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Who really said it

A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new

Nobody famous — a Victorian commonplace Unknown Anonymous · the family of sayings runs back to 1832
Disputed Rights unconfirmed

There is no Einstein source — not a letter, a lecture, an interview or a reported remark. The saying belongs to a Victorian self-help family that predates him: Samuel Smiles wrote ‘he who never made a mistake, never made a discovery’ in 1859, an unattributed version using the word ‘tried’ was circulating by 1901, and Theodore Roosevelt was quoted using a variant in 1900. The earliest Einstein credit Quote Investigator has found is a 1995 newspaper — forty years after he died.

Last verified 21 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new” An anonymous saying with Victorian roots — Samuel Smiles wrote a version in 1859. Not Albert Einstein.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Albert Einstein. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the themes of failure and growth. Theme: "A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Origin
Anonymous — no single author
Earliest named ancestor
Samuel Smiles, Self-Help, 1859
Closest named wording
Mr. Phelps, reported in Punch, Feb 1889
Earliest ‘tried’ version
1901, unattributed
Einstein credit first seen
1995, Syracuse Herald-Journal

He who never made a mistake, never made a discovery. Samuel Smiles, 1859

Smiles’s version, and the earliest named ancestor this saying has — though a closer-worded line was reported of an American minister, a Mr. Phelps, in Punch, 1889. Note the difference in ambition: Smiles is talking about discovery — the scientist’s bargain, where errors are the cost of finding anything at all. The modern rewrite widens it to ‘anything new,’ which is friendlier and vaguer.

Quote Investigator — the full trace, 1832 to 1995

How we traced it

  • The oldest relative located is from The New Sporting Magazine in 1832, unattributed: ‘He who never makes an effort, never risks a failure.’ The shape of the thought is already there, twenty-seven years before Smiles and forty-seven before Einstein was born the trace ↗.
  • Samuel Smiles gave it its most quotable Victorian form in Self-Help (1859). Theodore Roosevelt’s biographer Jacob Riis recorded him using another variant in 1900 — ‘the only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything’ — which was already in circulation before Roosevelt picked it up.
  • A closer-worded named instance turns up in 1889: the London magazine Punch reported an American minister, a Mr. Phelps, saying ‘a man who never makes a mistake will never make anything’ at a farewell banquet — nearer the modern line than Smiles, and with a name attached, though not Einstein’s the trace ↗.
  • The Einstein connection is the newest part of the story, not the oldest. The first linkage located is the Syracuse Herald-Journal in 1995. Quote Investigator found no earlier Einstein source, and Wikiquote’s editors record no original source for it either — the earliest trace they log is an internet post from 1996.

We are omitting a rights status here, because there is no single text to assign one to. The Victorian ancestors — the 1832 magazine, Smiles in 1859, the 1900 and 1901 versions — are long out of copyright and free to quote. The modern wording on this page is an anonymous drift with no identifiable author or first publication, so no term can be calculated for it. Einstein’s own writings are a separate question that does not arise, because none of this is his. This is not legal advice.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

The attribution problem

Nothing exotic went wrong here. A common Victorian sentiment lost its authors, floated free for most of a century, and got adopted in the 1990s by the most quotable scientist available.

Not Albert Einstein no source, credit dates from 1995

No letter, lecture, interview or reported remark. The earliest Einstein linkage Quote Investigator has found is a 1995 newspaper — four decades after his death — and Wikiquote’s editors log no original source for it either the trace ↗.

Real, but different words ancestor, not author

‘He who never made a mistake, never made a discovery’ (1859) is genuinely his and genuinely earlier. It is not this sentence — ‘discovery’ is narrower than ‘anything new’ — so he is the earliest named ancestor rather than the source. A closer-worded line — ‘a man who never makes a mistake will never make anything’ — was reported of an American minister, a Mr. Phelps, at a banquet in Punch, February 1889.

Used a variant, did not coin it popularised

Riis recorded him saying ‘the only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything’ in 1900. It was already circulating; Roosevelt spread it rather than started it.

Also credited at various times unsupported or unrelated

Names attach themselves to sayings of this shape the way iron filings attach to a magnet. Conrad and Billings used related lines of their own; Franklin has no documented connection at all.

An anonymous saying with Victorian ancestry — Smiles in 1859, an unattributed ‘tried’ version by 1901. The Einstein credit appears in 1995 and has no source behind it the trace ↗.

Context

Why it resonates

It reframes failure as evidence rather than verdict — if you have never got anything wrong, the problem is not your record but your ambition. That is a genuinely useful reframe, and it is why the saying keeps being reinvented in every generation’s self-help vocabulary.

The false credit does real work too. Attached to Einstein, it stops being advice and starts being testimony: the man who was right about the universe telling you that being wrong is the price of admission. That is a much stronger claim, and it is the one thing about the quote that is not true.

The saying is nearly two centuries old. The Einstein credit is thirty.

The family tree, in order

1832: The New Sporting Magazine, unattributed — ‘He who never makes an effort, never risks a failure.’

1859: Samuel Smiles, Self-Help — ‘he who never made a mistake, never made a discovery.’

1889: Punch reports a Mr. Phelps at a banquet — ‘a man who never makes a mistake will never make anything’ — the closest named wording.

1900: Theodore Roosevelt, recorded by Jacob Riis, using a variant already in circulation.

1901: a version using the word ‘tried’ appears, still with no author attached.

1995: the first located Einstein credit, in the Syracuse Herald-Journal.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Failure Growth

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Origin: The Person Who Never Makes a Mistake Will Never Make Anythingquoteinvestigator.com

The full archival trace from 1832 through Smiles and Roosevelt to the 1995 Einstein credit.
6 Things Albert Einstein Never Saidhistory.com

Six Einstein lines with no Einstein source — how Calaprice’s Ultimate Quotable Einstein separates real from invented. This quote is not among the six, but the pattern is the same.
Talk:Albert Einstein — sourcing discussionen.wikiquote.org

The editors’ working notes on which Einstein lines have citations and which have never had one.

Popularly credited author

Why it gets pinned on Einstein

Albert Einstein

1879–1955 · theoretical physicist

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) is the default author for any encouraging remark about intelligence, failure or curiosity, which is why Princeton University Press’s The Ultimate Quotable Einstein devotes entire sections to things he probably or definitely did not say. The pull here is specific: a saying that forgives mistakes lands harder from the cleverest man of the century, and the myth that he failed school maths — itself false — makes the fit feel natural. Neither the fit nor the myth is evidence.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Anonymous saying. Nearest named ancestor: Smiles, Samuel. Self-Help (1859). Unattributed ‘tried’ version by 1901. Earliest located Einstein credit: Syracuse Herald-Journal, 1995.

MLA (9th ed.)

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” Anonymous saying; earliest ‘tried’ version 1901.

APA (7th ed.)

A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. (1995, earliest located instance of this wording). Anonymous saying [a different-worded ‘tried’ antecedent appears in 1901].

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new’?” Last verified 21 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/a-person-who-never-made-a-mistake-never-tried-anything/

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