Life & Wisdom Quote by Brenda Ueland

Ueland’s jab lands because it reverses the usual moral hierarchy: shame, not error, is the real character flaw. Calling shame “conceited” is the surgical move. We tend to treat our mistakes as evidence of special personal inadequacy, as if we’re uniquely unfit for the basic messiness of being alive. That’s ego in a gloomy costume. “Timid” completes the diagnosis: shame isn’t humility, it’s fear - fear of being seen learning in public, fear that a misstep will harden into a permanent verdict.

The rhythm matters. “Of course they are mistakes.” It’s almost parental, almost bored. Ueland refuses to grant mistakes the drama we crave when we’re self-punishing. The phrase strips error of its mythic power and returns it to its proper size: ordinary, expected, even useful. That “of course” is a cultural rebuke to perfectionism and to the Protestant-tinged idea that blunders reveal moral rot rather than process.

“Go on to the next” is blunt, forward-leaning craft advice disguised as life advice. Ueland wrote in a century when women were routinely trained to self-edit into silence, and when “being good” often meant being unnoticeable. Her point isn’t permission to be careless; it’s permission to keep moving. The subtext is creative stamina: shame is a time-waster, a way of turning one bad draft into a blocked career. She’s prescribing momentum as an ethic - not because mistakes don’t matter, but because stopping for self-contempt matters less.