Learning From Failure: Inspiring Mistake Quotes To Keep Going

As the New year rolls on we are often taking stock of the past year or planning our new year’s major move. Mistakes quotes can help us take inspiration and soldier on towards reaching our goals.

Making mistakes is inevitable and we often make mistakes at some point in our lives and we grow by learning from them. Very often mistakes and setbacks have ways of dampening our motivation to be better individuals.

We should rather see mistakes as an opportunity to learn from them and remain motivated towards achieving our goals. To help you get out of the doldrums we have created this list of 120 mistake quotes about mistakes that can help you get out of a rut and move towards a better version of yourself.

Why You Should Read Mistake Quotes

Making mistakes is actually part of being human, everyone makes mistakes and for you to move forward is to understand that mistakes are an important part of your learning process.

Mistake quotes help you understand that mistakes are quite common and give you insights on how you can deal with them to succeed in your endeavors. Below are some mistake quotes that can help you to accept, learn and move on from past mistakes.

 

• Perspective: They offer a broader view of how mistakes are just stepping stones to success, reminding you that everyone encounters setbacks.
• Comfort: Mistake quotes reassure you that you’re not alone. Everyone, from famous figures to everyday people, makes errors.
• Growth: These quotes emphasize that mistakes are opportunities for learning and personal development, encouraging a growth mindset.
• Resilience: They inspire resilience, motivating you to bounce back from setbacks and face challenges head-on.
• Guidance: Mistake quotes can act as guides, offering wisdom on how to approach and rectify past errors.

 

Top Mistake Quotes that Will Inspire You

One great thing about mistake quotes is that they can help inspire you to get back on the saddle and not give up. Below are some mistake quotes that will help inspire you:

1. Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet? – L.M. Montgomery 

2. If people refuse to look at you in a new light and they can only see you for what you were, only see you for the mistakes you’ve made, if they don’t realize that you are not your mistakes, then they have to go. – Steve Maraboli

3. I never made a mistake in my life. I thought I did once, but I was wrong.– Charles M. Schulz

4. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone deserves a second chance. – Eleanor Roosevelt 

5. Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life. – Sophia Loren

6. Be tenacious. The world will change, things will go wrong. Life is messy. – Ann Sherry

7. The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.- Henry Ford

8. A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them. – John C. Maxwell

9. You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space. – Johnny Cash

10. Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes. – John Dewey

11. All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them. –Walt Disney

12. Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. –Winston Churchill

13. Whenever you see a successful person you only see the public glories, never the private sacrifices to reach them. –Vaibhav Shah

14. A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him. –David Brinkley

15. You cannot force ideas. Successful ideas are the result of slow growth. Ideas do not reach perfection in a day, no matter how much study is put upon them.-Alexander Graham Bell

Funny Mistake Quotes

Finding humor in our mishaps can also help us learn from them. Here are some funny mistake quotes.

16. Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes. – Oscar Wilde

17. The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything. – Theodore Roosevelt

18. It ain’t as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning. – Colin Powell

19. The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success. – Bruce Feirstein

20. You can’t really be strong until you can see a funny side to things. – Ken Kesey

21. The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty-stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man. – George Bernard Shaw

22. Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.-Bill Gates

23. To some people, I am a kind of Merlin who takes lots of crazy chances, but rarely makes mistakes.-Walt Disney

24. I make plenty of mistakes and I’ll make plenty more mistakes, too. That’s part of the game. You’ve just got to make sure that the right things overcome the wrong ones. – Warren Buffet

25. The fool who persists in his folly will become wise. -William Blake

26. Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.– Eleanor Roosevelt

27. About mistakes it’s funny. You got to make your own; and not only that, if you try to keep people from making theirs they get mad. – Edna Ferber

28. We made too many wrong mistakes. – Yogi Berra

29. When a doctor makes a mistake, it’s best to bury the subject.– Woody Allen

30. To make a mistake is human, but to blame it on someone else, that’s even more human. – Anonymous

31. I never made a mistake in my life. I thought I did once, but I was wrong. – Charles M. Schulz

32. You never run out of things that can go wrong. – Edward A. Murphy

Admitting Mistakes Quotes

Mistakes happen and admitting your mistakes is an important part of your personal development as well as encourage learning. Below are some motivational quotes for small business owners.

33. Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations. -Steve Jobs

34. Pick a side and be bold. And if you’re wrong, admit it.– Jeff Goins

35. If you make a mistake, be big enough to admit to the mistake. People will think much better if you make an admission after a mistake.- Keith Boyer; Matt Rile

36. Mistakes are always forgivable if one has the courage to admit them.– Bruce Lee

37. It takes guts and humility to admit mistakes. Admitting we’re wrong is courage, not weakness.– Roy T. Bennett

38. Nothing is more intolerable than to have admit to yourself your own errors. -Ludwig van Beethoven

39. No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong. – François de La Rochefoucauld

Owning Up to Your Mistakes Quotes

Business ventures can be full of missteps, mishaps and mistakes. No matter how savvy you are in business, you are bound to run into problems at some point. The key to your success is to quickly identify your mistakes, learn from them and prevent the same mistake from happening again, below are some inspirational quotes about small business mistakes.

