Ruth Westheimer Quotes

Learn to say 'I don't know.' If used when appropriate, it will be often.

You don't have to have all the answers all the time. But the best thing to know is what you don't know.

Learn to say, “I don’t know.”

Can I say something? Um, I'm the type of person that if you ask me a question and I don't know the answer, I'm gonna tell you that I don't know. But I bet you what, I know how to find the answer and I will find the answer.

All you've got to do is own up to your ignorance honestly, and you'll find people who are eager to fill your head with information.

I actually don't think that I'm that much smarter than anybody else. It's just that I frequently just seem to know what to do, and I think that's wisdom.

And I like asking questions, to keep learning; people with big egos might not want to look unsure.

America is big enough to admit when it's wrong and confident enough to learn from its mistakes.

You've got to be who you are. You've got to be honest with people. If your views change on something, you've got to be willing to express it.

The only players I hurt with my words are the ones who have an inflated opinion of their ability. I can't worry about that.

The directors you trust the most are the ones, when you ask them a question, they've got the guts to say, 'I don't know.'

I think you have to be yourself, and you have to be real and you have to admit what you don't know, and talk about what you do know, and talk about what you don't know as long as you say you don't know it.

I make my mistakes in public.

It's near impossible to always be right when you're innovating. It's easy to get emotionally invested in it, but you need to monitor its impact like a hawk and react if you don't like what you see. And if/when you pull it back, you want to do that communication with transparency and humility.

Some are very hostile if mistakes are pointed out. I'm not. If I make a mistake, I make a mistake.

Well I think that you have to be open and honest in order to learn from your mistakes and be able to correct them in the future to understand what would happen to take things off course. And if we don't address these issues openly and honestly then we don't learn.

The only things worth learning are the things you learn after you know it all.

I wouldn't presume to know something, but I have lots to learn and that's what I attempt to do through my work.

I'm always open for people saying I'm wrong because most of the time I am.

One who is shy will never gain knowledge, nor one who is proud.

Mostly, I think of myself as having great common sense. I've always been proud of that. Was I a terrific student? Absolutely not. But put me in a roomful of people, and I don't think I'm ever going to embarrass myself.

It comes with experience and learning and knowing the game. It's not necessarily about sticking your chest out and saying, 'I'm tough.'

I think, as an outsider, you are ready to deal with whatever comes your way.

It's not a weakness to admit that you're wrong.

I don't have any problem with people correcting me and telling me how I can be better.