Experience can be a wonderful teacher, but occasionally we also need a little motivation to keep going. To encourage and inspire you, we’ve put together a list of some of the best quotes about experience. These experience quotes will give you the inspiration you need to keep moving forward, whether you’re dealing with failure, pursuing success, or just need a little boost to get through the day. These sayings, by historical figures like Winston Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt as well as contemporary icons like Michael Jordan and Steve Jobs, are certain to have an impact on you. So if you’re lacking inspiration and motivation, check out our selection of experience quotes and let them serve as a roadmap for your journey.
Learning from the Past with Experience Quotes
The only source of knowledge is experience. – Albert Einstein
Experience is the teacher of all things. – Julius Caesar
We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience. – George Bernard Shaw
The past is a guidepost, not a hitching post. – L. Thomas Holdcroft
Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward. – Vernon Law
You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. – Steve Jobs
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. – Douglas Noel Adams
The trouble with this country is that there are too many politicians who believe, with a conviction based on experience, that you can fool all of the people all of the time. – Franklin P. Adams
Sometimes when learning comes before experience It doesn’t make sense right away. – Richard David Bach
Age is only a number, a cipher for the records. A man can’t retire his experience. He must use it. Experience achieves more with less energy and time. – Bernard Mannes Baruch
Our sweetest experiences of affection are meant to point us to that realm which is the real and endless home of the heart. – Henry Ward Beecher
It’s a wise man who profits by his own experience, but it’s a good deal wiser one who lets the rattlesnake bite the other fellow. – Josh Billings
Time lost is time when we have not lived a full human life, time unenriched by experience, creative endeavor, enjoyment, and suffering. – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The possibilities for mobilizing the experience, imaginations, and intelligence of workers, both employed and unemployed, are limitless. – Dominique Bouhours
Our live experiences, fixed in aphorisms, stiffen into cold epigrams. Our heart’s blood, as we write it, turns to mere dull ink. – F. H. Bradley
From Failure to Success: Inspiring Experience Quotes
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts. – Winston Churchill
I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. – Thomas A. Edison
Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. – Winston Churchill
Don’t be afraid to fail. Be afraid not to try. – Michael Jordan
Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. – Henry Ford
Success is not how high you have climbed, but how you make a positive difference to the world. – Roy T. Bennett
The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. – Steve Jobs
You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. – Wayne Gretzky
Success is not the absence of failure; it’s the persistence through failure. – Aisha Tyler
Failure doesn’t mean you are a failure… it just means you haven’t succeeded yet. – Robert H. Schuller
There’s no fool like an old fool — you can’t beat experience. – Jacob Morton Braude
Good judgement is the result of experience … Experience is the result of bad judgement. – FRED BROOKS
One good thing about being young is that you are not experienced enough to know you cannot possibly do the things you are doing. – GENE BROWN
The way to develop self-confidence is to do the thing you fear and get a record of successful experiences behind you. Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved. – WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN
Religion points to that area of human experience where in one way or another man comes upon mystery as a summons to pilgrimage. – CARL FREDERICK BUECHNER
I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive. – JOSEPH CAMPBELL
Eternity has nothing to do with the hereafter… This is it… If you don’t get it here, you won’t get it anywhere. The experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life. Heaven is not the place to have the experience; here’s the place to have the experience. – JOSEPH CAMPBELL
A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience. – MIQUEL DE CERVANTES
Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever. – NOAM CHOMSKY
To make the right choices in life, you have to get in touch with your soul. To do this, you need to experience solitude, which most people are afraid of, because in the silence you hear the truth and know the solutions. – DEEPAK K. CHOPRA
By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest. – CONFUCIUS
Experience Quotes for Personal Growth
Experience is a great advantage. The problem is that when you get the experience, you’re too damned old to do anything about it. – JAMES SCOTT JIMMY CONNORS
The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience. – EMILY ELIZABETH DICKINSON
A man who loses his money, gains, at the least, experience, and sometimes, something better. – BENJAMIN DIZZY DISRAELI
The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by quotations. – BENJAMIN DIZZY DISRAELI
Religious experiences which are as real as life to some may be incomprehensible to others. – WILLIAM ORVILLE DOUGLAS
The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious – the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. – ALBERT EINSTEIN
Imagination is a poor substitute for experience. – HENRY HAVELOCK ELLIS
War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it. – DECIDERIUS ERASMUS
I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts That hope always triumphs over experience That laughter is the only cure for grief And I believe that love is stronger than death. – ROBERT L . FULGHUM
To touch is to experience but to feel is to live. – Loren Klein
Happiness isn’t something you experience; it’s something you remember. – Oscar Levant
God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons we could not learn in any other way. The way we learn those lessons is not to deny the feelings but to find the meanings underlying them. – Stanley Lindquist
One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning. – James Russel Lowell
Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices — just recognize them. – Edward Roscoe Murrow
The most instructive experiences are those of everyday life. – Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
My past is my wisdom to use today… my future is my wisdom yet to experience. Be in the present because that is where life resides. – Gene Oliver
It is innocence that is full and experience that is empty. It is innocence that wins and experience that loses. – Charles Peguy
Ask the experienced rather than the learned. – Arabian Proverb
Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely. – Francois Auguste Rene Rodin
Experience teaches, and inspiration motivates. These experience quotes help us move forward, whether we’re dealing with failure, seeking success, or just need a little push. From famous figures to modern icons, these quotes remind us to keep pushing forward, no matter what challenges we face. Experience is the best teacher, and with these hand-picked quotes, we can learn from the wisdom of those who came before us. So let these quotes inspire and guide you on your journey, and let your experiences shape your path towards success.