Judgment comes from experience and great judgment comes from bad experience.

In The New York Times (30 May 1986), reported in Adam Clymer (ed.) The New York Times Year in Review: 1986 (1987) p. 416. A similar quotation is attributed to William Pitkin in the American Nurseryman, vol. 34, no. 1, Rochester, NY (July 1921) p. 3, col. 1: "Good judgment comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgment." Compare: Abraham Tucker, The Light of Nature Pursued, rev. ed. (1831) vol. 3, ch. 8, p. 159: "Judgment comes from experience, and experience is only gotten by practice."