Have you recently made a mistake? Well done, that means you’re human.
While none of us like failing, making mistakes, even costly ones, is simply part of life. If you want to progress and grow, errors cannot be avoided, only embraced.
There is always good to be found in a mistake, for everything we do wrong teaches us a vital lesson and helps us move closer to success. The problem with mistakes is that they can severely dent our confidence and leave us feeling like giving up completely.
We’ve all been there. The thought of experiencing failure again is enough to make us feel nauseous. Even so, at the end of your life, when you’re on your deathbed, it won’t be this mistake you’ll regret, but rather the fact that you didn’t bounce back and try again.
So take the time you need to wallow, whether it’s a day or even a week. But don’t let it turn into months or years. You can rebuild your confidence, tap into your resilience, and find motivation by reading words of wisdom like quotes. Here are the best mistake quotes and proverbs collected over the years that will help you learn from your wrongdoing and move on.
1. The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing. ― Henry Ford
2. There are no mistakes, no coincidence. All events are blessings given to us to learn from. ― Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
3. If I have gained anything over these months, it is the knowledge there is no starting over- only living with the mistakes you’ve made. ― Jodi Picoult
4. The greatest mistake a man can ever make is to be afraid of making one. ― Elbert Hubbard
5. Mistakes arm you with new knowledge that you can bring to the situation. ― Tom Meitner
6. Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes. ― Mahatma Gandhi
7. Learning to stand on your own feet comes by making right decisions and by overcoming mistakes. ― Robert Mitchell
8. All men make mistakes, but only wise men learn from their mistakes. ― Winston Churchill
9. 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, Anne of Avonlea
10. The ultimate measure of a person is not her mistakes or accomplishments, but what she does with them. ― Liza Wiemer
11. What good has impatience ever brought? It has only served as the mother of mistakes and the father of irritation. ― Steve Maraboli
12. I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best. ― Marilyn Monroe
13. Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet? ― L.M. Montgomery
14. You can make heaven out of hell, or hell out of heaven. The choice is yours. ― Shannon L. Alder
15. 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
16. I never made a mistake in my life; at least, never one that I couldn’t explain away afterwards. ― Rudyard Kipling
17. It’s okay to make mistakes. Mistakes are our teachers – they help us to learn. ― John Bradshaw
18. Show me a person who has never made a mistake and I’ll show you someone who has never achieved much. ― Joan Collins
19. Sometimes when you lose your way, you find YOURSELF. ― Mandy Hale
20. By failing, a lesson can be learned. One can learn to avoid the mistake that caused the failure. ― Glen Mizrahi
21. 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
22. Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it. ― Salvador Dali
23. There are no mistakes or failures, only lessons. ― Denis Waitley
24. Mistakes are always forgivable if one has the courage to admit them. ― Bruce Lee
25. Learn from your history, but don’t live in it. ― Steve Maraboli
26. You got one choice at the beginning but if you didn’t choose right, things got narrow real quick. ― Ron Rash
27. The moment we learn to forgive ourselves for mistakes and look forward is the moment when we will better manage our emotional state. ― Nicole Smith
28. I have learned from my mistakes, and I am sure I can repeat them exactly ― Peter Cook
29. It’s not a persons mistakes which define them – it’s the way they make amends. ― Freya North, Chances
30. One mistake does not have to rule a person’s entire life. ― Joyce Meyer
31. No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you’re still way ahead of everyone who isn’t trying. ― Tony Robbins
32. Do you ever make silly mistakes? It is one of my very few creative activities. ― Len Deighton
33. It is only those who do nothing who makes no mistake. ― Peter Kropotkin
34. Mistakes are a sign of trying, and it is always better to try and fail than to fail to try. ― Robert Washington
35. When the ax came into the forest the trees said the handle is one of us. ― Alice Walker
36. Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. ― Bill Gates
37. What a waste my life would be without all the beautiful mistakes I’ve made. ― Alice Bag
38. In the real world, the smartest people are people who make mistakes and learn. In school, the smartest people don’t make mistakes. ― Robert T. Kiyosaki
39. A life spent making mistakes is not only more honourable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. ― George Bernard Shaw
40. The longer you live, the more mistakes you make. And the more sorrows you carry. ― Nalini Singh
41. Mistakes are the portals of discovery. ― James Joyce
42. Mistakes can help us to fine tune our skills, learn better ways of doing things, and get our priorities straight. ― Angela Agranoff
43. Mistakes are the usual bridge between inexperience and wisdom. ― Phyllis Theroux
44. You make mistakes, mistakes don’t make you ― Maxwell Maltz
45. Every Mistake Teach Us a Lesson ― Ishfaq Ahmad
46. 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
47. There is no sense in punishing your future for the mistakes of your past. Forgive yourself, grow from it, and then let it go. ― Melanie Koulouris
48. Your capacity to learn from your mistakes and move on will be key to your ultimate success and achievement. Amy E. Dean
49. 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
50. So what if you make mistakes? That’s what it means to be human and that’s how you learn to become better. ― Amy Pendergrass
51. Forgive yourself for the mistakes you have made. Cindy Cashman
52. Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. ― Albert Einstein
53. 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
54. Every trail has its end, and every calamity brings its lesson! ― James Fenimore Cooper
55. Your mistakes only define the rest of your life if you let them. Don’t let them. ― Sabaa Tahir
56. Pick a side and be bold. And if you’re wrong, admit it. ― Jeff Goins
Every successful person has made mistakes in the past, and the reason they found success is because they didn’t let that error stop them. So stay focused on the end goal, and look for the lesson in this mistake. Then apply that lesson to do better. Yes, you may make another mistake, but if you survived this one, you would survive that one too!
Come back to these mistake quotes whenever your confidence is low or you lack motivation. Or better yet, read them every morning to start your day with a resilient, go-getter attitude; you’ve got this!
