"There is no harm in being sometimes wrong - especially if one is promptly found out"
About this Quote
Being wrong is inevitable in a world shot through with uncertainty; the real danger is in refusing to be corrected. The stress falls on being promptly found out, a celebration of feedback, transparency, and the discipline of evidence. Error becomes a teacher rather than a trap when discovery arrives early enough to limit damage and redirect effort.
John Maynard Keynes built his economics on this pragmatic humility. He distinguished measurable risk from true uncertainty and argued that policy must be experimental, provisional, and ready to pivot as facts emerge. That stance cut against the orthodoxy of his day. During the interwar upheavals and the Great Depression, he challenged the gold standard, balanced-budget austerity, and the complacent belief that markets always self-correct. He urged governments to act boldly, yet to treat action as a trial whose consequences must be monitored and, if necessary, reversed. Better to test and adjust than to cling to a failing doctrine out of pride.
The line also mirrors his life as an investor and public servant. Early trading mistakes taught him to change course, to abandon leverage-heavy speculation for patient, fundamental investing. He managed money, advised the Treasury, and wrote policy proposals with the same principle: design systems that surface errors quickly. Markets correct through prices, science through peer review, democracy through debate and elections; all are institutions engineered for being promptly found out.
There is a moral dimension, too. Admitting error disarms dogma and lowers the social cost of learning. If correction is swift and non-punitive, people experiment more, hoard fewer secrets, and avoid compounding small mistakes into crises. The aphorism therefore endorses intellectual courage and accountability. It invites leaders, citizens, and analysts alike to prize reality over pride, to build feedback loops that reveal truth fast, and to treat revisability not as weakness but as the core of wise judgment.
John Maynard Keynes built his economics on this pragmatic humility. He distinguished measurable risk from true uncertainty and argued that policy must be experimental, provisional, and ready to pivot as facts emerge. That stance cut against the orthodoxy of his day. During the interwar upheavals and the Great Depression, he challenged the gold standard, balanced-budget austerity, and the complacent belief that markets always self-correct. He urged governments to act boldly, yet to treat action as a trial whose consequences must be monitored and, if necessary, reversed. Better to test and adjust than to cling to a failing doctrine out of pride.
The line also mirrors his life as an investor and public servant. Early trading mistakes taught him to change course, to abandon leverage-heavy speculation for patient, fundamental investing. He managed money, advised the Treasury, and wrote policy proposals with the same principle: design systems that surface errors quickly. Markets correct through prices, science through peer review, democracy through debate and elections; all are institutions engineered for being promptly found out.
There is a moral dimension, too. Admitting error disarms dogma and lowers the social cost of learning. If correction is swift and non-punitive, people experiment more, hoard fewer secrets, and avoid compounding small mistakes into crises. The aphorism therefore endorses intellectual courage and accountability. It invites leaders, citizens, and analysts alike to prize reality over pride, to build feedback loops that reveal truth fast, and to treat revisability not as weakness but as the core of wise judgment.
Quote Details
| Topic | Learning from Mistakes |
|---|
More Quotes by John
Add to List
