Experience Quotes - Page 35

• It is exceptional that one should be able to acquire the understanding of a process without having previously acquired a deep familiarity with running it, with using it, before one has assimilated it in an instinctive and empirical way... Thus any discussion of the nature of intellectual effort in any field is difficult, unless it presupposes an easy, routine familiarity with that field. In mathematics this limitation becomes very severe.

  John von Neumann

  Running, Effort, Understanding

  John Von Neumann, F. Bródy, Tibor Vámos (1995). “The Neumann Compendium”, p.618, World Scientific

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• Probably no branch of mathematics has experienced a more surprising growth than has... topology... Considered as a most specialized and abstract subject in the early 1920's, it is today [1938] an indispensable equipment for the investigation of modern mathematical theories.

  Raymond Louis Wilder

  Growth, Branches, Today

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• Who is old enough to have learned from experience?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Enough

  Henry David Thoreau, Bradford Torrey, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn (1906). “The Writings of Henry David Thoreau ....”

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• The value of any experience is measured, of course, not by the amount of money, but the amount of development we get out of it.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Development, Courses, Amount

  Henry David Thoreau, David Gross (2007). “The Price of Freedom: Political Philosophy from Thoreau's Journals”, p.243, David M Gross

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• In the summer we lay up a stock of experiences for the winter, as the squirrel of nuts?something for conversation in winter evenings.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Summer, Winter, Squirrels

  Henry David Thoreau (2011). “The Journal of Henry David Thoreau, 1837-1861”, p.74, New York Review of Books

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• Surely one may as profitably be soaked in the juices of a swamp for one day as pick his way dry-shod over sand. Cold and damp ? are they not as rich experience as warmth and dryness?

  Henry David Thoreau

  One Day, Juice, Dry

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.661, Simon and Schuster

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• I think that no experience which I have today comes up to, or is comparable with, the experiences of my boyhood.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Thinking, Today, Boyhood

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.47, Courier Corporation

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• Tell Youth to play with Wine and Love and never bear away the scars! I may as well tilt up the sky and yet try not to spill the stars.

  Ridgely Torrence

  Stars, Wine, Sky

  Ridgely Torrence (1900). “The House of a Hundred Lights”

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• Life, not the parson, teaches conduct.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

  Teach

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• We arrive at the various stages of life quite as novices.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Life, Novices, Stage

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• Men use a new lesson or experience later on as a ploughshare or perhaps also as a weapon; women at once make it into an ornament.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Men, Use, Lessons

  Friedrich Nietzsche “Delphi Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Illustrated): Friedrich Nietzsche”, Delphi Classics

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• The results of life are uncalculated and uncalculable. The years teach much which the days never know. The persons who compose our company, converse, and come and go, and design and execute many things, and somewhat comes of it all, but an unlooked for result. The individual is always mistaken. He designed many things, and drew in other persons as coadjutors, quarrelled with some or all, blundered much, and something is done; all are a little advanced, but the individual is always mistaken. It turns out somewhat new, and very unlike what he promised himself.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Years, Design, Littles

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2006). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: Selected Essays, Lectures and Poems”, p.243, Bantam Classics

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• ... by indirections find directions out.

  William Shakespeare

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 2, sc. 1, l. 66

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• Doubtless the world is quite right in a million ways; but you have to be kicked about a little to convince you of the fact.

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  World, Littles, Way

  Robert Louis Stevenson (2015). “The Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson: Novels, Short Stories, Poems, Plays, Memoirs, Travel Sketches, Letters and Essays (Illustrated Edition): The Entire Opus of Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer, containing Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Kidnapped, Catriona and A Child's Garden of Verses”, p.4572, e-artnow

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• Looking back, you realize that everything would have explained itself if you had only stopped interrupting.

  Robert Breault

  Realizing, Interrupting, Ifs

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• You start making progress in life when you realize that you don't always have to resume where you left off.

  Robert Breault

  Progress, Realizing, Resumes

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• The experience I gained at age 21 would be useful if I were ever 21 again. But I'm 71 and new at it and keep making age 71 mistakes.

  Robert Breault

  Mistake, Age, Would Be

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• Within each experience of pain or negativity is the opportunity to challenge the perception that lies behind it, the fear that lies behind it, and choose to learn with wisdom. The fear will not vanish immediately, but it will disintegrate as you work with courage. When fear ceases to scare you, it cannot stay. When you choose to learn through wisdom, to evolve consciously, your fears surface one at a time in order for you to exorcise them with inner faith. This is how it happens. You exorcise your own demons.

  Gary Zukav

  Faith, Wisdom, Courage

  Gary Zukav (2014). “The Seat of the Soul: 25th Anniversary Edition with a Study Guide”, p.226, Simon and Schuster

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• it is better to take experience, to suffer, to love, and to remember than to walk unscathed between the fires. I've had most immunities myself - the result of an independent income combined with a personality completely devoid of sexual attractions - the two fires of poverty and passion have therefore never burned me, and I am a lesser person for my safety.

  Winifred Holtby

  Passion, Independent, Fire

  Winifred Holtby, Alice Holtby (1941). “Letters to a friend”

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• Basically you create your experience through your beliefs about yourself and the nature of reality. Another way to understand this is to realize that you create your experiences through your expectations.

  Seth Godin

  Nature, Reality, Expectations

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• Experience is a valuable thing. It enables us to recognize mistakes when we repeat them.

  Kathy Reichs

  Mistake, Valuable, Repeats

  Kathy Reichs (2015). “Grave Secrets”, p.314, Simon and Schuster

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• If we could only use other folks' experience, this here world would be heaven in about three generations, but we're so constructed that we never believe fire'll burn till we poke our own fingers into it to see. Other folks' scars don't go no ways at all toward convincin' us.

  Myrtle Reed

  Believe, Fire, Heaven

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• Worrying is worthless. When you stop focusing on what has already happened and what may never happen, then you'll be in the present moment. Then you'll begin to experience joy in life.

  Brian Weiss

  Life, Worry, Joy

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• I have often thought that however learned you may talk about it, one knows nothing but what he learns from his own experience.
  [Ger., Da dacht ich oft: schwatzt noch so hoch gelehrt,
  Man weiss doch nichts, als was man selbst erfahrt.]

  Christoph Martin Wieland

  Men, May, Als

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• All of us experience a gap between our minds and the reality of time—that's why we suffer.

  Dainin Katagiri

  Time, Reality, Mind

  Dainin Katagiri (2008). “Each Moment Is the Universe: Zen and the Way of Being Time”, p.4, Shambhala Publications

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