Worst Mistake Quotes & Sayings

Many people will tell you that an expert is someone who knows a great deal about the subject. To this I would object that one can never know much about any subject. I would much prefer the following definition: an expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in the subject, and how to avoid them. — Werner Heisenberg

Jared Diamond to describe agriculture as "the worst mistake in the history of the human race.") — Gary Taubes

Theocracy is the worst of all governments. If we must have a tyrant, a robber baron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point be sated; and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations. — C.S. Lewis

If you don't know where you make your mistakes, that's your worst mistake: not knowing where your mistakes are at. — Meek Mill

The worst mistake of a woman is to go to the kitchen, because then she never gets out of there. — Shakira

As it can be maintained that all the great advances have come from men under forty, so the history of the world shows that a very large proportion of the evils may be traced to the sexagenarians, nearly all the great mistakes politically and socially, all of the worst poems, most of the bad pictures, a majority of the bad novels and not a few of the bad sermons and speeches. — William Osler

I watched you battle against the worst memory of your life and I watched you win. Make no mistake, Echo. I battled right beside you. — Katie McGarry

If you make the wrong decision, you make the wrong decision. That's all there is to it. There are few guarantees in life. One of them is that you will make lots of mistakes The worst thing you can do is wimp out and spend your life in suspended animation refusing to make a choice because it may not be a perfect one. — Nicholas Lore

To begin impatiently is the worst mistake a writer can make — Antony Beevor

My whole career, I've had an issue with always kind of being an underdog and making a big mistake when it counts and falling and having to climb back up. One moment everything will be peachy and everyone will be saying the nicest things about me and loving me, and the next minute I'm the worst, I'm evil, all these things. It's like a fallen angel. — Johnny Weir

I believe that God both wills and is able to bring good out of everything, even the worst ... I believe that even our mistakes and wrongdoing are not fruitless ... — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I marvel at how even the wrong choices can keep us on the right path. How the worst mistake can wind up being the best thing that ever happened to us. — Katie Klein

New York as an industry is the best city for real estate. You're in a very transparent market. If you need to liquidate, you make three phone calls and you could sell something, even in the worst market. It is also less forgiving; if you make a mistake you can lose money. — Aby Rosen

The worst crime of all would be that a mistake happens and no one talks about it or learns from it. So, as unsettling as it is to think about, these mistakes, complications and unexpected outcomes get discussed openly, and everyone hopefully gains something from it. — Sanjay Gupta

His first - and worst - mistake was blindly doing what he was told to do. Without questioning their methods or their motives, he allowed politicians to make the decisions that led to his early demise. — Tom Robbins

A mistake? The most passionate night of his life was a mistake? Her first time and that's what she thought. That grated on him in the worst way. "Is that what you think, Beth?"
"Don't call me that."
"Why, Beth?"
"You know I hate that name."
"Oh, so sorry, Beth. I do apologize, Beth." He was being petty and he knew it, but he didn't give a damn. She'd always brought out the very worst in him.
She reached up and twisted his ear. "Ow!"
"Out of my way, Robert Lemonade," she said casually, pissing him off in the worst way. — R.L. Mathewson

Don't thank me. I'm not pleased with it. Loving you has been the single worst mistake of my life. It's just as enraging as I remember, and I'm making just as many mistakes. — Quil Carter

Once again, human history proved that the worst mistake possible in politics was underestimating one's opponents. Van — Greg Bear

It'd be a mistake," Lee said. "I think maybe you have to make a few," Merrin said. "If you don't, you're probably thinking too much. That's the worst mistake you can make. — Joe Hill

I learn from my mistakes, and falling for you was by far the worst mistake I've ever made. — Daniele Lanzarotta

Here's the deal," she continued. "You might get hurt. You might be married fifty years. No one knows what the outcome is when they take a chance with someone, but the worst thing you can do is take a chance with the wrong man. That is a mistake you'll never forgive yourself for when you finally realize it. — Monica Alexander

I had to stop hoping so much that a ship would rescue me. I should not count on outside help. Survival had to start with me. In my experience, a castaway's worst mistake is to hope too much and to do too little. Survival starts by paying attention to what is close at hand and immediate. To look out with idle hope is tantamount to dreaming one's life away. — Yann Martel

The learning person looks forward to failure or mistakes. The worst problem in leadership is basically early success. — Warren G. Bennis

