The real wisdom here isn't permission to fail—it's a corrective lens for how we measure competence. We tend to admire the person who executes flawlessly within known boundaries, mistaking caution for mastery. Einstein reminds us that the absence of mistakes often signals the absence of risk-taking, which means stagnation wearing the costume of excellence. A surgeon perfecting a procedure she learned twenty years ago shows skill; a surgeon attempting a novel technique that occasionally stumbles shows something harder to name—intellectual courage.