"We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery"
About this Quote
Smiles is selling a Victorian heresy that still reads like a startup slogan: failure isn’t shameful, it’s instructional. The line works because it flips the era’s public obsession with respectability into a private ethic of experimentation. In a culture where character was currency and error could mark you as morally suspect, he recasts the mistake as evidence of serious engagement with the world. Not sin, but data.
The quote’s engine is its escalation. It starts with the mild claim that wisdom comes “much more” from failure than success, then tightens into a practical method: we learn what works by mapping what doesn’t. That second sentence is the real payload. Smiles isn’t romanticizing hardship; he’s describing an iterative process, the kind of trial-and-error logic that underwrites invention, industry, and self-improvement literature alike. Success, in this framing, is ambiguous and often unrevealing. It can be luck, timing, privilege. Failure is specific. It leaves a bruise shaped like a lesson.
The final jab - “he who never made a mistake never made a discovery” - is a moral verdict masquerading as encouragement. It praises risk-taking while quietly shaming the cautious. Smiles, famous for Self-Help, is writing into an industrializing Britain where social mobility seemed newly possible but precarious. His subtext is that progress, personal or national, requires tolerating mess, reversals, and reputational risk. The modern appeal is obvious: it sanctifies the stumble. The more unsettling implication is just as current: if you’re not failing, you might not be trying anything worth doing.
The quote’s engine is its escalation. It starts with the mild claim that wisdom comes “much more” from failure than success, then tightens into a practical method: we learn what works by mapping what doesn’t. That second sentence is the real payload. Smiles isn’t romanticizing hardship; he’s describing an iterative process, the kind of trial-and-error logic that underwrites invention, industry, and self-improvement literature alike. Success, in this framing, is ambiguous and often unrevealing. It can be luck, timing, privilege. Failure is specific. It leaves a bruise shaped like a lesson.
The final jab - “he who never made a mistake never made a discovery” - is a moral verdict masquerading as encouragement. It praises risk-taking while quietly shaming the cautious. Smiles, famous for Self-Help, is writing into an industrializing Britain where social mobility seemed newly possible but precarious. His subtext is that progress, personal or national, requires tolerating mess, reversals, and reputational risk. The modern appeal is obvious: it sanctifies the stumble. The more unsettling implication is just as current: if you’re not failing, you might not be trying anything worth doing.
Quote Details
| Topic | Learning from Mistakes |
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