Experience is a comb which nature gives us when we are bald. ~Proverb


Life is the art of drawing without an eraser. ~John Gardner


Axioms in philosophy are not axioms until they are proved upon our pulses:? We read fine things but never feel them to the full until we have gone the same steps as the Author. ~John Keats


Learn all you can from the mistakes of others. You won't have time to make them all yourself. ~Alfred Sheinwold


A man begins cutting his wisdom teeth the first time he bites off more than he can chew. ~Herb Caen


If you want to understand democracy; spend less time in the library with Plato; and more time in the buses with people. ~Simeon Strunsky


You couldn't get hold of the things you'd done and turn them right again. Such a power might be given to the gods; but it was not given to women and men; and that was probably a good thing. Had it been otherwise; people would probably die of old age still trying to rewrite their teens. ~Stephen King; The Stand


Idealism is what precedes experience; cynicism is what follows. ~David T. Wolf


We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again - and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore. ~Mark Twain; Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar; Following the Equator; 1897


Good judgment comes from experience; and often experience comes from bad judgment. ~Rita Mae Brown


There is only one thing more painful than learning from experience; and that is not learning from experience. ~Laurence J. Peter


Experience makes more timid men than it does wise ones. ~Josh Billings


The problem is that when you get it; you're too damned old to do anything about it. ~Jimmy Connors; on experience


Experience is the name everyone gives to his mistakes. ~Oscar Wilde; Lady Windemere's Fan; 1896


Many a man in love with a dimple makes the mistake of marrying the whole girl. ~Stephen Leacock; Literary Lapses; 1910


Everything has been said before; but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again. ~Andre Gide; Le traite du Narcisse; 1891


"Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes along. ~Samuel Butler; ""Speech at the Somerville Club;"" 27 February 1895"


All that I know I learned after I was thirty. ~Georges Clemenceau


Information's pretty thin stuff unless mixed with experience. ~Clarence Day; The Crow's Nest


A happy childhood is poor preparation for human contacts. ~Colette


If we could sell our experiences for what they cost us; we'd all be millionaires. ~Abigail Van Buren


You cannot help but learn more as you take the world into your hands. Take it up reverently; for it is an old piece of clay; with millions of thumbprints on it. ~John Updike


I learned more about economics from one South Dakota dust storm than I did in all my years in college. ~Hubert Humphrey; speech; 1960


We receive three educations; one from our parents; one from our schoolmasters; and one from the world. The third contradicts all that the first two teach us. ~Charles Louis de Secondat; Baron de Montesquieu


God will not look you over for medals; degrees or diplomas; but for scars. ~Elbert Hubbard


The world is your school. ~Martin H. Fischer


Experience is what you got by not having it when you need it. ~Author Unknown


Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely. ~Auguste Rodin


Experience is not what happens to a man. It is what a man does with what happens to him. ~Aldous Leonard Huxley; Texts and Pretexts; 1932


Life; not the parson; teaches conduct. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes;?Jr.


Do you know the difference between education and experience?? Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don't. ~Pete Seeger





Life can only be understood backward; but it must be lived forward. ~Soren Kierkegaard


A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way. ~Mark Twain


In youth we learn; in age we understand. ~Marie Ebner-Eschenbach


If experience was so important; we'd never have had anyone walk on the moon. ~Doug Rader


Wisdom before experience is only words; wisdom after experience is of no avail. ~Mark van Doren


Human beings; who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others; are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. ~Douglas Adams; Last Chance to See


We have two lives - the one we learn with and the life we live after that. ~Bernard Malamud; The Natural


Fool me once; shame on you; fool me twice; shame on me. ~Chinese Proverb


The trouble with using experience as a guide is that the final exam often comes first and then the lesson. ~Author Unknown


Experience is what causes a person to make new mistakes instead of old ones. ~Author Unknown


No physician is really good before he has killed one or two patients. ~Hindu Proverb