Who really said it

Success does not consist in never making blunders, but in never making the same one a second time

Q: Did George Bernard Shaw say "Success does not consist in never making blunders, but in never making the same one a second time"?

No. This line was not written by George Bernard Shaw. As Quote Investigator documents, it originated with the 19th-century American humorist Josh Billings, whose real name was Henry Wheeler Shaw — and it first appeared in print in February 1872, decades before the modern "Shaw" mix-up. Billings wrote it in his trademark phonetic spelling: "Success don't konsist in never making blunders, but in never making the same one the seckond time."

Not George Bernard Shaw — actually Josh Billings Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) 1818–1885 · American humorist & lecturer

Disputed Free to reuse

This line was not written by George Bernard Shaw. As Quote Investigator ↗ documents, it originated with the 19th-century American humorist Josh Billings, whose real name was Henry Wheeler Shaw — and it first appeared in print in February 1872, decades before the modern “Shaw” mix-up. Billings wrote it in his trademark phonetic spelling: “Success don’t konsist in never making blunders, but in never making the same one the seckond time.”

Last verified 10 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Success does not consist in never making blunders, but in never making the same one a second time” Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw), first printed February 1872 — not George Bernard Shaw.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to George Bernard Shaw. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Free to use, including in commercial and paid presentations — no permission or licence needed.

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

In context

Evoking the world of Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) — American humorist & lecturer. Theme: "Success does not consist in never making blunders, but in never making the same one a second time". 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 "Success does not consist in never making blunders, but in never making the same one a second time". 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

Originator: Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw)
First printed: February 1872, “The Daily State Journal” (Alexandria, Virginia)
Collected in: Everybody’s Friend, or Josh Billings’s Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor
Original spelling: “Success don’t konsist in never making blunders, but in never making the same one the seckond time.”

Success don’t konsist in never making blunders, but in never making the same one the seckond time.

Billings deliberately used eccentric phonetic spelling; newspapers often standardized it on reprinting, which is how the smoothed modern wording — “Success does not consist in never making blunders…” — entered circulation.

Quote Investigator: tracing the “blunders” saying to Josh Billings

How we verified this

The saying is traced to humorist Josh Billings, first printed in February 1872, in Quote Investigator’s full investigation ↗.
“Josh Billings” was the pen name of Henry Wheeler Shaw (1818–1885) ↗, an American humorist second in fame only to Mark Twain in his day.
The shared surname “Shaw” is the likeliest root of the modern misattribution to the playwright George Bernard Shaw — a confusion Quote Investigator’s record does not support.

Public domain

The saying was first published in February 1872 by Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) — far earlier than the 1931 U.S. copyright threshold — and Billings died in 1885, so both the wording and his collected works are firmly in the public domain.

Fact-check

How it ended up on George Bernard Shaw

The line is a genuine 19th-century American aphorism — but by the wrong Shaw. The famous playwright’s name is a magnet for polished, motivational sayings, and a shared surname did the rest.

George Bernard Shaw Misattributed

Countless quote sites and business books pin this on the Irish playwright, but Quote Investigator ↗ finds no evidence he ever wrote or said it; its documented trail begins with Josh Billings in 1872.

Two men named Shaw Name confusion

The true author, Henry Wheeler Shaw ↗, shares a surname with George Bernard Shaw — and mid-20th-century reprints that credited only “H. W. Shaw” made the slide to the more famous Shaw easy.

Anonymous editors Paraphrase

Billings wrote it phonetically (“don’t konsist… the seckond time”); newspapers standardized the spelling and later versions swapped “blunders” for “mistakes” and “the second time” for “a second time,” producing the smooth modern line.

It’s a real Josh Billings maxim from February 1872, not a George Bernard Shaw quotation — per Quote Investigator ↗.

Context

A humorist's maxim, dressed up

Josh Billings built his fame on plain-spoken, deliberately misspelled wit — the 19th-century equivalent of a viral one-liner. This saying is classic Billings: a tidy paradox about learning from failure, sharp enough to survive long after its author’s dialect spelling was scrubbed away.

Once the phonetic quirks were standardized and the byline shortened to “H. W. Shaw,” the line was easy prey for the internet’s habit of upgrading anonymous or half-remembered wisdom to a marquee name — here, the other, far more famous Shaw.

A real aphorism, by the wrong Shaw.

Explore

Filed under

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

Failure Success 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 Investigator — the blunders sayingquoteinvestigator.com

Definitive origin trace to Josh Billings, with the February 1872 first citation and later attributions.

Josh Billings — Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Biography of Henry Wheeler Shaw (1818–1885), the humorist behind the pen name.

Quote Investigator — Josh Billings archivequoteinvestigator.com

Other sayings correctly traced to Josh Billings, useful for context on his misattributed lines.

1911 Britannica: Henry Wheeler Shawen.wikisource.org

Public-domain encyclopedia entry on the man behind Josh Billings.

George Bernard Shaw — Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

The playwright the line is popularly (and wrongly) credited to.

The author

About Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw)

Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw)

1818–1885 · American humorist & lecturer

Henry Wheeler Shaw wrote under the pen name Josh Billings, dispensing folksy, aphoristic wit in a deliberately misspelled, phonetic style that delighted 19th-century readers. In the decades after the Civil War he was arguably America’s most popular humorist after Mark Twain, publishing best-selling collections and a long-running comic almanac. Many of his crisp maxims — later smoothed into standard spelling — still circulate today, frequently misattributed to more famous names.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Quote Investigator

Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw), “Success don’t konsist in never making blunders…,” earliest documented in The Daily State Journal (Alexandria, VA), February 1872; per Quote Investigator, “Success Don’t Konsist in Never Making Blunders…,” March 29, 2019.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Success does not consist in never making blunders, but in never making the same one a second time’?” Last verified 10 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/success-does-not-consist-in-never-making-blunders-but-in