Being Wrong Quotes

There's no problem being wrong; it's a learning opportunity.

Criticism ultimately at some degree is about the writer and not the subject. It's very easy if everybody else says, "He's a genius," to echo that, but then you're not functioning as a critic or as a writer in any meaningful way. You've got to take the risk of being wrong.

We are confronted with the possibility of a war of such destruction that the whole existence of our nation and of the whole world is at stake. And yet, people know it - people read it in the newspapers, people read that at the first attack, a hundred million Americans might be killed. And yet, they talk about it as if they were talking about something being wrong with the carburetor of their car, perhaps.

I'm no liar. I could have been wrong, but I ended up not being [wrong]. But I'm no liar.

The problem in this case was you can't be a middle-aged virgin in America without something being wrong with you. People can't conceive of a virtue in someone else that they can't conceive in themselves. Instead of believing you're stronger, it's so much easier to imagine you're weaker.

The cost of being wrong is less than the cost of doing nothing.

Separate yourself from your ideas and your work and see them as something separate from yourself, you’ll feel you truly have the right to be wrong. If an idea fails, why not let it be the idea’s fault instead of your own? Allow your ideas to fail without turning them into personal defeat. When you fail you discover your boundaries. You map out the edges of your capabilities. And this allows you to eventually move beyond them. Being wrong eventually leads to being right. And even where it doesn’t, it’s still a more interesting path than being nothing.

Search marketing, and most Internet marketing in fact, can be very threatening because there are no rules. There’s no safe haven. To do it right, you need to be willing to be wrong. But search marketing done right is all about being wrong. Experimentation is the only way. No one really knows whether that page will rank #1 in Google; no one really knows which paid search copy will get the highest click rate. Even experts can’t tell you which content will attract the most links. You just have to try it and see.

The first ingredient to being wrong is to claim that you are right. Geniuses have a knack for raising new questions. Hence by the public they are either admired for their creativity or, even more commonly so, detested for disturbing the daily peace of mind.

The hardest part is the grueling work of constantly being wrong.

Many books serve merely to show how many ways there are of being wrong, and how far astray you yourself would go if you followed their guidance. You should read only when your own thoughts dry up.

You can risk being wrong or you can be boring.

If I have taken the word, by any reason, it has been because I think it is grave to kill men, under the pretext that they are mistaken on the interpretation of some point, for we know that even the chosen ones are not exempt from sometimes being wrong.

I prefer being wrong in my own way to being right in someone else's.

The first ingredient to being wrong is to claim that you are right.

In really good companies, you have to lead. You have to come up with big ideas and express them forcefully. I have always been encouraged -- or sometimes forced -- to confront the very natural fear of being wrong. I was constantly pushed to find out what I really thought and then to speak up. Over time, I came to see that waiting to discover which way the wind was blowing is an excellent way to learn how to be a follower.

Reading is merely a surrogate for thinking for yourself; it means letting someone else direct your thoughts. Many books, moreover, serve merely to show how many ways there are of being wrong, and how far astray you yourself would go if you followed their guidance. You should read only when your own thoughts dry up, which will of course happen frequently enough even to the best heads; but to banish your own thoughts so as to take up a book is a sin against the holy ghost; it is like deserting untrammeled nature to look at a herbarium or engravings of landscapes.

Being right keeps you in place, being wrong forces you to explore.

I wasn't ever advised by Scott Sullivan of anything ever being wrong.

I have no interest in being wrong, so if I am, please correct me. I don't want to be wrong. There's nothing in it for you or for me to be wrong.

Why should you mind being wrong if someone can show you that you are?

Oh press - must you spread hate? Can't you just stick to being wrong?

Being wrong about important things is exhausting.

Dumbledore says people find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right.

One cannot live a creative life without first letting go of the fear of being wrong.

If you work in either journalism or politics... you will be flogged for being right and flogged for being wrong, and it hurts both ways-but it doesn't hurt as much when you're right.

The word 'heresy' not only means no longer being wrong; it practically means being clear-headed and courageous. The word 'orthodoxy' not only no longer means being right; it practically means being wrong

People cheat when they are afraid. When there is no cost to being wrong or confessing ignorance, there is no reason to cheat or fake comprehension.

How many crimes are permitted simply because their authors could not endure being wrong.

It's easy to win forgiveness for being wrong; being right is what gets you into real trouble.

We can be almost certain of being wrong about the future, if we are wrong about the past.

Mistakes are at the very base of human thought, embedded there, feeding the structure like root nodules. If we were not provided with the knack for being wrong, we could never get anything useful done. We think our way along by choosing between right and wrong alternatives, and the wrong choices have to be made as often as the right ones. We get along in life this way.

You must never feel badly about making mistakes ... as long as you take the trouble to learn from them. For you often learn more by being wrong for the right reasons than you do by being right for the wrong reasons.

(...) being right all the time acquires a huge importance in education, and there is this terror of being wrong. The ego is so tied to being right that later on in life you are reluctant to accept that you are ever wrong, because you are defending not the idea but your self-esteem. (...) this terror of being wrong means that people have enormous difficulties in changing ideas.

I hate being wrong, but I love it when I'm set straight.

I may have my faults, but being wrong ain't one of them.

The worst thing is not being wrong, but being sure one is not wrong.

Silence will save me from being wrong (and foolish), but it will also deprive me of the possibility of being right.

Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.

The secret to being wrong isn't to avoid being wrong! The secret is being willing to be wrong. The secret is realizing that wrong isn't fatal.

I love being wrong because that means in that instant, I learned something new that day.

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.

Successful contrarian investing requires us to live with discomfort, for being "wrong" and alone. But bargains do not exist in the absence of fear.

The worst thing you can do is nothing.

Good science is done by being curious in general, by asking questions all around, by acknowledging the likelihood of being wrong and taking this in good humor for granted, by having a deep fondness for nature, and by being made jumpy and nervous by ignorance.

You will get something wrong today, and tomorrow, and every day of your life. So will I, and everybody you know. You don’t have a choice about being wrong sometimes: mistakes will be your life-long companion. But you do have a choice about whether to approach your error in terror so you suppress, ignore and repeat it — or to make it your honest, open ally in trying to get to the truth.

A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.

Today, not starting is far, far worse than being wrong. If you start, you've got a shot at evolving and adjusting to turn your wrong into a right. But if you don't start, you never get a chance.

I don't really care about being right, I just care about success.

I don't really care about being right, I just care about success. I don't mind being wrong, and I'll admit that I'm wrong a lot. It doesn't really matter to me too much. What matters to me is that we do the right thing.