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There are those who imagine that the unlucky accidents of life—life's "experiences"—are in some way useful to us. I wish I could find out how. I never know one of them to happen twice. They always change off and swap around and catch you on your inexperienced side.

— Mark Twain Taming the Bicycle (1917)

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Experience

More quotes by Mark Twain

Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.

You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889)

If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—'tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.

Biographies are but clothes and buttons of the man — the biography of the man himself cannot be written.

Mark Twain's Autobiography (1924)

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Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.

Oscar Wilde Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)

Oh who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried.

Lord Byron The Corsair (1814)

A gram of experience is worth a ton of theory.

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.

Rita Mae Brown Alma Mater (2001)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Mark Twain (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.