The wisdom of the wise and the experience of ages may be preserved by quotation.
—Isaac D’Israeli (1766–1848) English Writer, Scholar
What I like about experience is that it is such an honest thing. You may take any number of wrong turnings; but keep your eyes open and you will not be allowed to go very far before the warning signs appear. You may have deceived yourself, but experience is not trying to deceive you. The universe rings true wherever you fairly test it.
—C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish-born British Academic, Author, Literary Scholar
Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.
—Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French Sculptor
Growing up is, after all, only the understanding that one’s unique and incredible experience is what every one shares.
—Doris Lessing (1919–2013) British Novelist, Poet
Whatever you dwell on in the conscious grows in your experience.
—Brian Tracy (b.1944) American Author, Motivational Speaker
Experience is the best teacher, but a fool will learn from no other.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Truth comes out of error more readily than out of confusion.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
If we could sell our experiences for what they cost us, we’d all be millionaires.
—Pauline Phillips (Abigail van Buren) (b.1918) American Columnist
One is taught by experience to put a premium on those few people who can appreciate you for what you are.
—Gail Godwin (b.1937) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
Adventure is something you seek for pleasure, or even for profit, like a gold rush or invading a country; … but experience is what really happens to you in the long run; the truth that finally overtakes you.
—Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980) American Short-Story Writer, Novelist
The results of life are uncalculated and uncalculable. The years teach much which the days never know. The persons who compose our company, converse, and come and go, and design and execute many things, and somewhat comes of it all, but an unlooked for result. The individual is always mistaken. He designed many things, and drew in other persons as coadjutors, quarrelled with some or all, blundered much, and something is done; all are a little advanced, but the individual is always mistaken. It turns out somewhat new, and very unlike what he promised himself.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
All of life’s experiences are teachers in some sense, challenging us to grow and evolve. Although the Persecutor certainly provokes a reaction, the Challenger elicits a response by encouraging the Creator to acquire new knowledge, skill, or insight. Both roles provoke change, but in different ways.
—David Emerald
The experiences of camp life show that a man does have a choice of action. There were enough examples, often of a heroic nature, which proved that apathy could be overcome, irritability suppressed. Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress. We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s way. The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity—even in the most difficult circumstances—to add a deeper meaning to life.
—Viktor Frankl (1905–97) Austrian Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist
An M.B.A’s first shock could be the realization that companies require experience before they hire a chief executive officer.
—Robert Half
Experience does not err. Only your judgments err by expecting from her what is not in her power.
—Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Polymath, Painter, Sculptor, Inventor, Architect
Nobody will use other people’s experience, nor has any of his own till it is too late to use it.
—Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–64) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
My experience is that the teachers we need most are the people we’re living with right now.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
Experience is what you get looking for something else.
—Mary Pettibone Poole American Aphorist
Experience is a jewel, and it had need be so, for it is often purchased at an infinite rate.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
I try to avoid experience if I can. Most experience is bad.
—E. L. Doctorow (b.1931) American Writer, Editor, Academic
Millions of items in the outward order are present to my senses which never properly enter into my experience. Why? Because they have no interest for me. My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind—without selective interest, experience is an utter chaos.
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
Experience has ways of boiling over, and making us correct our present formulas
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
I learned more about economics from one South Dakota dust storm than I did in all my years in college.
—Hubert Humphrey (1911–78) American Head of State, Politician
Fooled once shame on you, fooled twice shame on me.
—U.S. Proverb
The power to guess the unseen from the seen, to trace the implications of things, to judge the whole piece by the pattern, the condition of feeling life in general so completely that you are well on your way to knowing any particular corner of it—this cluster of gifts may almost be said to constitute experience.
—Henry James (1843–1916) American-born British Novelist, Writer
The experience of each new age requires a new confession, and the world seems always waiting for its poet
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
There is a sort of veteran woman of condition, who, having lived always in the grand monde, and having possibly had some gallantries, together with the experience of five and twenty or thirty years, form a young fellow better than all the rules that can be given him. Wherever you go, make some of those women your friends; which a very little matter will do. Ask their advice, tell them your doubts or difficulties as to your behavior; but take great care not to drop one word of their experience; for experience implies age, and the suspicion of age, no woman, let her be ever so old, ever forgives.
—Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) English Statesman, Man of Letters
Every man’s experience of today, is that he was a fool yesterday and the day before yesterday.—Tomorrow he will most likely be of exactly the same opinion.
—Charles Mackay (1814–89) Scottish Poet, Journalist, Songwriter
Common sense is the measure of the possible; it is composed of experience and prevision; it is calculation applied to life.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (1821–81) Swiss Moral Philosopher, Poet, Critic
My experience has taught me, and it has become a principle with me, that it is never any benefit to give out and out, to man or woman, money, food, clothing, or anything else, if they are able-bodied and can work and earn what they need, when there is anything on earth for them to do. This is my principle and I try to act upon it. To pursue a contrary course would ruin any community in the world and make them idlers.
—Brigham Young (1801–77) American Mormon Leader
Hope for a miracle. But don’t depend on one.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
At twenty years of age the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgment.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Mysticism is: a. An advanced state of inner enlightenment. b. Union with Reality. c. A state of genuinely satisfying success. d. Insight into an entirely new world of living. e. An intuitive grasp of Truth, above and beyond intellectual reasoning. f. A personal experience, in which we are happy and healthy human beings.
—Vernon Howard (1918–92) American Spiritual Teacher, Philosopher
The best way to suppose what may come is to remember what is past.
—George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax (1633–95) British Statesman, Writer, Politician
I use the word inquiry as synonymous with The Work…Inquiry is a way to end confusion and to experience internal peace, even in a world of apparent chaos. Above all else, inquiry is about realizing that all the answers we ever need are always available inside us.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
I reached in experience the nirvana which is unborn, unrivalled, secure from attachment, undecaying and unstained. This condition is indeed reached by me which is deep, difficult to see, difficult to understand, tranquil, excellent, beyond the reach of mere logic, subtle, and to be realized only by the wise.
—Buddhist Teaching
Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age.
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1913) American Short-story Writer, Journalist
Experience is the mother of wisdom.
—Common Proverb
Experience seems to most of us to lead to conclusions, but empiricism has sworn never to draw them.
—George Santayana (1863–1952) Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
Our knowledge is the amassed thought and experience of innumerable minds.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
I have come to believe that there are only two kinds of experiences in life: those that stem from our Higher Self and those that have something to teach us. We recognize the first as pure joy and the latter as struggle. But they are both perfect. Each time we confront some intense difficulty, we know there is something we haven’t learned yet, and the universe is now giving us the opportunity to learn.
—Susan Jeffers (1938–2012) American Psychologist, Self-Help Author
Life, not the parson, teaches conduct.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841–1935) American Jurist, Author
There is only one thing more painful than learning from experience and that is not learning from experience.
—Archibald MacLeish (1892–1982) American Poet, Dramatist
All is but lip-wisdom which wants experience.
—Philip Sidney (1554–86) English Soldier Poet, Courtier
Experience is a great advantage. The problem is that when you get the experience, you’re too damned old to do anything about it.
—Jimmy Connors (b.1952) American Sportsperson
When you realize that suffering and discomfort are the call to inquiry, you may actually begin to look forward to uncomfortable feelings. You may even experience them as friends coming to show you what you have not yet investigated thoroughly enough.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
I am still determined to be cheerful and happy,
in whatever situation I may be; for I have also
learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness
or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.
—Martha Washington (1731–1802) American First Lady
Old men are always young enough to learn with profit.
—Aeschylus (525–456 BCE) Greek Poet
Thought is cause: experience is effect. If you don’t like the effects in your life, you have to change the nature of your thinking.
—Marianne Williamson (b.1952) American Activist, Author, Lecturer
Mother is putting my new secondhand clothes in order. She prays now, she says, that I may learn in my own life and away from home and friends what the heart is and what it feels. Amen. So be it. Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.
—James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish Novelist, Poet