Joshua Waitzkin Quotes

If your project doesn't work, look for the part that you didn't think was important.

Well I think that you have to be open and honest in order to learn from your mistakes and be able to correct them in the future to understand what would happen to take things off course. And if we don't address these issues openly and honestly then we don't learn.

I like to give myself time to deal with an issue. I get to the root of the matter and learn from it. I don't like to repeat mistakes.

The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers. The true dangerous thing is asking the wrong question.

Instead of seeking to pinpoint blame, seek to understand cause.

Being a former engineer, you learn to always go back, study yourself, see what you could've done differently, see what you could've said.

Error is always talkative.

Unless you understand the history of a situation, you can't ever hope to solve problems.

A typical software project can present more opportunities to learn from mistakes than some people get in a lifetime.

Spurn not a seeming error, but dig below its surface for the truth.

The important thing in my view is not to pin the blame for a mistake on somebody, but rather to find out what caused the mistake.

The care of the critic should be to distinguish error from inability, faults of inexperience from defects of nature.

All too often, we do smart things only after exhausting every conceivable dumb thing we could have done.

One of the best skills of an entrepreneur is the ability to question. By asking new questions, new answers are found.

The most part of men, though they have the use of reasoning a little way, as in numbering to some degree; yet it serves them to little use in common life; in which they govern themselves, some better, some worse, according to their differences of experience, quickness of memory, and inclinations to several ends; but specially according to good or evil fortune, and the errors of one another.

Confusing common causes with special causes will only make things worse.

It's always wise to seek the truth in our opponents' error, and the error in our own truth.

The tradition of always looking for the answer in the most fundamental way available - that is a great tradition, and it saves a lot of time in this world.

The connection between the language in which we think/program and the problems and solutions we can imagine is very close. For this reason restricting language features with the intent of eliminating programmer errors is at best dangerous.

Programming allows you to think about thinking, and while debugging you learn learning.

If you can properly define the problem, then you've already defined the solution as well.

The fatal errors of life are not due to man's being unreasonable: an unreasonable moment may be one's finest moment. They are due to man's being logical.

The most common source of mistakes in management decisions is the emphasis on finding the right answer rather than the right question.

Learn from your mistakes, trying to figure out what the best way to go forward is.

Never attack a problem without also presenting a solution.