“You should never be ashamed to admit you have been wrong. It only proves you are wiser today than yesterday”

— Jonathan Swift

Alexander Pope, Thoughts on Various Subjects (1727), Published in Swift's Miscellanies (1727)
Misattributed
Variant: A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "You should never be ashamed to admit you have been wrong. It only proves you are wiser today than yesterday" by Jonathan Swift?

Jonathan Swift photo

Jonathan Swift 141

Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet 1667–1745

Related quotes

“A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

Thoughts on Various Subjects (1727)

“Wisely humble people are never afraid to admit they were wrong. When they do it, it’s like saying they’re wiser today than they were yesterday.”

John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor

Book Sometimes you win Sometimes you Learn

“When you come to see you are not as wise today as you thought you were yesterday, you are wiser today.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

Wisdom
Source: One Minute Wisdom (1989)

“I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Included in Portrait-Life of Lincoln (1910) by Francis T Miller
Posthumous attributions

“The life of this world is made up of three days: yesterday has gone with all that was done; tomorrow, you may never reach; but today is for you so do what you should do today.”

Hasan al-Basri (642–728) Iranian Sufi Saint

Quoted in Al-Bayhaqi, Al-Zuhd Al-Kabîr p197

“Never regret yesterday. Life is in you today, and you make your tomorrow.”

L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986) American science fiction author, philosopher, cult leader, and the founder of the Church of Scientology

The Creation Of Human Ability (1954).

“If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

“Under these circumstances, except for any personal humiliation involved in admitting that I do not always understand the opinions of this Court, I see no reason why I should be consciously wrong today because I was unconsciously wrong yesterday.”

Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) American judge

Massachusetts v. United States, 333 U.S. 611, 639-40 (1948) (dissenting)
Judicial opinions

“If what you have done yesterday still looks big to you, you haven't done much today.”

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

101 Best Ways to Get Ahead: Solid Gold Advice from 101 of the World's Most Successful People (2004) by Michael E. Angier and Sarah Pond, p. 30
1990s

“Each day I love you more. Today more than yesterday but less than tomorrow. ”

Роземонд Жерар (1871–1953)

Related topics