Election has nothing to do with the eternal salvation of individuals but refers instead to God's way of saving nations. It was a major mistake of the Reformation to have decided to follow Augustine in this matter, taking election to refer to grace and salvation. It manages to make bad news out of good news. It casts a deep shadow over the character of God. At it worst, it can lead to awful consequences in terms of pride, arrogance, superiority, and intolerance as the ideology of election takes hold. It causes the church to become, not a sign of the unity of humanity in the love of God, but the sign of favorites in the midst of the enemies of God. — Clark H. Pinnock

The worst mistake has been that Christians have tried to make their church programs or worship services their third place place other than their home or workplace where they can relax and be in good company on a regular basis . The key is that third places need to be in public zones."- What if more Christians spent their regular "church" time in places where they could meet others and begin relationships with them What might happen — Hugh Halter & Matt Smay

Its time to figure out what makes you happy and just do it. Worst comes to worst, you make a mistake and then you change paths. That's the best freaking part of being a teenager. — Dahlia Adler

The worst mistake is to live life day by day, life was meant to be lived like there will be no tomorrow. — Steven Redhead

Marriage was probably the worst mistake I ever made in my life. — Tony Dorsett

One of the worst mistakes anybody can make is to bet against Americans. — Ronald Reagan

In a period of economic downturn, the overwhelming instinct is to pare back, cut costs, and lay off. If you do that, do so with your strategy in mind. The worst mistake is to cut across the board. Instead, reconnect and recommit to a clear strategy that will distinguish yourself from others. — Michael Porter

Worst damnfool mistake I ever made was letting myself be elected Vice-President of the United States. Should have stuck?as Speaker of the House? Gave up the second most important job in Government foreight long years as Roosevelt's spare tire. — John Nance Garner

The worst mistake you can make is walking away from the person who actually stood there and waited for you ... — Drake

You will never meet anyone who admires the American founders more than I do, but they were human, they made mistakes. Perhaps their worst was that their Bill of Rights stops at the border. Inside the US, the federal government has been limited. Beyond the borders, the government has been able to do anything it wanted. — Richard J. Maybury

My worst mistake has been not grasping that time goes by. It was going by and there I was, set in the attitude of the ideal wife of an ideal husband. Instead of bringing our sexual relationship to life again I brooded happily over memories of our former nights together. — Simone De Beauvoir

I'm nothing without you, Ly. I just don't work without you. You've broken me." He smiles. "You are everything to me and I will spend the rest of my life showing you that you didn't make the worst mistake of your life by falling in love with a must like me. — Samantha Towle

Your worst mistakes is actually your best advice. — Mod Sun

The worst part is not in making a mistake but in trying to justify it, instead of using it as a heaven-sent warning of our mindlessness or our ignorance. — Santiago Ramon Y Cajal

You are your own worst enemy, young lady. And you are a coward. It is senseless to mistake fear for bravery." Her warm breath is yeasty on my face. "I feel sorry for you. But that's it. We are done trying to help you. It's your life, as your poor father said." AFTER THIS, WHEN I wake in the morning, I spread my fingers, working out the stiffness that creeps in overnight. I point my toes, feeling the crimp in my ankles, my calves, the dull sore ache behind my knees. The pain in my joints is like a needy pet that won't leave me alone. But I can't complain. I've forfeited that right. — Christina Baker Kline

The worst mistake that a statesman can make is to promise victory and to see it dashed, the hopes dashed. — Winston Churchill

In my experience, a castaway's worst mistake is to hope too much and to do too little. — Yann Martel

Yes, the worst parasites. We reproduce with no internal limitations. We consume and destroy and make war. We have no predator except ourselves, and left unchecked we destroy ourselves every time. And we destroy the planet along with us. Humankind is the thing that must be contained. Man must be checked. We were nature's mistake - the only species worth extinction is our very own. — Ryan Winfield

Whoever is born in New York is ill-equipped to deal with any other city: all other cities seem, at best, a mistake, and, at worst, a fraud. No other city is so spitefully incoherent. Whereas other cities flaunt there history - their presumed glory - in vividly placed monuments, squares, parks, plaques, and boulevards, such history as New York has been unable entirely to obliterate is to be found, mainly, in the backwaters of Wall Street, in the goat tracks of Old and West Broadway, in and around Washington Square, and, for the relentless searcher, in grimly inaccessible regions of The Bronx. — James Baldwin

Religious people tend to encounter, among those who are not, a cemented certainty that belief in God is a crutch for the weak and the fearful ... Now the belief in God may turn out at the last trump to be a mistake. Meantime, let us be quite clear, it is not merely the comfort of the simple
though it is that too, much to its glory
it is a formidable intellectual position with which most of the first-class minds of the human race, century in and century out, have concurred, each in his own way ... speaking of crutches
Freud can be a crutch, Marx can be a crutch, rationalism can be a crutch, and atheism can be two canes and a pair of iron braces. We none of us have all the answers, nor are we likely to have. But in the country of the halt, the man who is surest he has no limp may be the worst-crippled. — Herman Wouk

