"The most shocking things in life are perhaps the great defeats, and there are many of them, for everyone. When one gets to know people in that situation, one experiences the most of them. I am very often visited by people in complete despair, mostly young, who feel that they have failed. It is quite an extraordinarily important lesson, for there are people for whom it is not easy to go through such a crisis; it is a matter of sensitivity, of nerves, possibly even something inherited. Nevertheless, there are these crises in every social sphere and one must say that, fundamentally, failure merely constitutes the experience of life. That is really not so bad for the one who comprehends everything—what can happen to him? But it hits the ambitious exceptionally hard, those who have a plan for their lives, who think about the future, who have a future. Just because they take everything so seriously, I say to these people, "Go to the cemetery!" and it is right, and the results prove it. It is the only weapon with which to minimize such an essentially tragic situation.... Best of all, go find the grave of a friend! It is perhaps absurd and yet it has not only meaning, but is, as I said, the only way to alleviate a personal drama. One learns in life just about everything but this, how to survive such a crisis. And in literary circles, which are often afflicted in this regard, there is certainly a lot of disappointment."

"If failure has the strength to turn your life into bitterness itself, then patience has the strength to turn your life into the sweetest joy. Do not surrender to fate after a single failure. Failure, at most, precedes success."

"It's a failure only if you don't get anything out of it, Thomas Edison said he knew 999 ways that a light bulb did not work; yet we have lights today."

"Stop thinking of failing."

"Imagination is a force that can actually manifest a reality. … Don’t put limitations on yourself. Other people will do that for you. Don’t do that to yourself. Don’t bet against yourself. And take risk. NASA has this phrase that they like, "Failure is not an option." But failure has to be an option. In art and exploration, failure has to be an option. Because it is a leap of faith. And no important endeavor that required innovation was done without risk. You have to be willing to take those risks. … In whatever you are doing, failure is an option. But fear is not."

"They never fail who die In a great cause."

"He that is down needs fear no fall He that is low, no pride."

"Shariputra, it is the failings of living beings that prevent them from seeing the marvelous purity of the land of the Buddha, the Thus Come One. The Thus Come One is not to blame. Shariputra, this land of mine is pure, but you fail to see it."

"Never say "Fail" again."

"In the lexicon of youth, which Fate reserves for a bright manhood, there is no such word As—fail!"

"All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

"There is an element of failure in all success."

"Experience takes dreadfully high school-wages, but he teaches like no other."

"Experience is the best proof and we love to go through every experience.[ Proverbs and sayings about experience]"

"All experience is an arch wherethro’ gleams that untraveled world whose margins fade forever and forever as we move."

"I've seen the elephant, and I've heard the owl, and I've been to the other side of the mountain."

"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."

"If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience!"

"We know nothing of what will happen in future, but by the analogy of experience."

"I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging the future but by the past."

"Rulers, Statesmen, Nations, are wont to be emphatically commended to the teaching which experience offers in history. But what experience and history teach is this—that peoples and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it. Each period is involved in such peculiar circumstances, exhibits a condition of things so strictly idiosyncratic, that its conduct must be regulated by considerations connected with itself, and itself alone."

"Da dacht ich oft: schwatzt noch so hoch gelehrt, Man weiss doch nichts, als was man selbst erfährt."

"Learn the lesson of your own pain—learn to seek God, not in any single event of past history, but in your own soul—in the constant verifications of experience, in the life of Christian love."

"Experto crede Roberto."

"And others' follies teach us not, Nor much their wisdom teaches, And most, of sterling worth, is what Our own experience preaches."

"I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' Gleams that untravl'd world whose margin fades Forever and forever when I move."

"Nam in omnibus fere minus valent præcepta quam experimenta."

"Who heeds not experience, trust him not."

"What man would be wise, let him drink of the river That bears on his bosom the record of time; A message to him every wave can deliver To teach him to creep till he knows how to climb."

"Semper enim ex aliis alia proseminat usus."

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

"Stultorum eventus magister est."

"I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience."

"Experience join'd with common sense, To mortals is a providence."

"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."

"Experience teaches slowly, and at the cost of mistakes."

"Experience is no more transferable in morals than in art."

"Only so much do I know, as I have lived."

"Tu proverai si come sa di sale Lo pane altrui, e com' è duro calle Lo scendere e'l salir per l'altrui scale."

"In her experience all her friends relied, Heaven was her help and nature was her guide."

"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."

"A sadder and a wiser man, He rose the morrow morn."

"It is costly wisdom that is bought by experience."

"By experience we find out a shorter way by a long wandering. Learning teacheth more in one year than experience in twenty."

"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!"

"Suffering brings experience."

"Experience is a good teacher, but a hard one. She gives the test first and the lesson afterward."

"Experience is a wonderful teacher, but one whose lessons come too late."

"Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes."