Top 100 Great Mistake Quotes
#1. We make a great mistake in supposing all people are capable of self-government.
John C. Calhoun
#2. It is a great mistake to confuse conventionality with simplicity ... it takes a good deal of intelligence and a great many inhibitions to follow a social code.
Katharine Fullerton Gerould
#3. [Hemingway] always used to bawl me out for including so much topical stuff. He always claimed that was a great mistake, that in fifty years nobody would understand. He may have been right; it's getting to be true.
John Dos Passos
#4. I want to tell you that I think this war is a great mistake.
Pierre Laval
#5. The great mistake of the reformers is to believe that life begins and ends with health, and that happiness begins and ends with a full stomach and the power to enjoy physical pleasures, even of the finer kind.
Katharine Fullerton Gerould
#6. I made one great mistake in my life-when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made but there was some justification-the danger that the Germans would make them.
Albert Einstein
#7. It is, in fact, a great mistake to think we must suppress observations of human differences if we are to do justice to human dignity. The dignity of the person is not touched by such observations, for the dignity of human beings as persons is not an object of observation but of recognition.
Robert Spaemann
#8. I thought for a change I would give up drinking, and it was a great mistake, and, although I reduced the size of my nose and improved my beauty, my stomach suffered.
Winslow Homer
#9. It's a great mistake, I think, to put children off with falsehoods and nonsense, when their growing powers of observation and discrimination excite in them a desire to know about things.
Anne Sullivan
#10. You made me confess the fears that I have. But I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too.
James Joyce
#11. He makes a great mistake ... who supposes that authority is firmer or better established when it is founded by force than that which is welded by affection.
Terence
#12. Schopenhauer wrote that to desire immortality is to desire the eternal perpetuation of a great mistake. He was correct.
Michael LaRocca
#13. Not that I will ever believe there is nothing in common between any two people, as some declare is the case. I am sure people make a great mistake in sorting each other into groups, by appearances;
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
#14. I had the vocation for politics. What I didn't have was any aptitude for political combat. I took the attacks personally, which is a great mistake. It's never personal: It's just business. It was ever thus.
Michael Ignatieff
#15. My great mistake, the fault for which I can't forgive myself, is that one day I ceased my obstinate pursuit of my own individuality.
Oscar Wilde
#16. Your great mistake is to act the drama as if you were alone.
David Whyte
#18. I think we all wish we could erase some dark times in our lives. But all of life's experiences, bad and good make you who you are. Erasing any of life's experiences would be a great mistake.
Luis Miguel
#19. Nature's great mistake was to have been unable to confine herself to one "kingdom": juxtaposed with the vegetable, everything else seems inopportune, out of place. The sun should have sulked at the appearance of the first insect, and gone out altogether with the advent of the chimpanzee.
Emil M. Cioran
#20. To desire immortality is to desire the eternal perpetuation of a great mistake
Arthur Schopenhauer
#21. Our great mistake is to try to exact from each person virtues which he does not possess, and to neglect the cultivation of those which he has.
Marguerite Yourcenar
#22. The great mistake these people make is that they go to looking after the spiritual welfare of the Indians before securing their physical.
George Crook
#23. The great mistake made by most of the Lord's people is in hoping to discover in themselves that which is to be found in Christ alone.
Arthur W. Pink
#24. It was a great mistake to have come. He should have stayed at home and read his book, thought Peter Walsh; should have gone to a music hall; he should have stayed at home, for he knew no one.
Virginia Woolf
#25. It is a very easy thing to devise good laws; the difficulty is to make them effective. The great mistake is that of looking upon men as virtuous, or thinking that they can be made so by laws; and consequently the greatest art of a politician is to render vices serviceable to the cause of virtue.
Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke
#26. The danger, though - and there have been signs of this recently - is that Europe begins to demonstrate a return to more nationalist sentiment. To my mind, that would be a great mistake.
