“It is not my purpose to attempt a real autobiography. I simply want to tell the story of my experiments with truth...as my life consists of nothing but those experiments.”
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Source: An Autobiography, or The Story of My Experiments with Truth (1927), Introduction, Vol. I, p. 3.
About this quote
Presenting a life as a run of trials and errors rather than a triumphant story is an act of humility. It frames principles as things to be tested by living, not proclaimed — you try an idea, watch what it actually does, and stay willing to be proven wrong.
When to use it
- A cook who keeps a notebook of what flopped, not just the dishes that worked, and adjusts from it.
- A new manager who treats each week as a small trial of how to run meetings, dropping what fails.
- Someone quitting smoking who logs the honest relapses instead of pretending the effort was smooth.