When it comes to power, outshining the master is perhaps the worst mistake of all. — Robert Greene

My friend Terry says that when you need to make a decision, in your work or otherwise, and you don't know what to do, just do one thing or the other, because the worst that can happen is that you will have made a terrible mistake. — Anne Lamott

How many times do I have to say I'm sorry before you believe it? That I acknowledge I made a terrible mistake and have done everything I know how to fix it? How can you just freeze me out after that and walk away from everything we had?"
Hurt and resentment swelled inside him, mixing with the anger in a toxic, chaotic mess. "You walked away first," he shot back. "That was your choice." Then I made mine. It was a low blow, even if it was true. But he refused to feel guilty about it, even under the circumstances. He hadn't wanted to have this conversation, but she'd insisted, and he wouldn't lie to her about the way things stood.
Honor's chin came up, her tears evaporating as her eyes sparked with fresh anger. "I did," she admitted quietly, her control merely emphasizing the loss of his own. "I did walk away and it was the absolute worst mistake of my life. I'm sorry, Liam. See? I'm a big enough person to admit it to your face. Are you? — Kaylea Cross

The mistake we make is in thinking rape isn't premeditated, that it happens by accident somehow, that you're drunk and you run into a girl who's also drunk and half-asleep on a bench and you sidle up to her and things get out of hand and before you know it, you're being accused of something you'd never do. But men who rape are men who watch for the signs of who they believe they can rape. Rape culture isn't a natural occurrence; it thrives thanks to the dedicated attention given to women in order to take away their security. Rapists exist on a spectrum, and maybe this attentive version is the most dangerous type: women are so used to being watched that we don't notice when someone's watching us for the worst reason imaginable. They have a plan long before we even get to the bar to order our first drink. — Scaachi Koul

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

My worst mistake ever. We should not talk about that penny any more, la la la."
He pulled her hands down. "We're never going to stop talking about it. That penny is one of my favorite memories."
Her mouth dropped open. "Liar! You only liked what came afterward. You hated having your penny stolen."
"True," he admitted. "But I loved the note you left me. — Thea Harrison

While technically I did not commit a crime, an impeachable offense ... these are legalisms, as far as the handling of this matter is concerned; it was so botched up, I made so many bad judgments. The worst ones, mistakes of the heart, rather than the head. But let me say, a man in that top job - he's got to have a heart, but his head must always rule his heart. — Richard M. Nixon

The worst mistake a boss can make is not to say 'well done'. — John Ashcroft

We all have to work for happiness. And you cannot listen to other people. That is the worst mistake you can make. — Jillian Michaels

Man is a gregarious animal. He's not supposed to live in isolation. He should actually live in a community, but a community does not necessarily have to be a city. There's all the evidence in the world that the building of cities is one of the worst mistakes that mankind has ever made: For both physical and mental health we've got to be close to Mother Earth. — Ralph Borsodi

They have extended the arrogance and insularity of the worst kind of academic professionalism beyond the academy. Generally they show no fear or even slight anxiety at the responsibility they have assumed; they have no sense of awe in the face of the questions they have raised, and no sense of humility in the face of the traditions which they condescendingly dismiss. They are aggressively without a sense of mystery and without a suspicion that anything might be too deep for their narrowly professional competence. They mistake these vices for the virtues of thinking radically, courageously and with an unremitting hostility to obscurantism. — Raimond Gaita

Once, I'd made the mistake of not trusting. When I found Poppy kissing her ex-boyfriend, I'd assumed the worst and left the scene without even trying to talk to her. She'd done it as a purposeful attempt to drive us apart, unable to bear the guilt of being the catalyst for my schism from the clergy. If I had trusted her, if I had stayed, we could have had another year together. Instead, I'd run away, believing that she was unfaithful, and we'd spent a year miserably apart. — Sierra Simone

Life is most transfixing when you are awake to diversity, not only of ethnicity, ability, gender, belief, and sexuality but also of age and experience. The worst mistake anyone can make is to perceive anyone else as lesser. — Andrew Solomon

I think it's the sign of a leader to step up and say, you know, when something's not working to have the guts to reverse it. And the worst thing you can do is to let that mistake linger. — Jeff Zucker

Now, I don't mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. What we do know is, if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original. If you're not prepared to be wrong. And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong. And we run our companies like this, by the way, we stigmatize mistakes. And we're now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make. — Ken Robinson

