Frank Herbert Quotes

Don't ever make the same mistake twice unless it pays.

Michael Marcus taught me one other thing that is absolutely critical: You have to be willing to make mistakes regularly; there is nothing wrong with it. Michael taught me about making your best judgment, being wrong, making your next best judgment, being wrong, making your third best judgment, and then doubling your money.

Making workable choices occurs in a crucible of informative mistakes. Thus Intelligence accepts fallibility. And when absolute (infallible) choices are not known, Intelligence takes chances with limited data in an arena where mistakes are not only possible but also necessary.

Be willing to make bold decisions and be willing to make glorious mistakes. Learn from your mistakes, but you've got to be willing to make them first.

Success tends to go not to the person who is error-free, because he also tends to be risk-averse. Rather it goes to the person who recognizes that life is pretty much a percentage business. It isn't making mistakes that's critical; it's correcting them and getting on with the principal task.

The difference between the amoeba and Einstein is that, although both make use of the method of trial and error elimination, the amoeba dislikes erring while Einstein is intrigued by it.

I'm not too worried about that. I am a big believer in modeling.

I've never been able to learn from other people's mistakes - I'm not that smart - so I usually learn by trial by fire.

Do not be afraid to make decisions, do not be afraid to make mistakes.

To the extent that you can find ways where you're making predictions, there's no substitute for testing yourself on real-world situations that you don't know the answer to in advance.

Concentrate and think upon the problem in mind until a satisfactory conclusion is reached, and then finally go ahead. If you have made a mistake, all right. Never find fault with a man because he has made a mistake. It is only a fool that makes the same mistake the second time.

The fellow who never makes a mistake takes his orders from one who does.

People who don't take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year.

A great many decisions just can’t be made with confidence because the data just doesn’t exist …. [however] just because we don’t have the information doesn’t mean that we can’t get it.

I don't consider myself supremely talented, but I really like to try things and sift through it and see what mess I made.

Failure is an amazing data point that tells you which direction not to go.

I'm a risk-taker because I don't have a lot of experience in putting up a business before - I didn't really learn about this in school - but I still choose to do it, especially since I'm now getting good advice from people around me.

Some mistakes will be made along the way. That's good. Because some decisions are being made along the way. We'll find the mistakes. We'll fix them.

You know, the mark of intelligence is realizing when you're making the same mistake over and over and over again, and not hitting your head in the wall five hundred times before you understand that it's not a clever thing to do.

No one's going to see my mistakes; I just need the safety of these mistakes to lead me to the right answers.

You know you're gonna have failures, there's no way to avoid it. Especially if you're an entrepreneur, if you're doing something new, of course there are gonna be mistakes. How can you not make mistakes? You don't know what you're going; it's unchartered territory.

Failure concentrates the mind wonderfully. If you don't make mistakes, you're not trying hard enough.

Most of what I learned as an entrepreneur was by trial and error.

When we cannot use the compass of mathematics or the torch of experience...it is certain we cannot take a single step forward.

To get anywhere, or even to live a long time, a man has to guess, and guess right, over and over again, without enough data for a logical answer.