Virginia Postrel Quotes

Sometimes the best way to learn something is by doing it wrong and looking at what you did.

Often I'll try things that just won't happen the way I'd like them to, so hearing that they're not working saves me some wear and tear the next time around.

I think mistakes are the essence of science and law. It's impossible to conceive of either scientific progress or legal progress without understanding the important role of being wrong and of mistakes.

Science is the practice of failing repeatedly but learning as you go.

When you're first starting a show, any show, you learn what works and what doesn't work, and it's a kind of trial and error thing.

It's OK when something doesn't work. It gives you another data point when things do work.

No one is exempt from the rule that learning occurs through recognition of error.

That is the trouble with many inventors; they lack patience. They lack the willingness to work a thing out slowly and clearly and sharply in their mind, so that they can actually "feel it work." They want to try their first idea right off; and the result is they use up lots of money and lots of good material, only to find eventually that they are working in the wrong direction. We all make mistakes, and it is better to make them before we begin.

To learn anything other than the stuff you find in books, you need to be able to experiment, to make mistakes, to accept feedback, and to try again. It doesn't matter whether you are learning to ride a bike or starting a new career, the cycle of experiment, feedback, and new experiment is always there.

Oftentimes the shows that don't work help you get it right.

Look, you have to make mistakes. That's how you learn and that's how the world works.

Every time you find something that doesn't work, you're a step closer to what does work.

I have found that I always learn more from my mistakes than from my successes. If you aren't making some mistakes, you aren't taking enough chances.

Failure is essential. Trial and error is necessary.

Experience enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.

There's always something in the game you wish you would have done different. That's why players improve, because they learn from what they did before. They might have been guessing before, but now they know.

You make a ton of progress by making a ton of mistakes.

Almost nothing works the first time it's attempted. Just because what you're doing does not seem to be working, doesn't mean it won't work. It just means that it might not work the way you're doing it.

Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else.

To swear off making mistakes is very easy. All you have to do is swear off having ideas.

Experience teaches slowly, and at the cost of mistakes.

Most intuitive ideas have to be clarified, so there is a trial and error process.

We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.

The only way to progress is to make mistakes… We are learning the hard way.

Mistakes happen, and then you try to overcome those. I like that process.