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Who really said it

We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery

Written by Samuel Smiles 1812–1904 · Scottish author & reformer
Verified Free to reuse

Word-for-word from Smiles’s bestseller Self-Help (1859), Chapter XI, “Self-Culture — Facilities and Difficulties.” The primary text carries this exact wording — including “much more” and “probably” — so the popular quotation is genuine.

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

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“We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery” Samuel Smiles, Self-Help (1859), ch. 11

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In context

Evoking the world of Samuel Smiles — Scottish author, reformer & pioneer of self-improvement writing. Theme: "We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery". 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.

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Provenance

The source

Work
Self-Help; with Illustrations of Character and Conduct
Author
Samuel Smiles (1812–1904)
First published
1859 (John Murray, London)
Location
Chapter XI, “Self-Culture — Facilities and Difficulties”

We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.

From Smiles’s discussion of how difficulties and mistakes are a person’s “best instructors.”

Self-Help (1859) full text

How we know

  • Quote Investigator traces the family of “never made a mistake” maxims and names Smiles’s 1859 Self-Help as an early documented source (Quote Investigator ↗).
  • Wikiquote’s sourced section attributes the exact wording to Self-Help (1859), Chapter XI (Wikiquote ↗).
  • The full text of Self-Help carries the passage verbatim, confirming “much more” and “probably” (full text ↗).
Public domain

Self-Help was first published in 1859, well before 1931, so its text is in the public domain in the United States. It is freely available via Project Gutenberg ↗.

Fact-check

Watch the short version

The full passage is authentically Smiles’s. But its closing clause circulates on its own and gets pinned on other famous names.

Albert Einstein misattributed

The stand-alone mistake-maxim is frequently credited to Einstein online, but Quote Investigator finds no support for that and documents Smiles’s 1859 wording as far earlier (Quote Investigator ↗).

Theodore Roosevelt and others variant

Quote Investigator records related sayings attached over time to Josh Billings, Theodore Roosevelt, and others — a whole family of mistake-maxims distinct from Smiles’s original sentence (Quote Investigator ↗).

The complete quotation — “We learn wisdom from failure…” through “never made a discovery” — is genuinely Samuel Smiles, verbatim in Self-Help (1859), Chapter XI (Wikiquote ↗).

Context

Why it mattered

Smiles wrote Self-Help as a manual for ordinary people striving to better themselves, and this passage sits at the heart of his argument: that difficulty, effort, and even outright failure are a person’s truest teachers. Where others feared mistakes, Smiles reframed them as the raw material of discovery.

The line endures because it captures a durable truth about learning — that progress often comes by ruling out “what will not do.” It is quoted today across science, engineering, and entrepreneurship as a defence of productive failure.

We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do.

Explore

Filed under

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

Failure Wisdom 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.

Self-Help (full text, eBook #935)gutenberg.org

Project Gutenberg’s free edition of Smiles’s 1859 book, containing the passage.
Samuel Smilesen.wikiquote.org

Wikiquote’s sourced entry citing Self-Help (1859), Chapter XI for this line.
Quote Origin: never made a mistakequoteinvestigator.com

Traces the mistake-maxim family and names Smiles’s 1859 wording as an early source.
Self-Help, Chapter XI textfulltextarchive.com

Full-text copy confirming the verbatim ‘much more’ and ‘probably’ wording.
Samuel Smiles (biography)en.wikipedia.org

Background on the author and the reception of Self-Help.

The true author

About Samuel Smiles

Samuel Smiles

1812–1904 · Scottish author, reformer & pioneer of self-improvement writing

Samuel Smiles was a Scottish physician-turned-author whose 1859 book Self-Help became one of the defining works of Victorian self-improvement, selling hundreds of thousands of copies. He championed perseverance, thrift, and character, illustrating his maxims with biographies of inventors, engineers, and self-made men. His later works included Character (1871), Thrift (1875), and Duty (1880).

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Samuel Smiles, Self-Help; with Illustrations of Character and Conduct (London: John Murray, 1859), ch. 11, “Self-Culture — Facilities and Difficulties.”

MLA (9th ed.)

Smiles, Samuel. Self-Help; with Illustrations of Character and Conduct. John Murray, 1859.

APA (7th ed.)

Smiles, S. (1859). Self-help; with illustrations of character and conduct. John Murray.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery’?” Last verified 10 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/we-learn-wisdom-from-failure-much-more-than-from-success-we

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