“An expert is a person who has found out by his own painful experience all the mistakes that one can make in a very narrow field.”
As quoted by Edward Teller, in Dr. Edward Teller's Magnificent Obsession by Robert Coughlan, in LIFE magazine (6 September 1954), p. 62 http://books.google.de/books?id=I1QEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA62
As quoted by Edward Teller (10 October 1972), and A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (1991) by Alan L. Mackay, p. 35
Variant: An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field.
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Niels Bohr 37
Danish physicist 1885–1962Related quotes
Ein Fachmann ist ein Mann, der einige der gröbsten Fehler kennt, die man in dem betreffenden Fach machen kann, und der sie deshalb zu vermeiden versteht.
Der Teil und das Ganze. Gespräche im Umkreis der Atomphysik (1969); also in "Kein Chaos, aus dem nicht wieder Ordnung würde", Die Zeit No. 34 (22 August 1969); as translated in Physics and Beyond : Encounters and Conversation (1971)
Source: Reforming Education: The Schooling of a People and Their Education Beyond Schooling (1977), p. 255
Part 5: "The World of One Physicist", "The 7 Percent Solution", p. 255
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (1985)
Source: Celebrating Silence: Excerpts from Five Years of Weekly Knowledge 1995-2000
" My 8 Big Ideas https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286624424_My_8_Big_Ideas" (2011), p. 9
"The Testament of a Furniture Dealer" http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_US/pdf/reports-downloads/the-testament-of-a-furniture-dealer.pdf (1976).
“We all make mistakes but one has to move on.”
“A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous.”