40. We all make them, the difference is what we do after we make the mistake, how we see the mistake – a learning experience or a failure. – Catherine Pulsifer

41. 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. – Steve Jobs

42. If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them. – Bill Gates

43. Honesty is the fastest way to prevent a mistake from turning into a failure. – James Altucher

44. Recognise your own shortcomings and be prepared to learn quickly, including from your mistakes. If you don’t jump into the deep end at some point, you will never learn to swim. – George Ilian

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

46. Don’t confuse poor decision-making with destiny. Own your mistakes. It’s ok; we all make them. Learn from them so they can empower you! – Steve Maraboli

47. A man must learn from his own mistakes, to be what he wishes to be. – Lailah Gifty Akita

48. You should become a connoisseur of your own mistakes, turning them over in your mind as if they were works of art, which in a way they are. -Daniel Dennett

49. Mistakes and failures are precisely your means of education. They tell you about your own inadequacies. -Robert Greene

50. Refusing to own your mistakes doesn’t make you seem more competent; it reveals cowardice, callousness, and untrustworthiness. – Ben Carpenter

Making Mistakes Quotes

51. One who makes no mistakes makes nothing. – Giacomo Casanova

52. Better make mistakes than faking perfections. – Paulo Coelho

53. Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time. – George Bernard Shaw

54. If you want to grow, you need to get over any fear you have of making mistakes. – John C. Maxwell

55. The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake. – Meister Eckhart

56. Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again. – Richard Branson

57. Your best teacher is your last mistake. – Ralph Nader

Repeated Mistakes Quotes

58.Learning from the past helps to ensure that mistakes are not repeated.  – Monica Johnson

59. Learning from mistakes and constantly improving products is a key in all successful companies. – Bill Gates

60. If you want to grow, you need to get over any fear you may have of making mistakes. – John C. Maxwell.

61. You make mistakes. You try to learn from them, and when you don’t, it hurts even more. – Aretha Franklin.

62. So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because that’s where you will find success. On the far side of failure. – Thomas J. Watson.

63. The only man who makes no mistakes is the man who never does anything. Do not be afraid to make mistakes providing you do not make the same one twice. – Theodore Roosevelt

64. Honesty and maturity are two key factors that separate those people who can successfully change their lives and those who are destined to continually repeat the same mistakes over and over again. – Sarah Devnil.

65. When you make a mistake, there are only three things you should ever do about it: admit it, learn from it, and don’t repeat it. – Paul Bear Bryant

Understanding Your Mistakes Quotes

66. Experience is the name we give to our mistakes. – Oscar Wilde

67. Embrace a mistake and learn from it; don’t regret them. – Richard Branson

68. One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is that we lie to ourselves. We don’t step back and look at ourselves like a competitor would. – Mark Cuban

69. The proactive approach to a mistake is to acknowledge it instantly, correct and learn from it. – Stephen Covey

70. Most people tend to move on from their mistakes without looking back, but this just deprives them the opportunity to carry out the crucial exercise of understanding what went wrong. – Rupert Johnson

Learning from Mistakes Quotes

71. Mistakes are painful when they happen, but years later, a collection of mistakes is what is called experience. – Denis Waitley

72. Take chances, make mistakes. That’s how you grow. – Mary Tyler Moore

73. I’ve learned that mistakes can often be as good a teacher as success. – Jack Welch

74. A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. – George Bernard Shaw

75. An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field. – Niels Bohr

76. If things aren’t breaking, then you’re not moving fast enough. People learn by making mistakes. – Mark Zuckerberg

77. Every leader makes mistakes, every leader stumbles and falls. The question with a senior-level leader is, does she learn from her mistakes, regroup, and then get going again with renewed speed, conviction and confidence? – Jack Welch

78. Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength. – Arnold Schwarzenegger

79. There is always tension between the possibilities we aspire to and our wounded memories and past mistakes. – Mohnish Pabrai

80. The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way. – Dale Carnegie

81. Some of the fondest memories in sports were a result of failure, injuries, setbacks, and mistakes. I learned far more about myself and gained more character in those difficult times than I ever did when success came early. – Peter Vidmar.

82. great People are created by great mistakes that are learned from, not from great successes that are gloated upon. -Elmer Clark.

83. If you mess up and learn nothing, it’s a mistake. If you mess up and learn something, it’s an experience. – Mark McFadden.

84. Aim for success, not perfection. never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose your ability to learn new things and move forward in life. – Dr. David M. Birns.

85. Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks, learns just as much from his failures as he does from his success. – John Dewey

86. there are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure. – Colin Powell.

Mistake Quotes that will Inspire you to Make Good Decisions

87. No man ever became great without many and great mistakes. – William E. Gladstone

88. Success seems to be connected with action. Successful men keep moving; they make mistakes, but they do not quit. – Conrad Hilton

89. You must learn from your past mistakes, but not lean on your past successes. – Denis Waitley

90. Failure is good. It is fertilizer. Everything I have learned about coaching, I have learned from making mistakes. – Rick Pitino.