Lakshmi Mittal
#27. To say that certainly America was very lucky to get a large amount of land, and the native Indians were extremely unlucky to have white men coming over here, is one thing. But to say that the whole of the American prosperity was based on exploiting the indigenous population would be a great mistake.
Amartya Sen
#28. This is what I like, sitting at a table and watching people go by. It does something to your outlook on life. The Anglo-Saxons make a great mistake not staring at people from a sidewalk table.
Patricia Highsmith
#29. It is a great mistake to think that God is chiefly concerned with our being religious.
William Temple
#30. We are, in a way, temporary ambulatory repositories for our nucleic acids. This does not deny our humanity; it does not prevent us from pursuing the good, the true and the beautiful. But it would be a great mistake to ignore where we have come from in our attempt to determine where we are going.
Carl Sagan
#31. Sometimes we think we are too busy to pray. That is a great mistake, for praying is a saving of time.
Charles Spurgeon
#32. Many who read their Bibles make the great mistake of confining all their reading to certain portions of the Bible which they enjoy. In this way they get no knowledge of the Bible as a whole. They miss altogether many of the most important phases of Bible truth.
R.A. Torrey
#33. It is true that a great statesman is he who knows when to depart from traditions, as well as when to adhere to them. But it is a great mistake to suppose that he will do this better for being ignorant of the traditions.
John Stuart Mill
#34. I still think it would be a great mistake to go into a war without support of our friends and allies.
John Dingell
#35. It is all about technique. The great mistake of this century is to put inspiration and creativity first.
Vivienne Westwood
#36. 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
#37. You can and should use logic and reason all you want. But it would be a great mistake to ignore the stray bit of data that doesn't fit into your preconceived theories, that may even confound everything you thought you were sure of.
Barbara Ehrenreich
#38. Sometimes I think it is a great mistake to have matter that can think and feel. It complains so. By the same token, though, I suppose that boulders and mountains and moons could be accused of being a little too phlegmatic.
Kurt Vonnegut
#40. You make a great, very great mistake, if you think that psychology, being the science of the mind's laws, is something from which you can deduce definite programmes and schemes and methods of instruction for immediate schoolroom use.
William James
#41. But on the other hand, it would be a great mistake to assume that the dead are absolutely powerless.
Ralph Ellison
#42. In my judgment, a great mistake has been made by well meaning and zealous men, through treating error and infidelity with altogether too much respect.
J.G. Holland
#43. And anyway he did not understand them; and he made the great mistake of leaving them out of his calculations. He had no plan for them, and there was no time to make any, once they had set to work. As
J.R.R. Tolkien
#44. It is a great mistake to think that the extremist is a better man than the moderate. Usually the difference is not that he is morally stronger, but that he is intellectually weaker. He is not more virtuous. He is simply more foolish.
Theodore Roosevelt
#45. 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
#46. I believe that it is a great mistake not to stand up for people, even when you differ with them, if you feel that they are trying to do things that will help our country.
Eleanor Roosevelt
#47. If you think you can walk in holiness without keeping up perpetual fellowship with Christ, you have made a great mistake. If you would be holy, you must live close to Jesus.
Charles Spurgeon
#48. There is no problem with the wider culture that you cannot see in the spades in the Christian Church. The rot is in us, and not simple out there. And Christians are making a great mistake by turning everything into culture wars. It's a much deeper crisis.
Os Guinness
#49. I think Franklin Roosevelt was a lousy president. What he did- which is to impose this great nanny state on America- was a great mistake.
Ed Crane
#50. Humility is a quality for which I have only a limited admiration. In many phases of life it is a great mistake and degenerates into defensiveness or hypocrisy.
E. M. Forster
#51. It is a very great mistake, common to counsel, and especially to young counsel, to consider that a decision of any court must necessarily command the respect of another.
Samuel Freeman Miller
#52. It is a very great mistake to suppose, as a few English cooks still do, that spaghetti and macaroni should be soaked in water before cooking.
