Stupid Mistake Quotes & Sayings

The biggest mistake we can make is to think that we've figured the whole thing out. The people I know who are the greatest skeptics, who are least certain about how the world and the universe works, are also the most intelligent ... Absolute certainty is only for stupid people. It requires a certain intelligence for us to realize how little we actually know. — A.J. Kazinski

Life is funny like that, making us pay for the same stupid mistakes even after we've learned from them thoroughly. — R.K. Lilley

Make excellent mistakes.
Too many people spend their time avoiding mistakes. They're so concerned about being wrong, about messing up, that they never try anything
which means they never do anything. Their focus is avoiding failure. But that's actually a crummy way to achieve success. The most successful people spectacular mistakes
huge, honking screwups! why? They're trying to do something big, but each time they make a mistake, they get a little better and move a little closer to excellence.
Making mistakes seems risky. It is/ But it's more risky not to.
I'm not talking about random, stupid, thoughtless blunders, though. I'm talking about good mistakes.
Mistakes come from having high aspirations, from trying to do something nobody else has done. — Daniel H. Pink

People always make the mistake of calling an idea small or stupid because they don't understand how it's going to evolve. — Sam Altman

As an actor you're only supposed to be a lover. I am a romantic hero though I don't like that tag. With all the hardships, problems, illness, goodness, badness, awards and money ... an actor will always be a lover. And a lover makes mistakes. You'll be silly, nonsensical and stupid. — Shahrukh Khan

Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular, non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake. — Carlo M. Cipolla

And supposing the Coroner's jury returns a verdict of Wilful Murder against Alfred Inglethorp. What becomes of your theories, then?"
"They would not be shaken because twelve stupid men had happened to make a mistake! — Agatha Christie

I think the best war photos I have taken have always been made when a battle was actually taking place - when people were confused and scared and courageous and stupid and showed all these things. When you look at people right at the very moment of truth, everything is quite human. You take a picture at this moment with all the mistakes in it, with everything that might be confusing to the reader, but that's the right combat photo. — Horst Faas

Then I made a stupid mistake and looked up at him. His eyes met mine, and for a moment, his face was open and vulnerable in the moonlight. I caught a hint of wonder there as we stared at each other. Slowly, he leaned forward. I caught my breath, a tiny gasp escaping. He stiffened, and his expression shuttered closed, eyes going hard and frosty.
[ ... ]
'This is getting old,' he said in a voice that matched his eyes. — Julie Kagawa

Why did you jilt Sophie?" He fired the question with no warning, hoping to catch the younger man off guard, and he did. "Young men do stupid things. Letting go of Sophie has always been my biggest mistake." "What a pity that some mistakes are fatal and can never be forgiven." A confident gleam lit Marten's eyes. "Have you talked to Sophie about that? Because Sophie is the most loving, forgiving woman I've ever met. She and I are friends again. She knows I regret what happened and forgave me long ago. — Elizabeth Camden

And that woman was going to marry Matthew! Matthew, who had been banking on her working in human resources, with a nice salary to complement his own, who sulked and bitched about her long, unpredictable hours and her lousy paycheck . . . couldn't she see what a stupid bloody thing she was doing? Why the fuck had she put that ring back on? Hadn't she tasted freedom on that drive up to Barrow, which Strike looked back on with a fondness that discomposed him?

She's making a fucking huge mistake, that's all. — Robert Galbraith

Its big men are mostly little men with fancy offices and a lot of money. A great many of them are stupid little men, with reach-me-down brains, small-town arrogance and a sort of animal knack of smelling out the taste of the stupidest part of the public. They have played in luck so long that they have come to mistake luck for enlightenment. - on Hollywood — Raymond Chandler

Behind your every bad fate, almost always there lie your own stupid mistakes! Behind your every good fate, almost always there lie your own clever deeds! Skies have nothing whatsoever to do with your fate! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

He does have that weird mixture of born again Christian and stupid that some people mistake for courage and focus. — Marc Maron

She'd read somewhere that every woman got a freebie stupid mistake when it came to men. — Jill Shalvis

