phrase requests - Another way of saying "it doesn't always pay to be right"

What was your motivation? If you take a look at the answers given so far, you'll see that they actually span a wide range of interpretations by presupposing different motivations: "good deed", "prophesy", "unwise battle".

With the information you've given so far, the only thing we know is that you consider your attempt a mistake. But that's information that the person you are talking to already has and you likely want to add something.

If you don't actually want to add anything else, "choosing your battles wisely" seems to fit best so far even though it does not appear like you even intended for this to be a battle.

So a bit more neutral would be something like "I should have known better than to know better" though it's ad-hoc rather than an established saying.

• Next single word requests - When there stand two things, we call they stand “in parallel,” what do you call three or more things stand “in triangle”?
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