Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom.

for experience does not always mean wisdom.

experience does not always mean wisdom.

One must be an illusionary rather than a visionary.

Though many illusions are of a character we should gladly cherish, yet the sooner we lose some of them, the sooner we gain the power of seeing clearly into things. The one who possesses least has the best chance of becoming wise. The man who travels, and reflects, loses illusions faster than he who stays at home.

Being tired of all illusions and of everything about illusions – the loss of illusions, the uselessness of having them, the prefatigue of having to have them in order to lose them, the sadness of having had them, the intellectual shame of having had them knowing that they would have to end this way.

Failure is the victory of experience.

Experience bereaves us of our innocence; wisdom bereaves us of our ignorance.

Experience by itself is not science.

Growing up is losing some illusions, in order to acquire others.

Experience is not worth the getting. It's not a thing that happens pleasantly to a passive you — it's a wall that an active you runs up against.

"They keep telling you, when you’re older, you’ll have experience — and that’s supposed to be so great. What would you say about that, sir? Is it really any use, would you say?"

"What kind of experience?”

“Well — places you’ve been to, people you’ve met. Situations you’ve been through already, so you know how to handle them when they come up again. All that stuff that’s supposed to make you wise, in your later years.”

“Let me tell you something, Kenny. For other people, I can’t speak — but, personally, I haven’t gotten wise on anything. Certainly, I’ve been through this and that; and when it happens again, I say to myself, Here it is again. But that doesn’t seem to help me. In my opinion, I, personally, have gotten steadily sillier and sillier and sillier — and that’s a fact.”

“No kidding, sir? You can’t mean that! You mean, sillier than when you were young?”

“Much, much sillier.”

“I’ll be darned. Then experience is no use at all? You’re saying it might just as well not have happened?”

“No. I’m not saying that. I only mean, you can’t use it. But if you don’t try to — if you just realize it’s there and you’ve got it — then it can be kind of marvelous."

People must not be wiser than the experience of mankind.

Experience - the wisdom that enables us to recognise in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.