Anyone who says that women do not have influence in men's decisions makes a vast and stupid mistake. — Lisa See

No one knows anything. You're going to make mistakes and you're going to do things that people think are stupid. You can't sit there and go, "I never want to make a mistake." — Bill Hader

I like people admitting they were complete stupid horses' asses. I know I'll perform better if I rub my nose in my mistakes. This is a wonderful trick to learn. — Charlie Munger

Wisdom is in large part the knowledge of how to avoid doing dumb things, and thus grows globally as a function of the published inventory of stupid mistakes. — Tim Bray

Hiding is not an option and you're going to step out and you're going to make mistakes. I'm going to look stupid. I'm going to say things I want to retract. I'm going to sing notes I wish I could have back, there's just no getting around the stumble, but if you stumble enough times you're going to fall off the edge and have no choice but to freakin' fly. — Ben Harper

I remember I had to play a blind person once, and I did this stupid thing with my eyes, and I knew the minute I started it I'd made a mistake. — Kit Harington

I actually think it's a huge tactical mistake for our movement to criticize religion on the basis of the pathological extremes. Because most of the people we want to persuade in the fall of their beliefs don't see them agents of the monstrous excesses zealotry. The part of religion that makes it open to criticism and which really makes it incompatible with science is not that it makes you evil, it said it's wrong and it makes you stupid. — P.Z. Myers

Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. — Donald Rumsfeld

To think that God is compassionate is a terrible mistake. To think that God is wrathful is equally stupid. God isn't emotional. You are. To superimpose your emotions on infinity is typically human. — Frederick Lenz

I'm sorry, babe. I'm sorry I hurt you. I was stupid. I fucked up. I thought I was doing you a favor by keeping things light. I thought I was helping you when I left. But now, I see ... it was the biggest mistake of my life. You gave me something precious, you gave yourself to me, and I threw it away. I'm not makin' that mistake again, babe. Never again. — E.M. Abel

Gilks sighed. 'You're a clever man, Cjelli, I grant you that,' he said, 'but you make the same
mistake a lot of clever people do of thinking everyone else is stupid. — Douglas Adams

They were awfully close there by the fire," Mom says. "I was watching out the window." There's a quiet pause. "Did she let him touch her?" "No, but she touched him." He heaves a sigh. "She didn't even try to punch him in the throat." Fine. I can be a little aggressive. It all started after my attack with some self-defense classes. Then I realized I'm really good at martial arts. I can't help if it some people make me want to drop-kick them. "That's a start," Mom hums. I shake my head. I'm not starting anything. He's just a man that doesn't make me want to run in the other direction. That's all he is. He's nothing more than that. It's strange, because if I judged him based solely on his appearance, I'd be running away as fast as I could. "He's a good kid, it looks like," Dad says on a heavy sigh. "He made a stupid mistake." "He's kind of hot with all the tattoos," Mom says. She giggles, and I hear my dad growl. She shrieks, and I walk away. They don't need an audience for that part. — Tammy Falkner

Beliefs are a powerful thing. I often travel the world and sometimes the local waitresses attending me are nervous if they can't speak English. Now, when this happens, I point at the pictures in the menu. However, I've noticed that the ones with the strongest beliefs, the most nervous ones, still do a mistake in my order. Another interesting things to notice in these situations is that, when I correct them, by pointing again at what I ordered before, they recognize their mistake, but get angry, as if their mistake was my fault, and that's called irresponsibility. Now, when you combine irresponsibility with the wrong beliefs, you have a a very dumb person. That's what stupidity is, it's a human being doing the wrong things with the wrong beliefs and never ever accepting any responsibility for it. That's how those with the lowest spiritual conscience behave in general with themselves and others. — Robin Sacredfire

Stupid people will mistake your confidence for arrogance. — Habeeb Akande

Stupidity is a mindset of those who refuse knowledge! A mistake of judgment is an error, we make mistakes all of the time, it's stupid if you keep making the same mistakes often. — Monica Chrisandtras Hines

If all human beings understood history, they might cease making the same stupid mistakes over and over. — Isaac Asimov

