lessons Quotes

“Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do—the actual act of writing—turns out to be the best part.”

“Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die.”

“If You Have A Lemon, Make A Lemonade That is what a great educator does. But the fool does the exact opposite. If he finds that life has handed him a lemon, he gives up and says: ‘I’m beaten. It is fate. I haven’t got a chance.’ Then he proceeds to rail against the world and indulge in an orgy of selfpity. But when the wise man is handed a lemon, he says: ‘What lesson can I learn from this misfortune? How can I improve my situation? How can I turn this lemon into a lemonade?‘”

“That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.”

“Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons, with the greatest for the last.”

“Most people don’t land their dream job right out of the gate, which means we all have to start somewhere. You’ll appreciate your amazing career so much more when you look back at your not-so-amazing jobs in the past, and hopefully realize that you learned something from all of them.”

″Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. As a college professor, I’ve seen this as one lesson so many kids ignore, always to their detriment:You’ve got to get the fundamentals down, because otherwise the fancy stuff is not going to work.″

“But what I sincerely hope is that my life serves as a cautionary tale to the rich and poor alike; to anyone who’s living with a spoon up their nose and a bunch of pills dissolving in their stomach sac; or to any person who’s considering taking a God-given gift and misusing it; to anyone who decides to go to the dark side of the force and live a life of unbridled hedonism. And to anyone who thinks there’s anything glamorous about being known as a Wolf of Wall Street.”

“At an early age I learned that people make mistakes, and you have to decide if their mistakes are bigger than your love for them.”

“It is a great privilege, and if you will, you also may learn the lesson of the furnace and of the great darkness just as surely as did those before you. Those who come down to the furnace go on their way afterwards as royal men and women, princes and princesses of the Royal Line.”

“Nothing my Father and I have made is ever wasted,” he said quietly, “and the little wild flowers have a wonderful lesson to teach.”

“Lesson learned? When people say, ‘You really, really must’ do something, it means you don’t really have to. No one ever says, ‘You really, really must deliver the baby during labor.’ When it’s true, it doesn’t need to be said.”

“Growing up, I took so many cues from books . . . They were my teachers and my advisors.”

“Look, Son, if there’s one thing I’ve figured out about life, it’s that if you want to be happy, you have to learn how to be happy on your own.”

“When the student is ready the teacher appears. When the question is asked then the answer is heard. When we are truly ready to receive then what we need will become available.”

Of course it was a great lesson to the Herdmans—they learned that wherever there’s a fire there will be free doughnuts sooner or later.

“That’s what the leadership was teaching me, day by day: that the self-interest I was supposed to be looking for extended well beyond the immediacy of issues, that beneath the small talk and sketchy biographies and received opinions, people carried with them some central explanation of themselves. Stories full of terror and wonder, studded with events that still haunted or inspired them. Sacred stories.”

“I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.”

“I learned nothing from you except how to be suspicious. I didn’t know what hate was until I lived among you and saw you hating every day.”

“As sure as time, history is repeating itself, and as sure as man is man, history is the last place he’ll look for his lessons.”

“There is an important principle that guides our thinking about the relationship between parenting and money - and that principle is that more is not always better.”

“This animal had touched our souls and taught us some of the most important lessons of our lives.”

“I learned a lesson I’d never forget. The lesson was that, when you have setbacks and failures, you can’t overreact to them.”

“My mom did what school didn’t. She taught me how to think.”

“Every trail has its end, and every calamity brings its lesson!”

“You’ve learned the lessons well. You first learned to live on less than you earn. Next you learned to seek advice from those who are competent. Lastly, you’ve learned to make gold work for you.”

“Home is a child’s first and most important classroom.”

“No…I should have listened to you. That’s all human beings are! Just blind people.”

“And let that be a lesson to you, George, never to ask advice on personal matters.”

“Poverty doesn’t give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor.”

“In an unfamiliar culture, it is wise to offer no innovations, no suggestions, or lessons.”

“And how many hours a day did you do lessons?” said Alice, in a hurry to change the subject. “Ten hours the first day,” said the Mock Turtle: “nine the next, and so on.” “What a curious plan!” exclaimed Alice. “That’s the reason they’re called lessons,” the Gryphon remarked: “because they lessen from day to day.”

“There can actually be richness in the sadness. If you experience joy without craving that the joy linger and intensify, you continue to feel joy without losing your peace of mind.”

“The higher, more penetrating ideals are revolutionary. They present themselves far less in the guise of effects of past experience than in that of probable causes of future experience, factors to which the environment and the lessons it has so far taught us must learn to bend.”

″‘Man lessons,’ he said. ‘Someday I’ll give you man lessons.‘”

“If you don’t learn the easy lessons, they get harder. (Pain is one way the universe gets your attention.)”

“…always he was alert for information, for lessons on how to be.”

“You spent the whole day being angry with Michael. Did you notice how much fun we had?”

“She went every day to her ballet lessons and worked very hard for many years...until at last she became the famous ballerina Mademoiselle Angelina, and people came from far and wide to enjoy her lovely dancing.”

“The very next day Angelina took her pink slippers and ballet dress and went to her first lesson at Miss Lilly’s Ballet School.”

“At School Five little Girls, sitting on a form, Five little Girls, with lessons to learn, Five little Girls, who, I’m afraid, Won’t know them a bit when they have to be said. For little eyes are given to look Anywhere else than on their book; And little thoughts are given to stray Anywhere-ever so far away.”

“Jock had many things to learn besides the lessons he got from me- the lessons of experience which nobody could teach him.”

“The object of all schools is not to ram Latin and Greek into boys, but to make them good English boys, good future citizens; and by far the most important part of that work must be done, or not done, out of school hours. To leave it, therefore, in the hands of inferior men, is just giving up the highest and hardest part of the work of education. Were I a private school-master, I should say, Let who will hear the boys their lessons, but let me live with them when they are at play and rest.”

“If there is one lesson I’ve learned from failure and success, it’s this. I am not the outcome. I am never the result. I am only the effort.”

″ ‘I hate winter,’ said Griselda, pressing her cold little face against the colder window-pane, ‘I hate winter, and I hate lessons. I would give up being a person in a minute if I might be a-a-what would I best like to be? Oh yes, I know - a butterfly. Butterflies never see winter and they certainly never have any lessons or any kind of work to do. I hate must-ing to do anything.”

“With these three little girls and two little boys There is sure to be plenty of laughter and noise; But nobody minds it, because don’t you see, At school they are quiet with lessons they say - But when holidays come they can play the whole day.”

“Finally, the lessons of impermanence taught me this: loss constitutes an odd kind of fullness; despair empties out into an unquenchable appetite for life.”

“And remember the most important lesson. The goal is not simply for you to cross the finish line, but to see how many people you can inspire to run with you.”

“She said that the more puffed up Pauline became, the greater would be the flatness after the matinées were over, and that then she would learn that most important lesson for an actress—that today’s success is easily nobody at all tomorrow”

“In breaking away from the familiar and the expected, you’ll be forced and privileged to face greater challenges, learn harder lessons, and really get to know yourself.”

“Things will change: you won’t feel this way forever. And anyway, sometimes the hardest lessons to learn are the ones your soul needs most.”

“This is an important lesson to remember when you’re having a bad day, a bad month, or a shitty year. Things will change: you won’t feel this way forever. And anyway, sometimes the hardest lessons to learn are the ones your soul needs most. I believe you can’t feel real joy unless you’ve felt heartache. You can’t have a sense of victory unless you know what it means to fail. You can’t know what it’s like to feel holy until you know what it’s like to feel really fucking evil. And you can’t be birthed again until you’ve died.”