Tim Harford Quotes

If a man didn't make mistakes he'd own the world in a month.But if he didn't profit by his mistakes he wouldn't own a blessed thing.

To a certain extent, I enjoy failure. It's part of the game. There's always room to grow; there's room to improve.

Perhaps the most important thing I could say is to never be thrown by failure and mistakes. Each and everything that happens, even if it was not what you hoped would happen, is a valuable, life-learning tool. And you will only achieve success if you know how to learn from your failures and mistakes. It’s vital.

Always make new mistakes.

Mistakes come from doing, but so does success.

If you are not successful, that means you're not making enough mistakes.

I didn't like the idea of being foolish, but I learned pretty soon that it was essential to fail and be foolish.

Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to the error that counts.

Take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly, and try another. But by all means, try something.

There is a huge difference between failing and failure. Failing is trying something that you learn doesn't work. Failure is throwing in the towel and giving up. True success comes from failing repeatedly and as quickly as possible, before your cash or your willpower runs out.

If you fail doing one thing, then learn the lesson and move on and find something else.

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.

The wise are not wise because they make no mistakes. They are wise because they correct their mistakes as soon as they recognize them.

Be fearless and don't be afraid of failure. There is no better way to learn than through trial-and-error.

99 percent of success is built on failure.

If we screw it up, start over. Try something else.

Every failure is a step to success. Every detection of what is false directs us towards what is true: every trial exhausts some tempting form of error. Not only so; but scarcely any attempt is entirely a failure; scarcely any theory, the result of steady thought, is altogether false; no tempting form of Error is without some latent charm derived from Truth.

Accepting trial and error means accepting error. It means taking problems in our stride when a decision doesn't work out, whether through luck or misjudgment. And that is not something human brains seem to be able to do without a struggle.

People learn from failure or from lack of success.

Recognize that there will be failures, and acknowledge that there will be obstacles. But you will learn from your mistakes and the mistakes of others, for there is very little learning in success.

How many people are completely successful in every department of life? Not one. The most successful people are the ones who learn from their mistakes and turn their failures into opportunities.

Fail early, fail often, but always fail forward.

Constant effort and frequent mistakes are the stepping stones to genius.

To some people, I am kind of a Merlin who takes lots of crazy chances, but rarely makes mistakes. I've made some bad ones, but fortunately, the successes have come along fast enough to cover up the mistakes. When you go to bat as many times as I do, and continually improve upon your mistakes, you're bound to get a good average.

You’re not going to be a 1.000 hitter all the time. You’re going to be more wrong than right. You just have to correct your errors as quickly, as economically, as possible.