn from mistakes, not from example. ~~ Fred Hoyle [Into Deepest Space]

Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied. ~~ Pearl S. Buck

About mistakes it's funny. You got to make your own; and not only that, if you try to keep people from making theirs they get mad. ~~ Edna Ferber

Never mistake reason for action. ~~ Ernest Hemingway

People mistake their limitations for high standards. ~~ Jean Toomer

No mistake is more common and more fatuous than appealing to logic in cases which are beyond her jurisdiction. ~~ Samuel Butler

He who imagines he can do without the world deceives himself much; but he who fancies the world cannot do without him is still more mistaken. ~~ La Rochefoucauld

Those who mistake their good luck for their merit are inevitably bound for disaster. ~~ Christopher J. Herold

Remember your past mistakes just long enough to profit by them. ~~ Dan McKinnon

One quarter of what you buy will turn out to be mistakes. ~~ Delia Ephron

When I have listened to my mistakes, I have grown. ~~ Hugh Prather

Liberty is the possibility of doubting, of making a mistake … of searching and experimenting … of saying No to any authority--literary, artistic, philosophical, religious, social, and even political. ~~ Ignazio Silone

If there's one thing parenthood has taught me it's that naïve mistakes do not bad parents make. Bad parents have decidedly bad attitudes. ~~ John Rosemond

Don't be afraid to ask dumb questions. They're more easily handled than dumb mistakes. ~~ William Wister Haines

How to reduce mistakes at work: arrive late and leave early. ~~ Unattributed

Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else's. ~~ Billy Wilder

It is the law of humanity that man must know good through evil. No great principle ever triumphed but through much evil. No man ever progressed to greatness and goodness but through great mistakes. ~~ Frederick W. Robertson

The freedom to make mistakes provides the best environment for creativity. ~~ Unattributed

You can always survive a mistake in domestic affairs but you can get killed by one made in foreign policy. ~~ John F. Kennedy

The man who boasts he never made a mistake usually has a wife who made a big one. ~~ Unattributed

Half our mistakes in life arise from feeling where we ought to think, and thinking where we ought to feel. ~~ John Churton Collins

As soon as I stepped out of my mother's womb onto dry land, I realized that I had made a mistake--that I should not have come, but the trouble with children is that they are not returnable. ~~ Quentin Crisp

When you make a mistake, don't look back at it long. Take the reason of the thing into your mind, and then look forward. Mistakes are lessons of wisdom. The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power. ~~ Hugh White

Logic is a wonderful invention. It is so wonderful, people often mistake it for reason. Reason, however, requires sense. Logic requires only consistency. ~~ Orania Papazoglou

We may pretend that we're basically moral people who make mistakes, but the whole of history proves otherwise. ~~ Terry Hands

The greatest mistake is trying to be more agreeable than you can be. ~~ Walter Bagehot