Tao Te Ching
Mistakes
In most societies—built on strong beliefs in an independent, separate self—mistakes are viewed as a diminishment, flaws in a grand, arrogant, and highly deceptive egocentric image. And when mistakes are made, every effort devolves into trying to spin, hide, or deny. Creativity becomes imprisoned in tiny cells of "politically correct," the status quo, and mistaken safety.
However, as every scientist soon discovers and every wise philosopher instinctively knows, without multiple mistakes, little progress develops. Almost all real learning arises from trial and error. Without the "errors," we find few conclusions. Only by using the bravery to try something new and the honest awareness to see clearly the consequences can authentic insight evolve. Without at least semi-egoless perception, creativity remains shackled in a straight jacket of a soul-selling need for approval that leads to putting what society values and admires over our authentic realizations and creative action.
Smart people learn from their mistakes. Smarter people learn from other people's mistakes. The smartest learn from smart people's mistakes. The smartest people are wise because they have learned from the most mistakes, their own and others.
Quotes (88)
“The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life.”
“Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes.”
“Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated.”
“Pay attention to your enemies, for they are the first to discover your mistakes.”
“Learn from the mistakes of others…you can’t live long enough to make them all yourselves.”
“Take risks: if you win, you will be happy; if you lose, you will be wise.”
“This is our big mistake: to think we look forward to death. Most of death is already gone. Whatever time has passed is owned by death.”
“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.”
“Study people as deeply as you study books and you won't make painful mistakes about character. (chapter 157)”
“Do not make much ado about nothing… Troublesome things should not be taken too seriously… It is preposterous to take to heart what should be thrown over your shoulders.”
“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.”
“A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over.”
“Use unfortunate events to polish oneself, to find increase within reduction, to change a faulty beginning into a blameless end.”
“You confess your follies, indeed; but still you hug and cherish them; and no reformation can be hoped where there is no repentance.”
“He who thinks and thinks for himself, will always have a claim to thanks… If it is right, it will serve as a guide to direct; if wrong, as a beacon to warn.”
“Oh would some Power the gift give us, to see ourselves as others see us. It would save us from many mistakes and foolish thoughts.”
“That the world has no ethical significance but only a physical one is the greatest and most pernicious of errors, the fundamental error, the intrinsically perverse view... and despite all the religions which all assert the opposite, this fundamental error never quite dies out but raises its head again and again”
“Do not be embarrassed by your mistakes. Nothing can teach us better than our understanding of them. This is one of the best ways of self-education.”
“One of the mistakes most often committed—and which are the sources of the greatest practical errors in human affairs—is that of supposing that the same name always stands for the same aggregation of ideas.”
“Attack and defense, want and war, victory and defeat, lordship and thraldom, all sealed with the seal of blood: this from henceforth is the History of Man.”
“the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder why we are so fond of it”
“you must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame; how could you rise anew if you have not first become ashes?”
“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work… Mistakes are the portals of discovery.”
“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.”
“Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more.”
“I never made a mistake in my life; at least, never one that I couldn't explain away afterwards.”
“We really only know what is new, what suddenly, by a change in tone, strikes us with a new sensation, what habit has not yet supplanted by its pale facsimiles.”
“The delightful mirage that love projects entices men into 'mistakes' like marrying their cook or their best friend's mistress. These often become the only poetic act they accomplish in their entire lives.”
“It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”
“A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.”
“Difficulty, however, has always been life's stimulant, awakening and goading all our impulses, both good and bad, in order to make us overleap the obstacle which has suddenly risen before us.”
“A stumbling block to the pessimist is a stepping-stone to the optimist.”
“Forget mistakes. Forget failure. Forget everything except what you're going to do now and do it.”
“If people did not sometimes do silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done.”
“Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.”
“On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.”
“Sometimes it is more important to discover what one cannot do, than what one can do.”
“Humans beings always do the most intelligent thing… after they’ve tried every stupid alternative and none of them have worked.”
“This is what most religions overlook in their yearning after perfection—the fact that absolute perfection would be mere stagnation, ultimate spiritual death. Therefore, the ideal of the perfect saint would result in an inhuman abomination, a robot, an insensible, cold, petrified, closed, and in every sense finished individual.”
“If I could live again my life, in the next I’ll try to make more mistakes...I’ll have more real problems – and less imaginary ones,”
“People make mistakes in life through believing too much, but they have a damned dull time if they believe too little.”
“Make your mistakes, take your chances, look silly, but keep on going. Don't freeze up.”
“Our aim as scientists is objective truth; more truth, more interesting truth, more intelligible truth. We cannot reasonably aim at certainty. Once we realize that human knowledge is fallible, we realize also that we can never be completely certain that we have not made a mistake.”
“Even in wrong practice, when you realize it and continue, there is right practice.”
“Buddha is always helping you. But usually we refuse Buddha’s offer. For instance,sometimes you ask for something special. This means that you are refusing to accept the treasures you already have.”
“It is quite gratifying to feel guilty if you haven’t done anything wrong: how noble! Whereas it is rather hard and certainly depressing to admit guilt and to repent.”
“The capacity to blunder slightly is the real marvel of DNA. Without this special attribute, we would still be anaerobic bacteria and there would be no music.”
“Mistakes are at the very base of human thought feeding the structure like root nodules. If we were not provided with the knack of being wrong, we could never get anything useful done.”
“the biggest error in the world is thinking we ever know what another person is truly like. Even if you've lived with somebody for 30 years, you don't know what they're like.”
“There is nothing better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve the next time.”
“Every American wants MORE MORE of the world… But the mistake made in America is persons accumulate more more dead matter… at the expense of what really counts… You own twice as much rug if you're twice as aware of the rug.”
“One thing about pioneers that you don’t hear mentioned is that they are invariably, by their nature, mess-makers.”
“Smart people learn from their mistakes. Smarter people learn from other people’s mistakes. The smartest people learn from smart people’s mistakes. And the smartest people are the smartest people because they have learned from the most mistakes.”
“And even though it all went wrong, I’ll stand before the Lord of Song, with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah”
“Forgiving implies that you were wrong, but that now it's okay. Instead, the mistakes or the neuroses become adornments... each mistake, each unskillful action, becomes another brick in your wall, which you can build higher and higher.”
“The fastest way to become successful is to make lots of mistakes.”
“Your big mistake is to assume your brain generates a bubble of consciousness you call 'Me.'... The truth is that you're not your own private 'I.' You are to consciousness what the flame of a match is to the Milky Way.Your brain only taps into consciousness. You aren't a broadcaster. You're a transceiver.”
“mistakes are not something to be feared... When our leaders reveal their gaps in knowledge and missteps, not only are we more willing to help, but we too are more willing to share when we make mistakes [before] they become too big to contain.”
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