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Experience is a mere whiff or rumble, produced by enormously complex and ill-deciphered causes of experience; and in the other direction, experience is a mere peephole through which glimpses come down to us of eternal things.

— George Santayana

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Experience

More quotes by George Santayana

Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.

The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress (1905)

There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.

Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies (1922)

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress (1905)

To covet truth is a very distinguished passion.

The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy (1911)

Theory helps us to bear our ignorance of fact.

The Sense of Beauty (1896)

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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: George Santayana (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.