The worst mistake is to have the best ladder and the wrong wall. — Donald Rumsfeld

Even the best of us have bad days. We fall, we climb. That's life. I can promise you, your worst day is never your worst. Your worst day's the day you realize you gave us too soon and you can no longer rectify your mistake. — J.C. Reed

One of the worst mistakes you can make in golf is trying to force the game. — Jack Nicklaus

But if there's nothing wrong with me, he thought, then there is something wrong with the world. And if there is nothing wrong with the world, then I have wasted my life and that is the worst mistake of all. — Walker Percy

The worst mistake a woman can make is to emulate a man. — Natalia Kills

She could not comprehend the attitudes of young people these days. Not that they needed understanding - young people were the same in every generation - but this cockiness, this refusal to take seriously the gravest questions of their lives, nettled and irritated her. Jean Louise was about to make the worst mistake of her life, and she glibly quoted those people at her, she mocked her. — Harper Lee

We made a great mistake in the beginning of our struggle, and I fear, in spite of all we can do, it will prove to be a fatal mistake. We appointed all our worst generals to command our armies, and all our best generals to edit the newspapers — Robert E.Lee

The worst mistake you can make is underrating your enemy. Assuming that they're evil - I think it's a terrible thing to do. — Alan Dershowitz

I think the worst mistake you can make in stocks is to buy or sell based on current headlines, — Warren Buffett

The worst mistake a leader can make is to mentor no one, choose no successor and leave no legacy. — Myles Munroe

I am scared like you all people, that tomorrow I will be examined, that there is chance to get something bad as a result, that I will mistake in saying a word aloud or something more worst than this... — Deyth Banger

But, honey, the worst mistake beats the hell out of never tryin — Julie Ann Walker

The worst mistake of first contact, made throughout history by individuals on both sides of every new encounter, has been the unfortunate habit of making assumptions. It often proved fatal. — David Brin

When he sees me, he stops.
His eyes widen, his face pales.
And then before i can say anything, he's holding me.
And the worst part is-I want to hold him.
But I also want to slap him, hit him. Punch him. Tear out his throat.
I want him to tell me what he did to me was a mistake. Some horrible mix-up ... after I'm done holding him back. — Courtney Summers

Independence is the luxury of all those people who are too confident, and busy, and popular, and attractive to be just plain old lonely. And make no mistake, lonely is absolutely the worst thing to be. Tell someone that you've got a drink problem, or an eating disorder, or your dad died when you were a kid even, and you can almost see their eyes light up with the sheer fascinating drama and pathos of it all, because you've got an issue, something for them to get involved in, to talk about and analyse and discuss and maybe even cure. But tell someone you're lonely and of course they'll seem sympathetic, but look very carefully and you'll see one hand snaking behind their back, groping for the door handle, ready to make a run for it, as if loneliness itself were contagious. Because being lonely is just so banal, so shaming, so plain and dull and ugly. — David Nicholls

Incredulity is not wisdom, but the worst kind of folly. It is folly, because it causes ignorance and mistake, with all the consequents of these; and it is very bad, as being accompanied with disingenuity, obstinacy, rudeness, uncharitableness, and the like bad dispositions; from which credulity itself, the other extreme sort of folly, is exempt. — Isaac Barrow

This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of the herd nature, the military system, which I abhor. That a man can take pleasure in marching in formation to the strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has only been given his big brain by mistake; a backbone was all he needed. This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism by order, senseless violence, and all the pestilent nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism-how I hate them! — Albert Einstein

My own husband was divorced when we met, but without kids. I don't know what I would have done if he'd had them. I got the message very early on that the worst mistake a woman can make is marrying a man with children. — Ayelet Waldman

Each of us thinks that our own mistake is the worst, because we have made it. We all live with guilt for our actions, Maia. Especially if we have chosen to keep them inside us for as long as you have. I'm sitting here feeling only sadness for you, not disapproval. And I really think that anyone else who heard your story would feel the same. It's only you who blames yourself. — Lucinda Riley

The worst mistake you can make with children is to talk to them in a condescending, patronising way and think that you can teach them something. You have to understand that it is you who will be learning from them. You have to get into their world and see things from their perspective. — Magnus Scheving

We are our own worst enemy and make no mistake we are destroying ourselves. — Bryant McGill

Most of the heroes of Scripture rose to their greatest victories after their worst mistakes. God is in the redemption business, and He testifies of this through the lives of everyone He calls. — Rick Joyner

The worst mistake I ever made has become the best thing I ever did.

