WIST Quotations

Billings, Josh -- Josh Billings’ Farmer’s Allminax, 1879-02 “Slung Shot” (1879 ed.)

Dave — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 18:06:07 +0000

Experience teaches us mutch, but learns us little.

[Experience teaches us much, but learns us little.]

Josh Billings (1818–1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billings’ Farmer’s Allminax, 1879-02 “Slung Shot” (1879 ed.)

Thoreau, Henry David -- Walden; or, Life in the Woods, ch. 2 “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For” (1854)

Dave — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 17:53:00 +0000

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) American philosopher and writer
Walden; or, Life in the Woods, ch. 2 “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For” (1854)

Howell, James -- Paroimiographia [Παροιμιογραφία]: Proverbs, or, Old Sayed Sawes & Adages, “English Proverbs” (1659) [compiler]

Dave — Wed, 13 May 2026 20:03:06 +0000

One may live and learn, and be hang’d and forget all.

James Howell (c. 1594–1666) Welsh historian, writer, aphorist
Paroimiographia [Παροιμιογραφία]: Proverbs, or, Old Sayed Sawes & Adages, “English Proverbs” (1659) [compiler]

Roosevelt, Eleanor -- Column (1942-08), “If You Ask Me,” Ladies’ Home Journal, Vol. 59

Dave — Tue, 12 May 2026 15:53:32 +0000

Q. Should we discourage children from playing war games?

A. We might wish to discourage them, but it would be utterly useless at the present time, so we might as well give in gracefully and try to see that when war games are played they teach the lessons which we wish our children to learn — fair play, magnanimity in victory, courage in defeat and no hatred of peoples.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, activist; First Lady of the US (1933–45)
Column (1942-08), “If You Ask Me,” Ladies’ Home Journal, Vol. 59

Milne, A. A. -- War with Honour, Macmillan War Pamphlets, Issue 2 (1940)

Dave — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 18:42:21 +0000

I wrote somewhere once that the third-rate mind was only happy when it was thinking with the majority, the second-rate mind was only happy when it was thinking with the minority, and the first-rate mind was only happy when it was thinking. With equal truth it may be said that a first-rate mind is not one which does not remember the past, nor is it one which cannot forget the past; it is a mind which will use the past but not be ordered by it. It is a mind independent of everybody and everything but the facts in front of it. It is as little perturbed to find itself sharing a thought with the simple as it is elated to find itself sharing a thought with the subtle.

A. A. Milne (1882–1956) English poet and playwright [Alan Alexander Milne]
War with Honour, Macmillan War Pamphlets, Issue 2 (1940)

Milne wrote this work in repudiation (or perhaps emendation) of his 1934 book, Peace with Honour, which argued that, given the tragedy of World War 1, that similar saber-rattling about the rise of Hitler's Germany was irresponsible and immoral. Having seen the course of fascism in the first years of World War 2, while still espousing pacifist principles, he saw Hitler as an evil that must be defeated.

McLaughlin, Mignon -- The Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 10 (1963)

Dave — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 21:48:11 +0000

The past is rich in lessons from which we would greatly profit except that the present is always so full of Special Circumstances.

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist and author
The Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 10 (1963)

Taylor, Barbara Brown -- Learning to Walk in the Dark, ch. 1 (2014)

Dave — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 17:59:14 +0000

At home we read Pinocchio instead. We read Black Beauty, Doctor Dolittle, Little Women, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. What I learned about darkness from stories, I learned from books like these — and also from the unedited works of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen.
According to a recent article in the New York Times, few parents expose their children to those works in the original these days, and some of their reasons make sense. Who wants children growing up with the idea that stepmothers are wicked, ugly people are evil, women can get by on their beauty, and princesses are all white? At the same time, I worry about children who grow up thinking that every story has a happy ending and no one gets permanently hurt along the way.

Barbara Brown Taylor (b. 1951) American minister, academic, author
Learning to Walk in the Dark, ch. 1 (2014)

Darrow, Clarence -- Scopes Trial, Dayton, Tennessee (13 Jul 1925)

Dave — Thu, 20 May 2021 18:53:43 +0000

If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach it in the public school, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools, and the next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers. Soon you may set Catholic against Protestant and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the minds of men. If you can do one you can do the other. Ignorance and fanaticism is ever busy and needs feeding. Always it is feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers, tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lectures, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, your honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth century when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind.

Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer
Scopes Trial, Dayton, Tennessee (13 Jul 1925)

Billings, Josh -- Everybody’s Friend, Or; Josh Billing’s Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor, “Lobstir Sallad” (1874)

Dave — Thu, 30 Apr 2020 20:46:18 +0000

Experience makes more timid men than it duz wise ones.

[Experience makes more timid men than it does wise ones.]

Josh Billings (1818–1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Everybody’s Friend, Or; Josh Billing’s Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor, “Lobstir Sallad” (1874)

Buxton, Charles -- Notes of Thought (1873)

Dave — Wed, 07 Sep 2016 01:39:35 +0000

The first duty towards children is to make them happy. If you have not made them happy, you have wronged them. No other good they may get can make up for that.

