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
Experience is a comb which nature gives us when we are bald. – Proverb
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
The trouble with using experience as a guide is that the final exam often comes first and then the lesson. – Author Unknown
No physician is really good before he has killed one or two patients. – Hindu Proverb
Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely. – Auguste Rodin
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
Experience is what you got by not having it when you need it. – Author Unknown
Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment. – Rita Mae Brown
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
If you want to understand democracy, spend less time in the library with Plato, and more time in the buses with people. – Simeon Strunsky
Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward. – Søren Kierkegaard
Looking back, you realize that everything would have explained itself if you had only stopped interrupting. – Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way. – Mark Twain
Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. – Chinese Proverb
Experience makes more timid men than it does wise ones. – Josh Billings
A happy childhood is poor preparation for human contacts. – Colette
Many a man in love with a dimple makes the mistake of marrying the whole girl. – Stephen Leacock, Literary Lapses, 1910
Experience is what causes a person to make new mistakes instead of old ones. – Author Unknown
In youth we learn; in age we understand. – Marie Ebner-Eschenbach