- Darius Wainwright — Jayne Fresina

Weaknesses in men of genius are usually an exaggeration of their personal feeling; in the hands of feeble imitators they become the most flagrant blunders. Entire schools have been founded on misinterpretations of certain aspects of the masters. Lamentable mistakes have resulted from the thoughtless enthusiasm with which men have sought inspiration from the worst qualities of remarkable artists because they are unable to reproduce the sublime elements in their work. — Eugene Delacroix

You have to allow yourself to make a mistake now and then. Sometimes in our lives, the best results come from the worst mistakes. — Melody Anne

It's all over, it's all over,' I muttered to myself. My grief resembled that of a fainthearted student who has failed an examination: I made a mistake! I made a mistake! Simply because I didn't solve that X, everything was wrong. If only I'd solved that X at the beginning, everything would have been all right. If only I had used deductive methods like everyone else to solve the mathematics of life. To be half-clever was the worst thing I could have done. I alone depended upon the inductive method, and for the simple reason I failed. — Yukio Mishima

Why am I here? You may have asked the question as you found yourself in the midst of an amazing, divinely orchestrated opportunity, or you may have asked it in reaction to having made the worst mistake of your life. — T.D. Jakes

The worst part is, you never know what mistake you are going to make, when you will do so, and what effect it will have on your life. Makes you wish you were pshychic doesn't it? — Nasir

And here you are, a stripling of a boy who has already survived the worst this land can throw at a body, but suddenly ready to give up after one mistake?" Dr. Snailwater's voice grew fierce. "You should be grateful some things can be fixed."
"What if I can't?" Jack asked in a small voice.
"Then you try again! — Emma Trevayne

Golf is the only game where the worst player gets the best of it. He obtains more out of it as regards both exercise and enjoyment, for the good player gets worried over the slightest mistake, whereas the poor player makes too many mistakes to worry about them. — David Lloyd George

All this struggling and striving to make the world better is a great mistake. Not that it's wrong to try to improve the world if you know how but simply because struggling and striving are the worst possible ways to go about doing anything! — George Bernard Shaw

How did you get hired?" "I checked the box on the application that said "descendant" by mistake. I'm dyslexic and I thought it said something else."
"Okay," I said, thinking that was the worst employment application mistake ever. "And they all believe him to be the true ruler of Fallen?"
"All the Mei-Bettys do. They're, like, obsessed with it. It's a little like restaurant-of-the-body-snatchers, you know?"
"Then why do you work there?" I asked. "Clearly, you figured out something was wrong with them."
"Duh, but it pays well and they provide room and board. I sorta needed the job and a place to stay. It's got free wifi," she said, as if that explained everything. — H.D. Smith

I've got to keep breathing. It'll be my worst business mistake if I don't. — Steve Martin

The worst mistake a writer can make is to assume everyone has an imagination. — Andrew McEwan

The worst mistake you can make, Kroeber taught, is to see another person through the lens of your prejudices. And the second-worst mistake is to think you aren't looking though the lens of your prejudices. — Paul La Farge

I was so ashamed for a mistake I made unknowingly when I was completely out of control and lost my mind for some reasons. I thought about to end my life next day at some point. I was struggling to cope with my pain, shame and thinking about others who I had hurt unintentionally. The worst moment came when people who I loved most had pulled out their support and threatens me to end relationships. Lesson learns hard way that people who are not with you at worst time of your life have no right to stand beside you when you are at best. Life goes on ... — Sammy Toora Powerlifter

This is partly because of the technological revolution, but it's also because - " Together, Freddi and Brady chant, " - Barack Obama is the worst mistake this country ever made! — Stephen King

I was 21 and looking for work in 1932, one of the worst years of the Great Depression. And I can remember one bleak night in the thirties when my father learned on Christmas Eve that he'd lost his job. To be young in my generation was to feel that your future had been mortgaged out from under you, and that's a tragic mistake we must never allow our leaders to make again. — Ronald Reagan

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

Sometimes your mistakes are you biggest virtues. You learn so much from the mistake. Those things that you think are the worst thing that's happening to you can somehow turn around and be the greatest opportunity. — Nicole Kidman

I'm not using drugs to get high like many people think. I know I made a big mistake when I started using this sh-. It's a very difficult thing to explain. My liver is not functioning and I'm throwing up all the time and shitting my pants. The pain is more than you can handle. It's the worst pain in the world. Dope sick hurts the entire body. — Layne Staley

I was against it [war in Middle East]. And I was against it very early. And we shouldn't have been in there. And I think it is probably perhaps the worst mistake we have ever made. First of all, they didn't knock down the World Trade Center, OK? It wasn't Iraq. It was other people. — Donald Trump