Charles Buxton (1823–1871) English brewer, philanthropist, writer, politician
Notes of Thought (1873)

Richter, Jean-Paul -- Letter to Rector Werner (1781)

Dave — Wed, 22 Jun 2016 13:48:02 +0000

The wish falls often warm upon my heart that I may learn nothing here that I cannot continue in the other world; that I may do nothing here but deeds that will bear fruit in heaven.

Jean Paul Richter (1763–1825) German writer, art historian, philosopher, littérateur [Johann Paul Friedrich Richter; pseud. Jean Paul]
Letter to Rector Werner (1781)

Johnson, Lyndon -- Speech (1963-12-13), Consumer Advisory Council, Washington, D.C.

Dave — Mon, 06 Jun 2016 13:16:10 +0000

We can draw lessons from the past, but we cannot live in it.

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963–69)
Speech (1963-12-13), Consumer Advisory Council, Washington, D.C.

De Stael, Germaine -- Delphine, Preface (1802)

Dave — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 15:46:24 +0000

It seems to me that life’s circumstances, being ephemeral, teach us less about durable truths than the fictions based on those truths; and that the best lessons of delicacy and self-respect are to be found in novels where the feelings are so naturally portrayed that you fancy you are witnessing real life as you read.

Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) Swiss-French writer, woman of letters, critic, salonist [Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein, Madame de Staël, Madame Necker]
Delphine, Preface (1802)

Tuchman, Barbara -- The Guns of August, ch. 2 (1962)

Dave — Tue, 21 Jul 2015 15:28:46 +0000

Dead battles, like dead generals, hold the military mind in their dead grip.

Barbara W. Tuchman (1912–1989) American historian and author
The Guns of August, ch. 2 (1962)

Lewis, C.S. -- (Attributed)

Dave — Wed, 08 Jul 2015 13:19:14 +0000

Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God, do you learn.

C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
(Attributed)

There are several variants, but no citation for this quotation. See Pliny the Younger.

Chesterfield (Lord) -- Letter to his son, #249 (7 Apr 1751)

Dave — Thu, 18 Dec 2014 13:49:51 +0000

Let the great book of the world be your principal study.

Lord Chesterfield (1694–1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #249 (7 Apr 1751)

Stevenson, Adlai -- Speech (1954-03-22), “The Educated Citizen,” Senior Class Banquet, Dillon Gymnasium, Princeton University

Dave — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:00:29 +0000

What a man knows at fifty that he did not know at twenty is, for the most part, incommunicable. The laws, the aphorisms, the generalizations, the universal truths, the parables and the old saws — all of the observations about life which can be communicated handily in ready, verbal packages — are as well known to a man at twenty who has been attentive as to a man at fifty. He has been told them all, he has read them all, and he has probably repeated them all before he graduates from college; but he has not lived them all.

Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) American politician, diplomat, statesman
Speech (1954-03-22), “The Educated Citizen,” Senior Class Banquet, Dillon Gymnasium, Princeton University

Aeschylus -- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)]

Dave — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:16:31 +0000

Zeus, who guided mortals to be wise,
has established his fixed law —
wisdom comes through suffering.
Trouble, with its memories of pain,
drips in our hearts as we try to sleep,
so men against their will
learn to practice moderation.
Favours come to us from gods
seated on their solemn thrones —
such grace is harsh and violent.

τὸν φρονεῖν βροτοὺς ὁδώ-
σαντα, τὸν [πάθει μάθος]
θέντα κυρίως ἔχειν.
στάζει δ’ ἀνθ’ ὕπνου πρὸ καρδίας
μνησιπήμων πόνος· καὶ παρ’ ἄ-
κοντας ἦλθε σωφρονεῖν.
δαιμόνων δέ που χάρις βίαιος
σέλμα σεμνὸν ἡμένων.

Aeschylus (525–456 BC) Greek dramatist (Æschylus)
Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)]

Other translations:

"It is through suffering that learning comes." [In Arnold Toynbee, "Christianity and Civilization" (1947), Civilization on Trial (1948)]
"God, whose law it is that he who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despite, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God." [tr. Hamilton (1930)]
"Guide of mortal man to wisdom, he who has ordained a law, knowledge won through suffering. Drop, drop -- in our sleep, upon the heart sorrow falls, memory’s pain, and to us, though against our very will, even in our own despite, comes wisdom by the awful grace of God." [tr. Hamilton (1937)]

The first Hamilton alternate was used, slightly modified, by Robert Kennedy in his speech on the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. (4 Apr 1968). Kennedy's family used it as an epitaph on his grave Arlington National Cemetery: "Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom, through the awful grace of God."

See here for more discussion.

Beard, Charles -- Summary of human history, in reply to George S. Counts

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad with power;
The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small;
The bee fertilizes the flower it robs;
When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.

Charles Beard (1874–1948) American historian
Summary of human history, in reply to George S. Counts

See also Euripides, George Herbert.

Twain, Mark -- Tom Sawyer Abroad (1894)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 19:00:00 +0000

But, on the other hand, Uncle Abner said that the person that had took a bull by the tail once had learnt sixty or seventy times as much as a person that hadn’t, and said a person that started in to carry a cat home by the tail was gitting knowledge that was always going to be useful to him, and warn’t ever going to grow dim or doubtful.

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Tom Sawyer Abroad (1894)

Full text.

Variants sometimes seen:

The man who sets out to carry a cat by its tail learns something that will always be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful.
A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.