I couldn't imagine a more unreliable, more unprofitable way to make a living than writing. My advice? Show up, do the best you can. Keep your day job. If you get a lucky break, don't f*** up. It was helpful to be older because I had made all the really stupid mistakes already. — Anthony Bourdain

When I first started talking about running for office, a lot of people said to me, 'Don't let the consultants change you,' and I'd always assured them that I wouldn't allow it to happen. But like it or not, I had to change. Not because of a consultant, but because I started to understand the cost of a stupid mistake. — Elizabeth Warren

The problem would not exist if I asked beforehand. Hence, it is vital to ask honest questions (even if it sounds "stupid") rather than making assumptions. Everybody makes mistakes; the good news is that everything can be fixed. — Anna Agoncillo

The best mistake I ever made was believing that I was stupid. It was a childhood thing, but it played out big-time as an adult. It scorned me the rest of my life - in a good way. — Barbara Corcoran

I can't accept "our nervous age," since mankind has been nervous during every age. Whoever fears nervousness should turn into a sturgeon or smelt; if a sturgeon makes a stupid mistake, it can only be one: to end up on a hook, and then in a pan in a pastry shell. — Anton Chekhov

Our first album was a stupid mistake by the record company. They tried to sell us as an alternative act. A big mistake! — Lauryn Hill

I went to Lila's house in search of comfort. But I knew I had made a mistake with her, too. I had done something stupid: I hadn't told her about going with Stefano to get the photograph. Why had I been silent? Was I pleased with the role of peacemaker that her husband had proposed and did I think I could exercise it better by being silent about the visit to the Rettifilo? Had I been afraid of betraying Stefano's confidence and as a result, without realizing it, betrayed her? I didn't know. Certainly it hadn't been a real decision: rather, an uncertainty that first became a feigned carelessness, then the conviction that not having said right away what had happened made remedying the situation complicated and perhaps vain. How easy it was to do wrong. I sought excuses that might seem convincing to her, but I wasn't able to make them even to myself. I sensed that the foundations of my behavior were flawed, I was silent. On — Elena Ferrante

Remember - every "mistake" a user makes is not because they're stupid, but because your website sucks. — Peep Laja

It was a big mistake for me to take a degree in anthropology anyway, because I can't stand primitive people - they're so stupid. — Kurt Vonnegut

But clever people all make one mistake. They all think everyone else is stupid. And everyone isn't stupid. They just take a bit more time, that's all. — Robert Harris

This ordinarily even-tempered man struck furiously at his heart like
some fanatic at prayer, and, assailed by remorse not just for this mistake but for all his
mistakes, all the ineradicable, stupid, inescapable mistakes - swept away by the misery
of his limitations yet acting as if life's every incomprehensible contingency were of his
making — Philip Roth

The way we judge ourselves is the worst judge that ever existed. If we make a mistake in front of people, we try to deny the mistake and cover it up. But as soon as we are alone, the Judge becomes so strong, the guilt is so strong, and we feel so stupid, or so bad, or so unworthy. — Miguel Ruiz

Then again, that's how quickly people's perceptions could change. It only took one mistake, one stupid decision. — Siobhan Vivian

He who cannot learn by others' mistakes is stupid. He who cannot learn by his own errors is a fool. — Spencer W. Kimball

All chess masters have on occasion played a magnificent game and then lost it by a stupid mistake, perhaps in time pressure and it may perhaps seem unjust that all their beautiful ideas get no other recognition than a zero on the tournament table. — Bent Larsen

One great mistake made by intelligent people is to refuse to believe that the world is as stupid as it is. — Claudine Guerin De Tencin

You are not your mistakes. Just because you have done something stupid does not make you stupid. — Maxwell Maltz

When you have success on the field, you're more popular and you have that fame that comes with it. You realize you're in the public eye more and you've got to be a little bit more careful about some of the things you're doing out in public and make sure you're smart about the things you say. You're still going to make mistakes from time to time, but you represent an even greater population and people are that much more looking for you to be in the wrong place at the wrong time or fall down or say something really stupid that's going to get you in trouble. — Aaron Rodgers

