Jonathan Swift Quotes

There are few people who are more often wrong than those who cannot suffer being wrong.

No men are oftener wrong than those that can least bear to be so.

Be very slow to believe that you are wiser than all others; it is a fatal but common error.

A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.

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

In all of history, we have found just one cure for error—a partial antidote against making and repeating grand, foolish mistakes, a remedy against self-deception. That antidote is criticism.

If people are looking for someone who has never changed their mind and is unwilling to admit they make mistakes, that's not me.

The wisest man is he who does not fancy that he is so at all.

The reality is that everybody makes mistakes. The issue isn't whether you will make them, it's what you will do about them. It's whether you will choose the path of humility and courage or the path of ego and pride.

We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones.

Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error.

Any fool can say he is wise but only someone wise can admit he is a fool.

I'm willing to admit that I may not always be right, but I am never wrong.

A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying... that he is wiser today than yesterday.

An intelligent person is never afraid or ashamed to find errors in his understanding of things.

I make mistakes like anybody else, I will make mistakes. And you have to reflect on it, and you have to listen to people. That is the key.

No one should be ashamed to admit they are wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that they are wiser today than they were yesterday.

The mistakes of the fool are known to the world, but not to himself. The mistakes of the wise man are known to himself, but not to the world.

Arrogance diminishes wisdom.

Few men in high places will admit a mistake.

It is not easy for me to accept criticism and reassess my way of doing things.

Yes, once—many, many years ago. I thought I had made a wrong decision. Of course, it turned out that I ha been right all along. But I was wrong to have thought I was wrong.

It is no weakness for the wisest man to learn when he is wrong.

I haven't been perfect.

I'm not going to sit here and say I know everything about everything. I definitely have work to do. The thing is, I'm willing to admit that.