You couldn't get hold of the t...

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~

You cannot help but learn more...

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~

Wisdom before experience is on...

Wisdom before experience is only words; wisdom after experience is of no avail.

~Mark van Doren~

Where do we people go if not t...

Where do we people go if not towards the perfection of our own illusion?

~Sorin Cerin~

When choosing between two evil...

When choosing between two evils, I always like to take the one I've never tried before.

~Mae West~

What you really value is what ...

What you really value is what you miss, not what you have.

~Jorge Luis Borges~

We should be careful to get ou...

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 stovelid. 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~

We receive three educations, o...

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~

We have two lives - the one we...

We have two lives - the one we learn with and the life we live after that.

~Bernard Malamud, The Natural~

To most men, experience is lik...

To most men, experience is like the stern lights of a ship, which illumine only the track it has passed.

~Samuel Taylor Coleridge~

To a great experience one thin...

To a great experience one thing is essential - an experiencing nature.

~Walter Bagehot~

There is only one thing more p...

There is only one thing more painful than learning from experience, and that is not learning from experience.

~Laurence J. Peter~

The trouble with using experie...

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

~Author Unknown~

The road to wisdom? - Well, it...

The road to wisdom? - Well, it's plain and simple to express: Err and err and err again but less and less and less

~ Piet Hein, ""The Road to Wisdom,"" Grooks, 1966~

The problem is that when you g...

The problem is that when you get it, you're too damned old to do anything about it.

~Jimmy Connors, on experience~

The life of the law has not be...

The life of the law has not been logic, it has been experience.

~Oliver Wendell Holmes~

The experience I gained at age...

The experience I gained at age 21 would be useful if I were ever 21 again. But I'm 71 and new at it and keep making age 71 mistakes.

~Robert Brault, ~

Strange how few After all's sa...

Strange how few After all's said and done, the things that are Of moment.

~Edna St. Vincent Millay~

One thorn of experience is wor...

One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.

~James Russell Lowell~

One thorn of experience is wor...

One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.

~James Russell Lowell~