Home › E › Experience
Experience: Quotations from Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations
Oft expectation fails and most oft there Where most it promises, and oft it hits Where hope is coldest and despair most fits.— Shakespeare — All's Well That Ends Well. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 145.
Promising is the very air o' the time; it opens the eyes of expectation: performance is ever the duller for his act; and, but in the plainer and simpler kind of people, the deed of saying is quite out of use.— Shakespeare — Timon of Athens. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 24.
There have sat The live-long day, with patient expectation, To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome. Julius Cæsar. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 45. When clouds appear, wise men put on their cloaks; When great leaves fall, then winter is at hand; When the sun sets, who doth not look for night? Untimely storms make men expect a dearth.— Shakespeare — Richard III. Act II. Sc. 3. L. 32.
'Tis expectation makes a blessing dear; Heaven were not Heaven, if we knew what it were.— SIR JOHN SUCKLING — Against Fruition.
Although I enter not, Yet round about the spot Ofttimes I hover; And near the sacred gate, With longing eyes I wait, Expectant of her.— THACKERAY — Pendennis. At the Church Gate. St. 1.
The gratitude of place expectants is a lively sense of future favours. q. SIR ROBERT WALPOLE.
Behold, we live through all things,-famine, thirst, Bereavement, pain; all grief and misery, All woe and sorrow; life inflicts its worst On soul and body, -but we cannot die, Though we be sick, and tired, and faint, and worn,- Lo, all things can be borne!— ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN
Endurance. Making all futures fruits of all the pasts.— S. EDWIN ARNOLD — The Light of Asia. Bk. V. L. 432.
Oh, who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried?— BYKON — The Corsair. Canto I. St. 1.
A sadder and a wiser man, He rose the morrow morn.— COLERIDGE — The Ancient Mariner. Pt. VII. Last St.
In her experience all her friends relied, Heaven was her help and nature was her guide.— CRABBE — Parish Register. Pt. III.
To show the world what long experience gains, Requires not courage, though it calls for pains; But at life's outset to inform mankind Is a bold effort of a valiant mind. C.— CRABBE — The Borough. Letter VII. L. 47.
I think there are stores laid up in our human nature that our understandings can make no complete inventory of.— GEORGE ELIOT — The Mill on the Floss. Bk. V. Ch. I.
Only so much do I know, as I have lived.— EMERSON — Oration. The American
Scholar. Experience is no more transferable in morals than in art.— FROUDE — Short Studies on Great
Subjects. Education. Experience teaches slowly, and at the cost of mistakes.— FROUDE — Short Studies on Great
Subjects. Party Politics. We read the past by the light of the present, and the forms vary as the shadows fall, or as the point of vision alters.— FROUDE — Short Studies on Great
Subjects. Society in Italy in the Last Days of the Roman Republic. For just experience tells, in every soil, That those who think must govern those that toil.— GOLDSMITH — The Traveller. L. 372.
Experience join'd with common sense, To mortals is a providence.— MATTHEW GREEN — The Spleen. L. 312.
I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience.— PATRICK HENRY — Speech at Virginia
Convention. March 23, 1775. Nor deem the irrevocable Past, As wholly wasted, wholly vain, If, rising on its wrecks, at last To something nobler we attain.— LONGFELLOW — The Ladder of St.
Augustine. One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.— LOWELL — Among my Books.
Shakespeare Once More.
Stultorum eventus magister est. Experience is the teacher of fools.— LIVY — Annales. XXII. 39.
Semper enim ex aliis alia proseminat usus. Experience is always sowing the seed of one thing after another.— MANILIUS — Astronomica. I. 90.
Nam in omnibus fere minus valent præcepta quam experimenta. In almost everything, experience is more valuable than precept.— QUINTILIAN — De Institutione Oratoria.
II. 5. 5. Experto credite. Believe one who has tried it.— VIRGIL — Eneid. XI. 283.
Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus. False in one thing, false in everything. p. Law Maxim.
Das Leben ist der Güter höchstes nicht Der Uebel grösstes aber ist die Schuld. Life is not the supreme good, but the su preme evil is to realize one's guilt.— SCHILLER — Die Braut von Messina.
Den Bösen sind sie los, die Bösen sind ge blieben. The Evil One has left, the evil ones remain— GOETHE — Faust. I. 6. 174.
Al mondo mal non è senza rimedio. There is no evil in the world without a remedy.— SANNAZARO — Ecloga Octava,
Non è male alcuno nelle cose umane che non abbia congiunto seco qualche bene. There is no evil in human affairs that has not some good mingled with it.— GUICCIARDINI — Storia d' Italia,
Superbia, invidia ed avarizia sono Le tre faville che hanno i cori accesi. Three sparks-pride, envy, and avaricehave been kindled in all hearts.— DANTE — Inferno. VI. 74.
Como el hacer mal viene de natural cosecha, fácilmente se aprende el hacerle. Inasmuch as ill-deeds spring up as a spontaneous crop, they are easy to learn.— CERVANTES — Coloquio de los Perros.
Da dacht ich oft: schwatzt noch so hoch gelehrt, Man weiss doch nichts, als was man selbst erfährt. I have often thought that however learned you may talk about it, one knows nothing but what he learns from his own experience.— WIELAND — Oberon. II. 24.
Tu proverai si come sa di sale Lo pane altrui, e com' è duro calle Lo scendere e'l salir per l'altrui scale. Thou shalt know by experience how salt the savor is of other's bread, and how sad a path it is to climb and descend another's stairs.— DANTE — Paradiso. XVII. 58.