We all make decisions every day. But let’s be honest—sometimes, we mess up. Mistakes in decision-making are a part of our life. It can be frustrating. It also teach us important lessons. This collection of 65 quotes explores the wisdom and insights that come from making wrong decisions. Whether you’re looking for motivation or a fresh perspective, these quotes will remind you that it’s okay. What matters is how you move forward.
Quotes on Mistake in Decision Making
Here are quotes about mistakes, reminding us that errors can be powerful lessons on the road to growth and success:
“There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.”
Buddha
“Anytime there is a struggle between doing what is actually right and doing what seems right, then your ego is interfering with your decision.”
Darren L. Johnson (Author)
“We’ve all heard that we have to learn from our mistakes, but I think it’s more important to learn from successes. If you learn only from your mistakes, you are inclined to learn only errors.”
Norman Vincent Peale (American Author)
“Your best teacher is your last mistake.”
Ralph Nader
“The two worst strategic mistakes to make are acting prematurely and letting an opportunity slip; to avoid this, the warrior treats each situation as if it were unique and never resorts to formulae, recipes or other people’s opinions.”
Paulo Coelho (Novelist)
“It’s so much easier to suggest solutions when you don’t know too much about the problem.”
Malcolm S. Forbes (Past Publisher of Forbes Magazine)
“Failures of perspective in decision-making can be due to aspects of the social utility paradox, but more often result from simple mistakes caused by inadequate thought.”
Herman Kahn (Futurist)
“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.”
Oscar Wilde (Playwright and Poet)
“To make no mistakes is not in the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes the wise and good learn wisdom for the future.”
Plutarch (Greek Biographer and Essayist)
“Each indecision brings its own delays and days are lost lamenting over lost days…what you can do or think you can do, begin it. For boldness has magic, power, and genius in it.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Author)
“An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field. ”
Niels Bohr (Danish Physicist)
“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
Albert Einstein (Physicist)
“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal.”
Henry Ford (Industrialist)
“Many people seem to think that success in one area can compensate for failure in other areas. But can it really? True effectiveness requires balance.”
Stephen Covey (American Author)
“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 (American Author)
“More men fail through lack of purpose than lack of talent.”
Billy Sunday (American Baseball Athlete and Evangelist)
“Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement.”
Henry Ford (Industrialist)
“Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes but they never quit.”
Conrad Hilton (Hotel Executive)
“It is no sin to attempt and fail. The only sin is to not make the attempt.”
Suellen Fried (Author and Speaker)
“Making a wrong decision is understandable. Refusing to search continually for learning is not.”
Phillip B. Crosby (Businessman and Author)
“He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.”
Albert Einstein
“Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out.”
Benjamin Franklin (Author and Scientist)
“Any fact not facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure.”
Norman Vincent Peale (American Author)
“He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes. He who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.
Chinese proverb
“You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down.”
Mary Pickford (Actress)
“I’ve learned that mistakes can often be as good a teacher as success. ”
Jack F. Welch (Industrialist)
“Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth, and if a man does not know what a thing is, it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not.”
Carl G. Jung (Psychiatrist)
“Success is 99% failure.”
Soichiro Honda (Industrialist)
“The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way. ”
Dale Carnegie (Writer)
“Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.”
George Bernard Shaw (Irish Playwright)
“The way to accelerate your success is to double your failure rate.”
Tom Watson, Sr. (American Inventor)
“Mistakes can be corrected by those who pay attention to facts but dogmatism will not be corrected by those who are wedded to a vision.”
Thomas Sowell (Author)
“Determination and perseverance move the world; thinking that others will do it for you is a sure way to fail.”
Marva Collins (American Educator)
“Some people, however long their experience or strong their intellect, are temperamentally incapable of reaching firm decisions.”
James Callaghan (Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom)
“A series of failures may culminate in the best possible result.”
Gisela Richter (Archaeologist)
“Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure.”
Norman Vincent Peale (Author)
“Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.”
Bruce Lee (Martial Artist)
“Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero (Roman Philosopher)
“The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail.”
Napoleon Hill (Author)
“Mistakes are painful when they happen, but years later a collection of mistakes is what is called experience. ”
Denis Waitley (Author)
“Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.”
Henry Ford
“Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from. ”
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (Psychiatrist and Author)
“The herd instinct among forecasters makes sheep look like independent thinkers.”
Edgar R. Fiedler (American Economist)
“We learn from failure, not from success!”
Bram Stoker
“If we don’t see a failure as a challenge to modify our approach, but rather as a problem with ourselves, as a personality defect, we will immediately feel overwhelmed.”
Anthony Robbins (Writer and Speaker)
“A ‘no’ uttered from the deepest conviction is better and greater that a ‘yes’ merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.”
Mahatma Gandhi
“Mistakes are proof that you are trying.”
Unknown
“Some people are making such thorough preparation for rainy days that they aren’t enjoying today’s sunshine.”
William Feather (Author and Publisher)
“Mistakes are the portals of discovery.”
James Joyce
“One worthwhile task carried to a successful conclusion is worth half-a-hundred half-finished tasks.”
Malcolm S. Forbes (Former Publisher of Forbes Magazine)
“Indecision and delays are the parents of failure.”
George Canning (British Statesman and Politician)
“Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement.”
Henry Ford
“I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”
Bill Cosby (Actor and Author)
“To think too long about doing a thing often becomes its undoing.”
Eva Young
“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.”
Henry Ford
“What we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down.”
Mary Pickford
“The E Myth. Most entrepreneurs are merely technicians with an entrepreneurial seizure. Most entrepreneurs fail because you are working IN your business rather than ON your business. ”
Michael E. Gerber (American Author)
“Never bring the problem solving stage into the decision making stage. Otherwise, you surrender yourself to the problem rather than the solution.”
Robert H. Schuller (Author)
“Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”
J.K. Rowling
“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything worthwhile.”
Unknown
“If you have made mistakes, there is always another chance for you. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down. ”
Mary Pickford (Actress)
“Mistakes have the power to turn you into something better than you were before.”
Unknown
“A mistake should be your teacher, not your attacker. A mistake is a lesson, not a loss.”
Unknown
“I have made decisions that turned out to be wrong, and went back and did it another way, and still took less time than many who procrastinated over the original decision. Your brain is capable of handling 140, 000 million bits of information in one second, and if you take hours or days or weeks to reach a vital decision, you are short-circuiting your most valuable property.”
Jerry Gillies (Author)
Final Words
Mistakes in decision-making can be tough, but it is a natural part of life. It teach us lessons and help us to grow. The quotes in this post remind us that it’s okay to make wrong decisions as long as we learn from them. So, never mind. Every mistake is a step toward becoming better and stronger.
