Quotes About Fallibility

Being what we humans are, what else could we do but wrong?

When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together. —ISAAC ASIMOV, THE RELATIVITY OF WRONG, 1989

Its human to error no one is immune to it

It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.

Yet it is unassailably true that so long as we lack omniscience and do not know all of the future, all our generalizations are fallible or only probable. And the history of human error shows that a general consensus, or widespread and unquestioned feeling of certainty, does not preclude the possibility that the future may show us to be in error.

Take any man you like of the persons whom you thus term rascals. That man none the less remains a human being. That being so, how can one refuse to defend him when all the time one knows that half his errors have been committed through ignorance and stupidity? Each of us commits faults with every step that we take; each of us entails unhappiness upon others with every breath that we draw—and that although we may have no evil intention whatever in our minds.

i'm only human, & inadequacy is what makes us human, & if we was perfect we wdnt have nothin to strive for, so you might as well go on & forgive me pretty baby, cause i'm sorry

We are all wrong at some times and to some degree. A person who claims never to have been wrong is simply a person with a very convenient memory.

es imposible que los dos estén en lo cierto. Sí es posible, en cambio, que los dos estén en un error

Since nothing we intend is ever faultless, and nothing we attempt ever without error, and nothing we achieve without some measure of finitude and fallibility we call humanness, we are saved by forgiveness. DAVID AUGSBURGER

But like mortals you will die, and like rulers you will fall.”

Surely there is no righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.

Only this have I found: I have discovered that God made men upright, but they have sought out many schemes.”

So the one who thinks he is standing firm should be careful not to fall.