Many times what we perceive as an error or failure is actually a gift. And eventually we find that lessons learned from that discouraging experience prove to be of great worth.

No matter how loud the sirens or how numerous the hazard signs, we all touch the flames at least once to prove they're hot.

Before you take that first curious, coerced, spiteful, or vengeful step forward, remember this: it’s a thousand times easier to slip into a muddy pit than it is to climb out of one.

We try new things with open minds.Mistakes, they come and go.Attempting what we cannot doIs how we learn and grow.

What baffles me—what will always baffle me—is how easy, how simple, how effortless it was to slip by such lukewarm degrees into the disgraceful state in which I now find myself.

If only I could take it all back. If only I could change a few early choices, those seemingly unimportant, insignificant choices. How vital they appear to me now. How different my life would be if I had not allowed even the least degree of sin to enter in. But time can be turned backwards for no one.

To pause and think about one’s actions, to consider the reasons and causes, to carefully weigh the consequences—this seems an unusual practice for humans. I cannot help but weep over the mountain of grief that might have been avoided if only individuals had paused to think.

Mistakes focus our minds on specific details. They weed out truths and afford us goals, bringing straight to our attention lessons to be learned. Mistakes are not meant to make us failures; they are meant to make us wise.

They urge us to study our history that we might learn from past tragedies and errors. But sometimes I think it's actually a good thing that humanity so easily forgets. The haze that eventually claims old suffering often enables us to move on.