“We learn, when we learn, only from experience, and then we only learn from our mistakes. Our successes only serve to reinforce our superstitions.”
The New High Intensity Training (2004)
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Arthur Jones (inventor) 11
American inventor 1926–2007Related quotes
“Nothing fails like success because we don't learn from it. We learn only from failure.”
Kenneth Boulding (1971) "The diminishing returns of science" in: New Scientist. (March 25, 1971) Vol. 49, nr. 744. p. 682
1970s
Context: Perhaps the most difficult ethical problem of the scientific community arises not so much from conflict with other subcultures as from its own success. Nothing fails like success because we don't learn from it. We learn only from failure.
Source: Soul Curry for You and Me: An Empowering Philosophy that Can Enrich Your Life, P. 27.
“The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.”
“Learned we may be with another man's learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own.”
Source: The Complete Essays
“We learn a lot from the mistakes of others, but even more from our own.”
Examples of self-translation (c. 2004), Quotes - Zitate - Citations - Citazioni
Speech to the Western Society of Engineers (18 September 1901); published in the Journal of the Western Society of Engineers (December 1901); republished with revisions by the author for the Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution (1902) http://invention.psychology.msstate.edu/i/Wrights/library/Aeronautical.html
Context: The person who merely watches the flight of a bird gathers the impression that the bird has nothing to think of but the flapping of its wings. As a matter of fact this is a very small part of its mental labor. To even mention all the things the bird must constantly keep in mind in order to fly securely through the air would take a considerable part of the evening. If I take this piece of paper, and after placing it parallel with the ground, quickly let it fall, it will not settle steadily down as a staid, sensible piece of paper ought to do, but it insists on contravening every recognized rule of decorum, turning over and darting hither and thither in the most erratic manner, much after the style of an untrained horse. Yet this is the style of steed that men must learn to manage before flying can become an everyday sport. The bird has learned this art of equilibrium, and learned it so thoroughly that its skill is not apparent to our sight. We only learn to appreciate it when we try to imitate it.
Source: Think Big (1996), p. 175