I'm in a foul mood as I'm making stupid mistakes ... This morning I lost beyond repair a painting with which I had been happy, having done about twenty sessions on it; it had to be thoroughly scraped away ... what a rage I was in! — Claude Monet

You made a mistake. One fucking enormous, stupid mistake. That's all. Now get over it. Buck up and fix it, and if you can't fix it, keep going anyway. It's the only way to live. — Vanessa Diffenbaugh

-I was young! I made a mistake, okay! Haven't you ever made a mistake?
-I'm old! Of course I've made mistakes, you stupid little shit! — Drea Damara

Right, and the definition of basic stupidity is to keep doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result. I'm not stupid. (Xypher)
I didn't say to keep doing it. Move forward with purpose. Examine what went wrong and correct that one mistake. (Acheron) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

What unleashes action is an individual's willingness to make mistakes - even to look foolish or stupid. — Robert Ringer

[Abusers] blame the world - circumstances, other people - for their defeats, misfortune, misconduct, and failures. The abuser firmly believes that his life is swayed by currents and persons over which he has no influence whatsoever (he has an external locus of control).

But there are even subtler variants of this psychological defense mechanism. Not infrequently an abuser will say: "I made a mistake because I am stupid", implying that his deficiencies and inadequacy are things he cannot help having and cannot change. This is also an alloplastic defense because it abrogates responsibility.

Many abusers exclaim: "I misbehaved because I completely lost my temper." On the surface, this appears to be an autoplastic defense with the abuser assuming responsibility for his misconduct. But it could be interpreted as an alloplastic defense, depending on whether the abuser believes that he can control his temper. — Sam Vaknin

That's an animal fable about humility. If you survive your mistake, you must learn from it. Accept that you're fragile, vulnerable, and sometimes stupid. Realize that you're not immortal and you've got to take care of yourself. And then laugh it off and fly away. — Marc Maron

We may have made one of the biggest and most stupid collective mistakes in history by getting so worried about global warming. — Nigel Farage

He's not a bad guy, John. It's human nature. He wanted it to be some mistake I made that he wouldn't have made, some flaw in me that he didn't share, so he could believe it wouldn't have happened to him. But it wasn't my fault. It was either blind, dumb, stupid luck from start to finish, in which case, we are all in the wrong business gentleman, or it was a God I cannot worship. — Mary Doria Russell

People always confuse intelligence with rational thinking and skepticism. I think it's a big mistake to assume anyone that follows a cult, religion, political party we don't like, etc is "stupid." But it's fair to say that if you follow something irrational, you are acting irrationally (at least as it pertains to that one specific act.) People can be smart - even brilliant - without necessarily being rational. Sometimes it's easy for people to be skeptical to most things, but with one or two glaring blind spots. If you don't spend a good portion of time playing devil's advocate with your own dearly held beliefs, odds are that there will be at least a couple of them that are irrational, even if you're one of the smartest people around. — Jon Moore

It was a very stupid mistake to think you could deal with heresy by burning heretics. It's the very same mistake that modernist Catholics are making today in reverse. They think you can love heretics by loving heresies. — Peter Kreeft

Make no mistake: Satan's specialty is psychological warfare. If he can turn us on God ("It's not fair!"), or turn us on others ("It's their fault!"), or turn us on ourselves ("I'm so stupid!"), we won't turn on him. If we keep fighting within ourselves and losing our own inner battles, we'll never have the strength to stand up and fight our true enemy. — Beth Moore

wasting what little breath he did have laughing at himself. Because sometimes, that's all you could do. You make a fucking stupid mistake, and you could only call yourself an idiot and then snap back before you screwed up again. — Kelley Armstrong

You need to up your vocabulary, boy. You can't walk around letting people think you're stupid. Expand your horizons. Besides, it's fun to call people names they have to look up to realize they've been insulted. (Mark)
Yeah, that's a twofer there. You get away with it and then they're twice as mad when they realize how bad you really insulted them. Especially if they mistake it for a compliment when you say it and thank you for it. (Bubba) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Do you blame me for every mistake I made? For every girl I tumbled? For every dumb thing I've said? Because if we start running tallies on stupid, you know who's going to come out ahead. — Leigh Bardugo

