Quotes About Experience

for the interests of rulers require that their subjects should be poor in spirit, and that there should be no strong bond of friendship or society among them, which love, above all other motives, is likely to inspire, as our Athenian tyrants learned by experience; for... [love] had a strength which undid their power...

I replied: There is nothing which for my part I like better, Cephalus, than conversing with aged men; for I regard them as travellers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to enquire, whether the way is smooth and easy, or rugged and difficult.

The wisest have the most authority

kita hidup, tetapi kita menjalani kehidupan ini satu kali saja. kita mengembangkan tangan dan menyatakan bahwa kita ada, tetapi kemudian kita tersingkir ke tepi dan terdorong kedalaman sejarah...kita adalah bagian dari penyamaran abadi dimana topeng2 dipakai bergantian. tetapi kita berhak mendapat lebih, sesuatu yang tak akan disibakkan dalam bak pasir, yang tidak tersibakkan itu ada di dalam otak kita, yang disebut sebagai dunia gagasan..

There is nothing which for my part I like better, Cephalus, than conversing with aged men; for I regard them as travellers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to inquire, whether the way is smooth and easy, or rugged and difficult.

How well I remember the aged poet Sophocles, when in answer to the question, How does love suit with age, Sophocles,—are you still the man you were? Peace, he replied; most gladly have I escaped the thing of which you speak; I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master.

mean that we must mount them on horses in their earliest youth, and when they have learnt to ride, take them on horseback to see war: the horses must not be spirited and warlike, but the most tractable and yet the swiftest that can be had. In this way they will get an excellent view of what is hereafter to be their own business; and if there is danger they have only to follow their elder leaders and escape. I

me complace conversar con las personas de mucha edad, pues me parece que es conveniente aprender de ellos, ya que han recorrido un camino que también nosotros deberemos recorrer de igual modo, de qué condición es: áspero y difícil o fácil y cómodo.

el placer y el dolor no se encuentran nunca a un mismo tiempo; y sin embargo, cuando se experimenta el uno, es preciso aceptar el otro, como

It's not easy. It's not supposed to be easy. Most people make mistakes. Most people have to learn the hardest lessons more than once.

There are some who have actually looked upon the Atman, and understood It, in all Its wonder. Others can only speak of It as wonderful beyond their understanding. Others know of Its wonder by hearsay. And there are others who are told about It and do not understand a word.

I really should talk to him. He's had a near-death experience!" We all have. It's called living. (Hogfather)

We who survived the Camps are not true witnesses. This is an uncomfortable notion which I have gradually come to accept by reading what other survivors have written, including myself, when I re-read my writings after a lapse of years. We, the survivors, are not only a tiny but also an anomalous minority. We are those who, through prevarication, skill or luck, never touched bottom. Those who have, and who have seen the face of the Gorgon, did not return, or returned wordless.

She had asked the older women: What is that fire? And they had replied: It is we who are burning.

Un recuerdo evocado demasiado a menudo y expresado en forma de historia tiende a convertirse en un estereotipo... cristalizado, perfeccionado, adornado, instalándose en sí mismo en lugar de la memoria pura y dura, y creciendo a sus expensas.

Un montaggio è un lavoro che ognuno se lo deve studiare da sé, con la sua testa, e ancora meglio con le sue mani: Perché sa, le cose, a vederle da una poltrona oppuramente da un traliccio alto quaranta metri, fa differenza.

Era questa, la carne dell'orso:ed ora che sono passati molti anni, rimpiango di averne mangiata poca, poiché, di tutto quanto la vita mi ha dato di buono, nulla ha avuto, neppure alla lontana, il sapore di quella carne, che è il sapore di essere forti e liberi, liberi anche di sbagliare, e padroni del proprio destino.

What do you take me for? Do you think I was born yesterday? Do you think I have never dealt in eggs?

It was the very discomfort, the blows, the cold, the thirst that kept us aloft in the void of bottomless despair, both during the journey and after. It was not the will to live, nor a conscious resignation; for few are the men capable of such resolution, and we were but a common sample of humanity.

He spoke grudgingly about his exploits. He did not belong to that species of persons who do things in order to talk about them (like me).

Più in generale, l'esperienza ci aveva già dimostrato infinite volte la vanità di ogni previsione: a che scopo travagliarsi per prevedere l'avvenire, quando nessun nostro sforzo, nessuna nostra parola lo avrebbe potuto minimamente influenzare?

For living men, the units of time always have a value, which increases in ratio to the strength of the internal resources of the person living through them; but for us, hours, days, months spilled out sluggishly from the future into the past, always too slowly, a valueless and superfluous material, of which we sought to rid ourselves as soon as possible. ... For us, history had stopped.

In those days, as I was waiting fairly courageously for death, I harbored a piercing hope for everything, for all imaginable human experiences, and I cursed my preceding life, which it seemed to me I had taken little and poor advantage of, and I felt time slipping through my fingers, escaping from my body minute by minute, like a hemorrhage that cannot be stanched.

Car la nature humaine est ainsi faite, que les peines et les souffrances éprouvées simultanément ne s'additionnent pas totalement dans notre sensibilité, mais se dissimulent les unes derrière les autres par ordre de grandeur décroissante selon les lois bien connues de la perspective.