Elizabeth David
#53. It is a very great mistake to imagine that the object of loyalty is the authority and interest of one individual man, however dignified by the applause or enriched by the success of popular actions.
Samuel Adams
#54. The great mistake about Europe is taking the countries seriously and letting them quarrel and drop bombs on one another.
Edmund Wilson
#55. Ah, how true it is that we love ourselves too much and proceed with too much human prudence, that we may not lose an atom of our consideration! Oh, what a great mistake that is! The Saints did not act thus.
Teresa Of Avila
#56. Let go the lure The striving to unmake; Behold the truth Whenever heart may ache There is a glory In a great mistake.
Nathalia Crane
#57. I am always sorry to hear that such and such a person is going to school to be educated. This is a great mistake. If the person is to get the benefit of what we call education, he must educate himself, under the direction of the teacher.
Fanny Jackson Coppin
#58. It is a great mistake on the part of elderly ladies, male and female, to tell a child that he is seeing his happiest days. Do not you believe a word of it, my little friend.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
#59. 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
#60. That is the great mistake about the affections. It is not the rise and fall of empires, the birth and death of kings, or the marching of armies that move them most. When they answer from their depths, it is to the domestic joys and tragedies of life.
Amelia Barr
#61. It was a great mistake, my being born a man, I would have been much more successful as a seagull or a fish. As it is, I will always be a stranger who never feels at home, who does not really want and is not really wanted, who can never belong, who must be a little in love with death!
Eugene O'Neill
#62. I see you're in a hurry to get someplace. It's a great mistake to hurry." "Why?" Joe asked, puzzled by almost everything the traveler said. "Because the grave's our destination," Mr. Sedgwick said. "Those who hurry usually get to it quicker than those who take their time.
Larry McMurtry
#63. The victim should have the right to end his life, if he wants. But I think it would be a great mistake. However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. While there's life, there is hope.
Stephen Hawking
#64. Those who think that in order to dress well it is necessary to dress extravagantly or grandly, make a great mistake. Nothing so well becomes true feminine beauty as simplicity.
George D. Prentice
#65. Ah, Peter, we who have made the great mistake, how differently we should all act at the second chance. But Solomon was right; there is no second chance, not for most of us. When we reach the window it is lock-out time. The iron bars are up for life.
J.M. Barrie
#66. American Heartbreak
I am the American heartbreak
The rock on which Freedom
Stumped its toe
The great mistake
That Jamestown made
Long ago.
Langston Hughes
#67. It is a great mistake to say that the Chinese are not hospitable. A more graceful, hearty hospitality than that of the Chinese I have met in no land.
Lottie Moon
#68. Republicans who criticize the use of two languages, I think, make a great mistake.
Rand Paul
#69. I am sure it is a great mistake always to know enough to go in when it rains. One may keep snug and dry by such knowledge, but one misses a world of loveliness.
Adeline Knapp
#70. The thinker makes a great mistake when he asks after cause and effect. They both together make up the indivisible phenomenon.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
#71. It is a great mistake, as we have already remarked, to be afraid of Him and to act in His presence like a timid and craven slave trembling with fright before his master.
Alphonsus Liguori
#72. The great mistake is to anticipate the outcome of the engagement; you ought not to be thinking of whether it ends in victory or defeat. Let nature take its course, and your tools will strike at the right moment.
Bruce Lee
#73. Never mind what I say, Robert! I am always saying what I shouldn't say. In fact, I usually say what I really think. A great mistake nowadays.
Oscar Wilde
#74. Though it is a great mistake to make friends of the wicked and foolish, it is unwise to make enemies of them, for they are very numerous.
John Lubbock
#75. Babe Ruth made a great mistake when he gave up pitching.
Tris Speaker
#76. It is a great mistake for men to give up paying compliments, for when they give up saying what is charming, they give up thinking what is charming.
