Experience Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old experience quotes, experience sayings, and experience proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.

A stumble may prevent a fall. English (on experience)
After crosses and losses, men grow humbler and wiser. Benjamin Franklin
All experience is education for the soul. unknown
An old ox makes a straight furrow. Spanish (on experience)
By crawling, a child learns to stand. Hausa (West African) (on experience)
Experience is the best teacher. Latin Proverb
Experience is the mother of wisdom. unknown
Experience teaches slowly and at the cost of mistakes. James Anthony Froude
If you are not a fish, how can you tell if the fish are happy? Chinese (on experience)
If youth knew, if age could. Henri Estienne
If you've never run aground, you've never been anywhere! unknown
It is foolish to try to imitate the skills of others. Aesop
It pays to be prepared. Aesop
It takes a heap of licks to hit a nail in the dark. African American (on common sense)
Learn from other peoples mistakes. unknown
Learn from your mistakes. unknown
Learning is best when put into practice. unknown
Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely. Auguste Rodin
Only the sufferers know how their bellies ache. Burmese (on experience)
The buyer needs a hundred eyes, the seller but one. George Herbert
The early bird catches the worm. William Camden
The grand instructor, time. Edmund Burke
The most exquisite folly is made of wisdom spun too fine. Benjamin Franklin
The person with burnt fingers asks for tongs. Samoan (on experience)
The years teach much which the days never know. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Well begun is half done. Aristotle
You cannot put an old head on young shoulders. unknown
Everything we do is sowing, and all of our experiences are harvests. Khemetic Saying
I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand. Kongfuzi
To know the road ahead, ask those coming back. Chinese Saying
Practice is the supreme teacher. Publilius Syrus
As the eye needs light to see, so the soul needs labor to comprehend. Philo of Alexandria
If you have not lived through something, it is not true, Kabir
We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others. Blaise Pascal
Knowledge of the world is only to be acquired in the world, and not in the closet. Lord Chesterfield
When the bird and the book disagree, always believe the bird. John James Audubon
Never give up what you have seen for what you have heard. Swahili Saying
The years teach much what the days never know. Ralph Waldo Emerson
There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until personal experience has brought it home. John Stuart Mill
Experience is a grindstone and it is lucky for us if we get brightened by it— not ground. Josh Billings
An ounce of application is worth a ton of abstraction. Booker T. Washington
Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. Helen Keller
Knowledge can only be got in one way, the way of experience. There is no other way to know. Vivekananda
Experience is a dim lamp which only lights the one who bears it. Louis Celine
Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what he does with what happens to him. Aldous Huxley
Experience teaches only the teachable. Huxley
We learn the rope of life by untying the knots. Jean Toomer
You cannot acquire experience by making experiments. You cannot create experience. You must undergo it. Albert Camus
Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lessons afterward. Vernon Law
The best lessons, the best sermons, are those that are lived. Yolanda King
Nothing has happened to you unless you make much of it. Menander
Each man can interpret another's experience only by his own. Thoreau
Practical wisdom is only to be learned in the school of experience. Samuel Smiles
With the ancient is wisdom, and in length of days understanding. Job 12:12
Experience is the best of schoolmasters, only the school fees are heavy. Thomas Carlyle
The light which experience gives is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
We shall have to learn to refrain from doing things merely because we know how to do them. Theodore Fox
I was told by a very smart man a long time ago that talent always beats experience. Because by the time you get experience, the talent's gone. Pat Corrales
The pilgrims didn't have any experience when they first arrived here. Hell, if experience was that important, we'd never have had anybody walking on the moon. Doug Rader
Ask the experienced rather than the learned. Arab Saying
The tongue of experience has the most truth. Arab Sayings
The ground I have already passed over enables me to see my way into that which is before me. Thomas Jefferson
But all theory must lead to experience, and every constitution has its own laws. Thomas Jefferson
Forty years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading. Thomas Jefferson
The broader one's understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have. Steve Jobs