91. The greatest mistake you can make in your life is to be continually fearing that you will make one. – Elbert Hubbard

92. A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery. – James Joyce

93. The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one – Elbert Hubbard

94.No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn’t trying. – Tony Robbins

95. One of the huge mistakes people make is that they try to force an interest on themselves. You don’t choose your passions; your passions choose you. – Jeff Bezos

96. It’s a mistake not to give people a chance to learn to depend on themselves while they are young. – Walt Disney

97. I am by nature a perfectionist, and I seem to have trouble allowing anything to go through in a half-perfect condition. So if I made any mistake it was in working too hard and in doing too much of it with my own hands. – Howard Hughes

98. You can make a lot of mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you’re too inefficient. – Sam Walton

99. Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement. – Henry Ford

How do You Accept Mistakes Quotes

To learn from a mistake, it’s essential to first acknowledge it and forgive yourself. The important thing is to remain hopeful and keep striving towards your dreams. Below are some perseverance quotes for business.

100. We think mistakenly, that success is the result of the amount of the time we put in at work, instead of the quality of the time we put in. – Arianna Huffington

101. Learning by making mistakes and not duplicating them is what life is about. – Lindsay Fox

102. Admitting to a mistake means refusing to use other people as scape-goats to avoid responsibility but rather courageously owning up to every single one of them. – T. Whitmore

103. If you feel that you have made a mistake, you don’t try to undo the past or the present, but you just accept where you are and work from there. – Chögyam Trungpa

104. Life teaches us through errors. When we accept the lesson from our mistake with humility and gratitude, we grow that much more.-  Haemin Sunim

105. We need to accept that we won’t always make the right decisions, that we’ll screw up royally sometimes–understanding that failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of success. – Arianna Huffington

106. I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying. – Michael Jordan

107. Every leader should have enough humility to accept, publicly, the responsibility for the mistakes of the subordinates he has himself selected and, likewise, to give them credit, publicly, for their triumphs. – Dwight D. Eisenhower

108. The Gift belongs to whoever chooses to accept it. It is enough to believe and not to be afraid to make a few mistakes. – Paulo Coelho

109. A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them. – John C. Maxwell

110. Be honest, Look for areas where you can admit error and say so. Apologize for your mistakes. It will help disarm your opponents and reduce defensiveness. – Dale Carnegie

111. Life teaches us through errors. When we accept the lesson from our mistake with humility and gratitude, we grow that much more. – Haemin Sunim

112. The greatest mistake you can make is to believe that you have to do everything on your own power. Do not assume that asking for help or guidance is to admit defeat. In fact, it is just the opposite. To ask for help or to accept help to accomplish a goal is to also ingrain into your own spirit that you will help others over obstacles or hurdles as well. – Catherine Pulsifer

113. Failure is enriching. It’s also important to accept that you’ll make mistakes – it’s how you build your expertise. The trick is to learn a positive lesson from all of life’s negative moments. – Alain Ducasse

114. The earlier you admit to your mistakes, the more time you would have to learn and grow from them. – Edmond Mbiaka

115. Making mistakes isn’t enough to become great. You must also admit the mistake, and then learn how to turn that mistake into an advantage. – Robert Kiyosaki.

116. I think the most important thing to do is to be willing to listen, willing to care, and willing to admit mistakes and change your waysfor the better! – Jane Goodall

117. Humility leads to strength and not weakness. It is the highest form of self-respect to admit mistakes and to make amends for them. – John J. McCloy

118. Quitters have the good sense to admit their mistakes, cut their losses, and move on. – Evan Harris

119. It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure. – Bill Gates

120. It’s okay to make mistakes. Mistakes are our teachers – they help us to learn. – John Bradshaw

5 Ways You Could Use These Mistake Quotes for Business Success

Usage	Description
Motivation	1. Morning Meetings: Start off each day with a motivational quote during the morning team huddle to set the tone for the day.
	2. Office Decor: Place inspirational quotes on walls, desks, and other office areas to uplift and motivate employees throughout their workday.
Employees	3. Recognition: Share a relevant quote when recognizing an employee's accomplishments during monthly awards or performance reviews, highlighting their dedication and hard work.
	4. Training and Workshops: Introduce new concepts or skills during training sessions with related quotes. This can help underscore the message and make the training more memorable.
Sales	5. Marketing Materials: Use persuasive or relatable quotes in marketing materials, ads, or presentations to connect with potential clients and drive sales objectives.

What’s the saying about learning from mistakes?

Business is full of ups and downs, it is up to us how we deal with mistakes when they occur. We can accept them, take stock of them, and move forward into the future much wiser.

Why is learning from mistakes important?

To have a successful and agile business the key is to quickly identify your mistakes, learn from your mistakes, and prevent the same mistakes from happening again,. Through learning from mistakes you will be able to better understand your business’ dynamics. Don’t be afraid of failure instead, learn from them to pivot your business by tweaking your operations, trying out new ideas and strategize towards meeting the needs of your customers.

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This article, "Learning from Failure: Inspiring Mistake Quotes to Keep Going" was first published on Small Business Trends