Errors

In the end, I hope that I will be judged on how I spent the last 26 years of my life and not for the mistakes I made during my teenage years.
~ Frank William Abagnale, Jr., Abagnale & Associates (23 December 2002).

Error of thinking leads to error of action.
~ William Francis (W.F.) Barnard, Mind Over Mind (1919).

A person has got to have the right to be wrong, to make mistakes. You must stick your neck out and try. There is no need to apologize if you try and fail. On the contrary, you can look anyone right in the eye.
~ Bill Bixby, in TV Picture Life (September 1964).

I'm willing to make mistakes and I'm also willing to face them myself. I prefer that than having to answer for someone else.
~ Bill Bixby, interview with Yvonne-Wyatt Rees, The Incredible Success of Bill Bixby (c. 1980).

The errors of a wise man make your rule,
Rather than the perfections of a fool.
~ William Blake, in The Life of William Blake (1863), Volume II. Poems Hitherto Unpublished. Couplets and Fragments VI

A retreat from a wrong direction is the only wise move in the right direction.
~ William J.H. Boetcker

Better to be a strong man with a weak point, than to be a weak man without a strong point. A diamond with a flaw is more valuable that a brick without a flaw.
~ William J.H. Boetcker

I knew it was going to be a close play at first because the guy (Wilson) runs so well. The ball went skip, skip, skip and didn't come up. The ball missed my glove. I can't remember the last time I missed a ball like that, but I'll remember that one.
~ William Joseph "Bill" Buckner (on Mookie Wilson's ground ball in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series).

There's no use starting off on the wrong foot.
~ William Carpenter, A Keeper of Sheep (1994).

Mistake, error, is the discipline through which we advance.
~ William Ellery Channing, Address Delivered Before The Mercantile Library Company of Philadelphia (1841). The Present Age

Most faults are not in our Constitution, but in ourselves.
~ (William) Ramsey Clark (remarks at meeting sponsored by the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions), in The Washington Post (12 November 1970).

[E]rror is sometimes so nearly allied to truth, that it blends with it as imperceptibly as the colors of the rainbow fade into each other.
~ William Benton (W.B.) Clulow, Horæ otiosæ; or, Thoughts, Maxims, and Opinions (1833). Part II. On Mind, Studies, and Intellectual Habits

Raising children is an incredibly hard and risky business in which no cumulative wisdom is gained: each generation repeats the mistakes the previous one made.
~ Bill Cosby, Fatherhood (1986). Chapter 1

Faults in the life breed errors in the brain,
And these, reciprocally, those again.
~ William Cowper, from Poems by William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq. (1782). The Progress of Error

Defects are not free. Somebody makes them, and gets paid for making them.
~ W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis (1986).

When a system is stable, telling the worker about mistakes is only tampering.
~ W. Edwards Deming

Everybody loves to find fault, it gives a feeling of superiority.
~ William Feather

Men are apt to mistake the strength of their feeling for the strength of their argument. The heated mind resents the chill touch and relentless scrutiny of logic.
~ William Ewart Gladstone, in The Might Of Right. From The Writings Of William Ewart Gladstone (1880).

No man ever became great or good except through many and great mistakes.
~ William Ewart Gladstone

A column about errors will contain errors.
~ Bill Gold

Don't be afraid to make a mistake, your readers might like it.
~ William Randolph Hearst

The annals of scientific discovery are full of errors that opened new worlds. ... If a man can keep alert and imaginative, an error is a possibility, a chance at something new; to him, wandering and wondering are part of the same process, and he is most mistaken, most in error, whenever he quits exploring.
~ William Least Heat-Moon, Blue Highways: A Journey into America (1982).

Sailormen 'ave their faults, said the night watchman, frankly. I'm not denying of it. I used to 'ave myself when I was at sea.
~ William Wymark ("W.W.") Jacobs, from The Lady of the Barge, and Other Stories (1902). Bill's Paper Chase

Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf.
~ William James, An Address to the Philosophical Clubs of Yale and Brown Universities (published in the New World; June 1896). The Will to Believe

I have a theory that is the only original things we ever do are mistakes. The only thing that we can really attribute to ourselves that is purely original are our screw-ups.
~ Billy Joel, quoted in The Performing Songwriter (January/February 1996). Billy Joel: Scenes From A Musical Life

It's okay if you mess up. You should give yourself a break.
~ Billy Joel

You're not the only one who's made mistakes
But they're the only things that you can truly call your own.
~ Billy Joel, in Greatest Hits Volume I & II (1985 album). You're Only Human (Second Wind)

Life is simply time given to man to learn how to live. Mistakes are always part of learning. The real dignity of life consists in cultivating a fine attitude towards our own mistakes and those of others. It is the fine tolerance of a fine soul. Man becomes great, not through never making mistakes, but by profiting by those he does make; by being satisfied with a single rendition of a mistake not encoring it into a continuous performance; by getting from it the honey of new, regenerating inspiration with no irritating sting of morbid regret; by building better to-day because of his poor yesterday; and by rising with renewed strength, finer purpose and freshened courage every time he falls.
~ William George Jordan, The Power of Purpose (1910). III. Facing the Mistakes of Life

On adamant our wrongs we all engrave,
But write our benefits upon the wave.
~ William King, The Art of Love: In Imitation of Ovid de Arte Amandi (1709). Part VII.

That this book has its fault, no one can doubt,
Although the Author could not find them out.
The faults you find, good Reader, please to mend,
Your comments to the Author kindly send.
~ William Kitchiner, The Economy of the Eyes. Part II. Of Telescopes (1824).

What is wrong for an individual, is wrong for a nation.
~ William Ladd, An Essay on the Congress of Nations (1840).