Oscar Wilde
#77. If I understand Change, I shall make no great mistake in Life
Confucius
#78. I am always saying what I shouldn't say; in fact, I usually say what I
really think
a great mistake nowadays. It makes one so liable to be
misunderstood.
Oscar Wilde
#79. Some of you think an Indian is like a wild animal. This is a great mistake.
Chief Joseph
#80. Failure is a great teacher and, if you are open to it, every mistake has a lesson to offer.
Oprah Winfrey
#81. I just try to live the right way the best I can. I make plenty of mistakes but I just try to do the best I can and be a great example for my kids.
John Salmons
#82. The rise of China as a new power is another great challenge for the US. Our failure to properly handle Germany and Japan earlier in the 20th century cost us and the world dearly. We must not make this same mistake with China.
Steve Forbes
#83. It is a mistake for anyone to think he has lived too long in his old, unsatisfactory ways to make the great change. If you switch on the light in a dark room, it makes no difference how long it was dark because the light will still shine. Be teachable. That is the whole secret.
Vernon Howard
#84. The sages do not consider that making no mistakes is a blessing. They believe, rather, that the great virtue of man lies in his ability to correct his mistakes and continually make a new man of himself.
Wang Yangming
#85. And yet, you do not throw out some of the great minds of the Church - and people in Church history - and say they have no credibility because they committed a sin or made a mistake.
Walter Martin
#86. Even though Sachin is great, I have always found Rahul more solid and hard to get out. He has a solid defense and plays less shots than others. When a batsman plays less shots then it is tough to get him as he makes less mistakes.
Shoaib Akhtar
#87. One mistake with beginners in writing is, that they think it important to spin out something long. It is a great deal better not to write more than a page or two, unless you have something to say, and can write it correctly.
Lucy Larcom
#88. 80% of the mistakes you will make in information architecture can be caught if you bring in a great usability expert from the beginning.
Roger Black
#89. All the new people you meet, it's pretty amazing. The vampire needs new blood. And there is still a lot to learn and there is always great stuff out there. Even mistakes can be wonderful.
Robin Williams
#90. Grip of Paradox. A predatory bird with a great sharp beak and vicious talons - Paradox. To be in its grip is to suffer, yet so exquisitely, one might mistake the experience for a kind of ecstasy.
Joyce Carol Oates
#91. Don't go see the movies, I'm a troll. I think the movie was great, but their biggest mistake was me.
Jennifer Lawrence
#92. We have not given science too big a place in our education, but we have made a perilous mistake in giving it too great a preponderance in method in every other branch of study.
Woodrow Wilson
#93. We will make a great and awful mistake if we fail to settle Hebron, neighbor and predecessor of Jerusalem, with a large Jewish settlement, constantly growing and expanding, very soon. This will also be a blessing to the Arab neighbors. Hebron is worthy to be Jerusalem's sister.
David Ben-Gurion
#94. Her time on Twin Moons was really getting off to a great start. She hadn't even been awake for one whole morning and she'd already given a peep show to strangers and eaten a whole bowl full of horny fruit by mistake. What the hell was she going to do tonight?
Evangeline Anderson
#95. You can learn great things from your mistakes when you aren't busy denying them. Read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
John Spence
#96. For he was aware of the great secret of life: Women don't look for handsome men. Women look for men who have had beautiful women. Having an ugly mistress is therefore a fatal mistake.
Milan Kundera
#97. Sometimes you think that you need to be perfect, that you cannot make mistakes ... realize you are a human being - like everyone else capable of reaching great potential but not capable of being perfect.
Susan Polis Schutz
#99. It would be so great if it were possible to go through life without making a single mistake but there is no such path. Falling, tripping, losing the way, making mistakes, little by little, walking one step at a time, this is the only way.
Natsuki Takaya
#100. I will never take the fact that I am Welterweight Champion for granted. I learnt my mistake in the past. No matter how great, no matter how people tell me how great I am, I'm always one mistake away from losing everything.
Georges St-Pierre
