Authors: Editors of Reader's Digest
â
G
ENE
H
ILL
in
Field & Stream
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Believe one who has tried it.
â
V
IRGIL
Â
Information's pretty thin stuff unless mixed with experience.
â
C
LARENCE
D
AY
The Crow's Nest
Â
Only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches.
â
P
ROVERB
Â
A man begins cutting his wisdom teeth the first time he bites off more than he can chew.
â
H
ERB
C
AEN
Â
The value of experience is not in seeing much, but in seeing wisely.
â
S
IR
W
ILLIAM
O
SLER
Â
One thing about experience is that when you don't have very much you're apt to get a lot.
â
F
RANKLIN
P
.
J
ONES
in
Quote
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Experience is a wonderful thing; it enables you to recognize a mistake every time you repeat it.
âThe Associated Press
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We learn to walk by stumbling.
â
B
ULGARIAN PROVERB
Â
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
â
M
ARK
T
WAIN
Â
People learn something every day, and a lot of times it's that what they learned the day before was wrong.
â
B
ILL
V
AUGHAN
Â
Just when you think you've graduated from the school of experience, someone thinks up a new course.
â
M
ARY
H
.
W
ALDRIP
Â
Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want.
â
D
AN
S
TANFORD
Â
Anybody who profits from the experience of others probably writes biographies.
â
F
RANKLIN
P
.
J
ONES
Â
If we could sell our experiences for what they cost us, we'd all be millionaires.
â
A
BIGAIL
V
AN
B
UREN
Â
Half, maybe more, of the delight of experiencing is to know what you are experiencing.
â
J
ESSAMYN
W
EST
Hide and Seek
Â
Perhaps the angels who fear to tread where fools rush in used to be fools who rushed in.
â
F
RANKLIN
P
.
J
ONES
Â
H
E WHO HESITATESÂ
. . .
Â
He who hesitates is last.
â
The Wit and Wisdom of Mae West
edited by Joseph Weintraub
Â
He who hesitates is sometimes saved.
â
J
AMES
T
HURBER
Fables for Our Time
Â
These things are good in little measure and evil in large: yeast, salt and hesitation.
â
The Talmud
Â
The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides.
â
H
ENRI
F
RÃDÃRIC
A
MIEL
Â
A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault.
â
J
OHN
H
ENRY
C
ARDINAL
N
EWMAN
Â
It's better to be boldly decisive and risk being wrong than to agonize at length and be right too late.
â
M
ARILYN
M
OATS
K
ENNEDY
Across the Board
Â
If all difficulties were known at the outset of a long journey, most of us would never start out at all.
â
D
AN
R
ATHER WITH
P
ETER
W
YDEN
I Remember
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Decision is a sharp knife that cuts clean and straight. Indecision is a dull one that hacks and tears and leaves ragged edges behind.
â
J
AN
M
C
K
EITHEN
Â
The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions.
â
A
LFRED
A
DLER
Â
You have to be careful about being too careful.
â
B
ERYL
P
FIZER
Â
If you wait, all that happens is that you get older.
â
L
ARRY
M
C
M
URTRY
Some Can Whistle
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If you take too long in deciding what to do with your life, you'll find you've done it.
â
P
AM
S
HAW
Â
To think too long about doing a thing often becomes its undoing.
â
E
VA
Y
OUNG
Â
When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that is in itself a choice.
â
W
ILLIAM
J
AMES
Â
Half the failures in life arise from pulling in one's horse as he is leaping.
â
J
ULIUS
C
HARLES
H
ARE AND
A
UGUSTUS
W
ILLIAM
H
ARE
Â
Give me the benefit of your convictions, if you have any; but keep your doubts to yourself, for I have enough of my own.
â
J
OHANN
W
OLFGANG VON
G
OETHE
Â
Throughout history, the most common debilitating human ailment has been cold feet.
â
Country
Â
Calculation never made a hero.
â
J
OHN
H
ENRY
C
ARDINAL
N
EWMAN
Â
He who hesitates is interrupted.
â
F
RANKLIN
P
.