The only mental games in ski racing is the mental game against yourself. Is the whole goal of life preserving your life as long as you can? No. The goal is to enjoy your life, challenge yourself, to sometimes make stupid decisions-which are sometimes fun and sometimes idiotic and sometimes just a big fat mistake you regret. — Bode Miller

The most stupid mistake a counter-insurgency operation can make is alienating the population. If you alienate the population, you're finished. — Meles Zenawi

I have been stupid and regret making a silly mistake experimenting with drugs. — Richard Bacon

Men cheat because it's in their genetic code. A woman does it because she doesn't have enough
dignity; in addition to handing over her body, she always ends up handing over a bit of her heart. A
true crime. A theft. It's worse than robbing a bank, because if one day she is discovered (and she
always is), she will cause irreparable damage to her family.
For men it is just a "stupid mistake." For women, it feels like a spiritual crime against all those
who surround her with affection and support her as a mother and wife. — Paulo Coelho

She isn't stupid. She's intelligent enough in a purely feminine way. Eighteenth-century France would have been a marvellous setting for her, or the old South if she hadn't made the mistake of being born a Negro. — Nella Larsen

I've done some stupid things. You just have to take responsibility, go, That was embarrassing, and move forward as best you can. — Kiefer Sutherland

Please don't make the mistake of thinking the arts and sciences are at odds with one another. That is a recent, stupid, and damaging idea. You don't have to be unscientific to make beautiful art, to write beautiful things.
If you need proof: Twain, Adams, Vonnegut, McEwen, Sagan, Shakespeare, Dickens. For a start.
You don't need to be superstitious to be a poet. You don't need to hate GM technology to care about the beauty of the planet. You don't have to claim a soul to promote compassion.
Science is not a body of knowledge nor a system of belief; it is just a term which describes humankind's incremental acquisition of understanding through observation. Science is awesome. — Tim Minchin

Barely, but I did. Then in college I did really well. Can you imagine that? Which is why I went to graduate school. But that was probably a big mistake. I should have quit while I was ahead. You see, my problem is I don't know whether I'm smart or if I'm stupid. I've done well, and I've done poorly, and I've been told that I'm gifted and I've been told that I'm slow. I don't know what I am. — Edward M. Hallowell

The only biodiversity we're going to have left is Coke versus Pepsi. We're landscaping the whole world one stupid mistake at a time. — Chuck Palahniuk

Not the stupid person who commits mistakes. but the stupid which is always located in the same mistake — Khaled Naili

Finn is God: So much for Earth Day. I totally screwed things up and started celebrating the wrong planet. Now I have to collect all these stupid trademarked dog figurines that I distributed all of the yard. At least it's better than last year's mistake when I had butt statues everywhere. — Jessica Park

If you study a lot because you are worried that others will think badly of you for being ignorant and you'll feel stupid, this is a serious mistake. — Dogen

The worst mistake I made was that stupid, suburban prejudice of anti-Semitism. — Ezra Pound

These are young people who made mistakes that aren't that different than the mistakes I made and the mistakes that a lot of you guys made, we have a tendency sometimes to almost take for granted or think it's normal that so many young people end up in our criminal justice system. It's not normal ... What is normal is teenagers doing stupid things. — Barack Obama

When you and everyone around you are immersed in one small community, it is easy to mistake it for the whole world. But once you break away, you realize that no one outside your tiny circle gives a shit about the stupid stuff that was at the center of your little world. When you understand that, you discover there is a much bigger, better world out there. — Ronda Rousey

You may be a good warrior... But you've made a mistake I never did. You agreed to serve a stupid king. — Aleksandra Layland

Why are you apologizing to me? I'm the one who was horribly careless. I assumed no one would be so far from the trails, but I should have checked first. Such a stupid mistake! You have nothing to apologize for."
"But I growled at you!" I was still horrified that I was physically capable of such blasphemy. — Stephenie Meyer