Past Errors Quotes

The study of the errors into which great minds have fallen in the pursuit of truth can never be uninstructive. . . No man is so wise but that he may learn some wisdom from his past errors, either of thought or action, and no society has made such advances as to be capable of no improvement from the retrospect of its past folly and credulity.

There's a lot we should be able to learn from history. And yet history proves that we never do. In fact, the main lesson of history is that we never learn the lessons of history. This makes us look so stupid that few people care to read it. They'd rather not be reminded. Any good history book is mainly just a long list of mistakes, complete with names and dates. It's very embarrassing.

We ought not to look back, unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dear bought experience.

He was what I often think is a dangerous thing for a statesman to be - a student of history; and like most of those who study history, he learned from the mistakes of the past how to make new ones.

All of us benefit from remembering our past. A people which remembers does not repeat past errors; instead, it looks with confidence to the challenges of the present and the future.

You try to avoid the mistakes you made in the past.

If generations past could get things so badly wrong, then we are forever vulnerable as well.

The State machine breaks often down in consequence of mistakes made forty and fifty years ago …

So foolish is the heart of man that he ever puts his hope in the future, learning nothing from his past errors and fancying that tomorrow must be better than today.

You can spend the entire second half of your life recovering from the mistakes of the first half.

Learning preserves the errors of the past as well as its wisdom.

To mourn a mischief that is past and gone Is the next way to draw new mischief on.

So foolish is the heart of man that he ever puts his hope in the future, learning nothing from his past errors and fancying that tomorrow must be better than today.

By far the hardest decision I've had to manage [was about my health]. Because I had 51 years of doing it wrong.

it’s only by studying the mistakes of the past,” Lucien said mildly, “that we can even have a future

Okay I've been stupid in the past. Not consistently stupid, but occasionally stupid. And I've made mistakes. You bet, I've made mistakes.

Sometimes I wish we could rub out all of our mistakes and start fresh, from the beginning,' I said. 'And sometimes I think there isn't anything to us but our mistakes.

And I think the only way you're going to improve US foreign policy and set a sound course for the future is if you're willing to look back at what went wrong before.

Only when we ensure that the mistakes of our past are not the vision for our future, will we truly have achieved justice.

The study of history empowers nations and individuals with an ability to avoid errors of the past and lay foundations for victories in the future.

Some of the best lessons we ever learn we learn from our mistakes and failures. — The error of the past is the wisdom and success of the future.

I have done a lot of stupid things in my life.

We didn't make the mistakes that many other cities did.

I've made my share of mistakes, but had the good fortune to have them not be so public.

Joining Yes was one of those stupid things that you do sometimes. It was one of the two or three times in my life that I've done something that I knew was wrong.