J
ONES
Â
I
F YOU CAN'T MAKE A MISTAKEÂ
. . .
Â
If you can't make a mistake, you can't make anything.
â
M
ARVA
N
.
C
OLLINS
Â
Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.
â
B
ABE
R
UTH
Â
The greatest mistake you can make in life is continually to be fearing you will make one.
â
E
LBERT
H
UBBARD
Â
A stumble may prevent a fall.
â
E
NGLISH PROVERB
Â
He who never made a mistake never made a discovery.
â
S
AMUEL
S
MILES
Â
A mistake proves that someone stopped talking long enough to do something.
â
P
HOENIX
F
LAME
Â
Mistakes are the usual bridge between inexperience and wisdom.
â
P
HYLLIS
T
HEROUX
Night Lights
Â
Better to ask twice than to lose your way once.
â
D
ANISH PROVERB
Â
We're all proud of making little mistakes. It gives us the feeling we don't make any big ones.
â
A
NDREW
A
.
R
OONEY
Not That You Asked . . .
Â
To err is human; to admit it, superhuman.
â
D
OUG
L
ARSON
Â
Admit your errors before someone else exaggerates them.
â
A
NDREW
V
.
M
ASON,
MD
Â
There is no saint without a pastâno sinner without a future.
â
A
NCIENT
P
ERSIAN
M
ASS
Â
Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition, there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.
â
G
EORGE
S
OROS
Soros on Soros
Â
One of the most dangerous forms of human error is forgetting what one is trying to achieve.
â
P
AUL
N
ITZE
Â
It is very easy to forgive others their mistakes; it takes more grit and gumption to forgive them for having witnessed your own.
â
J
ESSAMYN
W
EST
Â
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.
â
S
ANTIAGO
R
AMÃN Y
C
AJAL
Charlas de Cafe
Â
Always acknowledge a fault frankly. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you opportunity to commit more.
â
M
ARK
T
WAIN
Â
To obtain maximum attention, it's hard to beat a good, big mistake.
â
D
AVID
D
.
H
EWITT
Â
Justifying a fault doubles it.
â
F
RENCH PROVERB
Â
Your worst humiliation is only someone else's momentary entertainment.
â
K
AREN
C
ROCKETT
Â
He who is afraid to ask is ashamed of learning.
â
D
ANISH PROVERB
Â
The only nice thing about being imperfect is the joy it brings to others.
â
D
OUG
L
ARSON
Â
Nine times out of ten, the first thing a man's companion knows of his shortcomings is from his apology.
â
O
LIVER
W
ENDELL
H
OLMES
S
R.
Â
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
â
J
OHN
K
ENNETH
G
ALBRAITH
Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went
Â
I'
D RATHER BE A FAILUREÂ
. . .
Â
I'd rather be a failure at something I enjoy than be a success at something I hate.
â
G
EORGE
B
URNS
Â
You never conquer a mountain. You stand on the summit a few moments; then the wind blows your footprints away.
â
A
RLENE
B
LUM
Â
Victory is in the quality of competition, not the final score.
â
M
IKE
M
ARSHALL
Â
Laurels don't make much of a cushion.
â
D
OROTHY
R
ABINOWITZ
Â
Success covers a multitude of blunders.
â
B
ERNARD
S
HAW
Â
Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.
â
T
RUMAN
C
APOTE
Â
Success and failure. We think of them as opposites, but they're really not. They're companionsâthe hero and the sidekick.
â
L
AURENCE
S
HAMES
Â
Don't confuse fame with success. Madonna is one; Helen Keller is the other.
â
E
RMA
B
OMBECK
Â
The hero reveals the possibilities of human nature; the celebrity reveals the possibilities of the media.
â
D
ANIEL
J
.
B
OORSTIN
The Image
Â
Oh, the difference between nearly right and exactly right.
â
H
ORACE
J
.
B
ROWN
Â
Success is never final, but failure can be.
â
B
ILL
P
ARCELLS
Finding a Way to Win
Â
I couldn't wait for success . . . so I went ahead without it.
â
J
ONATHAN
W
INTERS
Â
There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying.
â
F
RANCIS
B
ACON
Â
You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.