Love is heaven revealed in the soul; it is light and truth -- it is infallible; it has no errors, for all errors are the want of love.
~ William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1728).

The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.
~ Bishop William Connor Magee, (1868).

I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one's own bat than by doing the right thing on somebody else's advice.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage (1915).

Sentimentality is only sentiment that rubs you up the wrong way.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, from A Writer's Notebook (1949).

The adventure was like a blunder that one had committed at a party so horrible that one felt nothing could be done to excuse it: the only remedy was to forget.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage (1915).

Deliver me from the man who never makes a mistake, and also from the man who makes the same mistake twice.
~ William James Mayo, M.D.

Management that is destructively critical when mistakes are made kills initiative. And it's essential that we have many people with initiative if we are to continue to grow.
~ William McKnight, McKnight Principles (1948).

To avoid situations in which you might make mistakes may be the biggest mistake of all.
~ Peter McWilliams, Life 101: Everything We Wished We Had Learned about Life in School--But Didn't (August 1994).

If there is an error of human judgment, I am the human.
~ William Mulholland (on the collapse of the St. Francis Dam), (12 March 1928).

Make as many mistakes as you can, then learn from them.
~ Bill Mullen

A very popular error -- having the courage of one's convictions; Rather, it is a matter of having the courage for an attack upon one's convictions.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man's?
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

One will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed to vanity, ordinary actions to habit, and mean actions to fear.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human (1878).

Which is it, is man one of God's blunders or is God one of man's?
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Something goes wrong, I yell at them -- "Fix it" -- whether it's their fault or not. You can only really yell at the players you trust.
~ Bill Parcells, in Eric Pooley True Blue: From Giants to Supermen (26 January 1987)

Those who cannot admit making stupid mistakes are destined to repeat them over and over.
~ Bill Purdin, Legend, Inc. (accessed May 2003). Quote Archives.

[W]hilst freedom from error is a consummation which every author desires, it is also one of which few can boast.
~ William Roberts, The Book-Hunter in London: Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting (1895). Preface

Life, like war, is a series of mistakes, and he is not the best Christian nor the best general who makes the fewest false steps. He is the best who wins the most splendid victories by the retrieval of mistakes. Forget mistakes; organize victory out of mistakes.
~ Frederick William (F.W.) Robertson

Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier 'n puttin' it back in.
~ Will Rogers

What's the matter with the world? There ain't nothing but one thing wrong with every one of us, and that's selfishness.
~ Will Rogers

Show me a person who never made a mistake and I will show you a person who never did anything.
~ William Rosenberg

Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected.
~ William L. Safire, The New York Times Magazine (13 January 2002). On Language

One of us is obviously mistaken.
~ William Saroyan, New York Mirror (10 June 1960).

Against my soul's pure truth why labour you
To make it wander in an unknown field?
Are you a god? would you create me new?
Transform me then, and to your power I'll yield.
~ William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors. Act III, scene ii

But in this kind to come, in braving arms,
Be his own carver and cut out his way,
To find out right with wrong, it may not be.
~ William Shakespeare, King Richard II. Act II, scene iii

By indirections find directions out.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act II, scene i

For never anything can be amiss,
When simpleness and duty tender it.
~ William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act V, scene i

He does me double wrong
That wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.
~ William Shakespeare, King Richard II. Act III, scene ii

I am that I am, and they that level
At my abuses reckon up their own.
~ William Shakespeare, Sonnet 121

Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
And loathsome canker lies in sweetest bud.
All men make faults.
~ William Shakespeare, Sonnet 35

They say best men are moulded out of faults,
And for the most, become much more the better
For being a little bad.
~ William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure. Act V, scene i

Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.
~ William Shakespeare, Macbeth. Act III, scene ii

Thus to persist
In doing wrong extenuates not wrong,
But makes it much more heavy.
~ William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida. Act II, scene ii

What! must I hold a candle to my shames?
~ William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice. Act II, scene vi

What! Wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice?
~ William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice. Act IV, scene i

If you live wrong you can't die right.
~ William A. "Billy" Sunday, from The Real Billy Sunday: The Life and Work of Rev. William Ashley Sunday, D.D., The Baseball Evangelist (1914). XV: Some of Sunday's Sayings

If a man has committed wrong in life, I don't know any moralist more anxious to point his errors out to the world than his own relations.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero (1848). Chapter XIX

A second-class effort is a first-class mistake.
~ William Arthur Ward

[No] tempting form of Error is without some latent charm derived from Truth.
~ William Whewell, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy in England (1852). Lecture VII

It is bad engineering to assume that a thing is perfected.
~ Willis R. Whitney, (1935)

An accidential error is one which may be committed by anyone at any time; a systemic error is caused by the conceptual scheme the researchers bring to bear upon the problem.
~ William Foote Whyte, ASR Presidential Address, published in the American Sociological Review, Vol. 47, No. 1 (February 1982). Social Inventions for Solving Human Problems

All in the dark we grope along,
And if we go amiss
We learn at least which path is wrong,
And there is gain in this.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from Custer and Other Poems (1896). Life

[To err is human, to forgive is divine] ... but this does not make it desirable to make as many errors as possible.
~ Roger Williams

The mistake you make is in trying to figure it out.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams (regarding the play Camino Real)

Then Old Age and Experience, hand in hand,
Lead him to death, and make him understand,
After a search so painful and so long,
That all his life he has been in the wrong.
~ John Wilmot, 2nd Earl Of Rochester, A Satire Against Mankind (1675).

No plan can prevent a stupid person from doing the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time -- but a good plan should keep a concentration from forming.
~ Charles E. Wilson

Of course I'm crazy, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong. I'm mad but not ill.
~ Robert Anton Wilson