There's no learning without trying lots of ideas and failing lots

“There’s no learning without trying lots of ideas and failing lots of times.” — these words, spoken by Sir Jonathan Ive, the great designer who helped shape the world’s most beloved creations at Apple, carry a wisdom both modern and ancient. Beneath their simplicity lies the eternal truth that failure is the forge of understanding, and that those who fear to err will never truly learn. To learn is to experiment, to stretch beyond certainty, to stumble and rise again — for knowledge is not born in success, but in the ashes of trial. The mind that dares many times and fails many times becomes like steel — tempered, resilient, and wise.

Jonathan Ive, the designer behind the iPhone, the iMac, and the iPod, did not speak as a philosopher from a distant tower, but as a craftsman who lived the rhythm of creation, destruction, and renewal. In the studios of Apple, ideas were born and discarded daily — sketches torn apart, models rebuilt, concepts reshaped through endless iteration. Ive knew that beauty and function are not found at the first attempt, but through a long pilgrimage of mistakes. His quote reflects the spirit of that creative struggle: that the path to mastery is paved with errors, and that every failure contains the seed of a greater idea.

This truth is as old as invention itself. The ancient inventors, thinkers, and explorers all lived by it. Consider the story of Thomas Edison, who tested thousands of materials before finding the right filament for the light bulb. When asked about his failures, he answered, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Edison’s words echo through Ive’s teaching — both men understood that failure is not the enemy of learning but its servant. Each attempt, whether fruitful or not, brings us closer to understanding the laws that govern both the world and our own limitations.

To try many ideas is to keep the mind open and humble before the unknown. The timid thinker seeks only what is safe, and thus remains bound by the walls of what already exists. But the true learner — the artist, the scientist, the dreamer — ventures into uncertainty. They dare to create without guarantee, knowing that the act of trying awakens insight. Just as a sculptor chips away at marble, revealing form through imperfection, so too does the learner reveal truth by shaping and reshaping their failures. Learning is not perfection achieved, but perseverance practiced.

Yet there is pain in this process — the pain of seeing one’s ideas fall apart, the frustration of effort unrewarded. But in that pain lies transformation. The one who endures it gains wisdom that cannot be taught, only earned. Failure teaches humility, patience, and resilience — virtues without which learning is shallow. Jonathan Ive reminds us that greatness is not born of comfort, but of courage: the courage to begin again after each defeat, the courage to see failure not as final, but as fertile ground for growth.

The ancients would have called this the discipline of the craftsman — a sacred practice of devotion to improvement. The philosopher Aristotle once said that “we learn by doing,” and Ive expands that truth to the modern world: we learn by doing and failing. For knowledge without action is hollow, and action without error is illusion. To live creatively is to live boldly in imperfection, trusting that each broken attempt shapes the soul as much as the mind.

Therefore, my children, when you set out to learn, do not fear to fail. Try many things. Let your ideas clash and crumble; let them teach you where truth hides. When one path closes, let another open. Every failure is a teacher, every mistake a compass pointing toward wisdom. Be not discouraged by error — for it is the language of learning, the whisper of progress, the mark of those who strive beyond mediocrity.

Remember the words of Jonathan Ive: “There’s no learning without trying lots of ideas and failing lots of times.” So let your life be a workshop of creation. Experiment. Risk. Break and rebuild. For it is through the thousand small failures of today that the masterpiece of tomorrow is born. The wise do not chase perfection — they chase understanding. And in that pursuit, with courage and persistence, they find the truest form of success: not the absence of failure, but the mastery born from it.