Learning Your Lesson Quotes & Sayings

Some parents let their young kids win at games, but mine never did.
I don't think it was because they were particularly competitive, they just wanted to teach me a valuable lesson.
Life is mostly just learning how to lose. — Brian K. Vaughan

I come from the ocean with songs of the sea
No lesson for learning, just play upon me
Now go make your music in lands near and far
Orion protects you wherever you are — Jimmy Buffett

[T]he more critical lesson I learned that day is still one too many kids never figure out: don't be shy about making a teacher of any willing party who knows what he or she is doing. — Sonia Sotomayor

It is the Law that any difficulties that can come to you at any time, no matter what they are, must be exactly what you need most at the moment, to enable you to take the next step forward by overcoming them. The only real misfortune, the only real tragedy, comes when we suffer without learning the lesson. — Emmet Fox

Like it or not, i was already learning that in the worst and darkest time, I would find specks of light, moments of joy. What I didn't want to learn was the other, harsher lesson - that in life's brightest moments there would also be unbearable pain. p 87 — Melody Beattie

While the Texas prison officials remained in the dark about what was going on, they were fortunate that William and Danny had benign motives. Imagine what havoc the two might have caused; it would have been child's play for these guys to develop a scheme for obtaining money or property from unsuspecting victims. The Internet had become their university and playground. Learning how to run scams against individuals or break in to corporate sites would have been a cinch; teenagers and preteens learn these methods every day from the hacker sites and elsewhere on the Web. And as prisoners, Danny and William had all the time in the world.

Maybe there's a lesson here: Two convicted murderers, but that didn't mean they were scum, rotten to the core. They were cheaters who hacked their way onto the Internet illegally, but that didn't mean they were willing to victimize innocent people or naively insecure companies. — Kevin D. Mitnick

Hopefully I'm learning a lesson from every new thing I write, whether it features guys in spandex or not. — Jason Aaron

Sometimes the best way to learn a lesson isn't just hearing the words, but putting it into practice by experimenting with it and finding its truth for yourself instead of taking someone else's word for it. — A.J. Darkholme

A lesson that is never learned can never be too often taught. — Seneca The Younger

The important thing is to learn a lesson every time you lose. Life is a learning process and you have to try to learn what's best for you. Let me tell you, life is not fun when you're banging your head against a brick wall all the time. — John McEnroe

Learning to wear a mask (that word already embedded in the term "masculinity") is the first lesson in patriarchal masculinity that a boy learns. He learns that his core feelings cannot be expressed if they do not conform to the acceptable behaviors sexism defines as male. Asked to give up the true self in order to realize the patriarchal ideal, boys learn self-betrayal early and are rewarded for these acts of soul murder. — Bell Hooks

The ultimate lesson is learning how to love and be loved unconditionally — Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

If a few students come reluctantly to their studies, then let them go. If all students come reluctantly to their studies, then let your scribe be dismissed and find another. For once students have been taught that learning is tedious, difficult, and useless, they will never learn another lesson. — Robin Hobb

We shall find true happiness once you have learnt to accept your loneliness. — Adhish Mazumder

Love is a lesson worth learning. — Oprah Winfrey

A different species a different set of values a world completely unlike your own. There is a feeling you can only get when you meet the unknown and open your mind. - Nakajima (Gin no Saji) — Hiromu Arakawa

This was the lesson we kept learning over and over and over, the lesson our mother was best capable of teaching us. Love - whatever else it might or might not be - was fleeting. Love stormed into your life and occupied it, it took over every corner of your soul, made itself comfortable, made itself wanted, then treasured, then necessary, love did all of this and then it did next the only thing it had left to do, it retreated, it vanished, it left no trace of itself. Love was horrifying. — Christie Hodgen

After the woman left, Gran, staring out back at the Zebra Forest, said to me, 'I'm a liar, I'll admit. But I pride myself on being a really good liar. That's part of my educational philosophy, too, Annie B. Mark that down. Lesson one: If you're going to do something, make sure to do it with excellence. — Adina Rishe Gewirtz

When you feel life at crossroads,
you need higher perspective view. — Toba Beta

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. — Kamal Ravikant

Maybe we were all destined to just keep doing the same stupid things, over and over again, never really learning a single thing. — Sarah Dessen

How many times have I been in my therapist's office, saying, "I think I'm smarter than this! I've been down this road! I've learned this lesson!" And she's like, "Yeah, and you're learning it a little bit deeper." — Daphne Zuniga

No lesson is truly learned until it has been purchased with pain — Matthew Woodring Stover

You cannot lose if you have learned one new lesson.
You cannot lose if you have helped one new person.
You cannot lose if you have overcome one new obstacle. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Rule Number One is this: If you're open to learning, you get your life-lessons delivered as gently as the tickle of a feather. But if you're defensive, if you stubbornly persist in being right instead of learning the lesson at hand, if you stop paying attention to the tickles, the nudges, the clues - boom! Sledgehammer. — Gay Hendricks

Life is here to teach us, so be a good student. Mistakes are the only way we learn. — Dannika Dark

Learning to combat boredom is a lesson in and of itself and it's one you don't have to drive your kid anywhere for them to learn. — Jenny Lawson

Collateral learning in the way of formation of enduring attitudes, of likes and dislikes, may be and often is much more important than the spelling lesson or lesson in geography or history that is learned. For these attitudes are fundamentally what count in the future. The most important attitude that can be formed is that of desire to go on learning. If impetus in this direction is weakened instead of being intensified, something much more than mere lack of preparation takes place. The pupil is actually robbed of native capacities which otherwise would enable him [sic] to cope with the circumstances that he meets in the course of his life. We often see persons who have had little schooling and in whose case the absence of set schooling proves to be a positive asset. They have at least retained their native common sense and power of judgement, and its exercise in the actual conditions of living has given them the precious gift of ability to learn from the experiences they have. — John Dewey

Young hearts too often have tunnel vision. — K.J. Farnham

Everything in life is a lesson and I have learned from each marriage. Yes, I've made mistakes but every experience is a learning curve. — Patsy Kensit

Pay attention to the girl, instead of myself. A bunch of people [told me that]. It's terrible. I'm very into myself, so people are always like, "Pay attention to the other person. Don't ever separate yourself." It's a good lesson. I'm learning. I'm doing good. — Jonathan Cheban

Humans were so circular; they lived the same slow cycles of joy and misery over and over, never learning. Every lesson in the universe had to be taught billions of times, and it never stuck.
Maybe it was good that the world forgot every lesson, every good and bad memory, every triumph and failure, all of it dying with each generation. Perhaps this cultural amnesia spared them all. Perhaps if they remembered everything, hope would die instead. — Maggie Stiefvater

In my experience one thing you don't learn from is anything anyone set up to be a lesson; what you are to know you pick up as you go along. — Elizabeth Bowen

It would do me well to realize that the path that has led me to where I am was mapped by those who taught me and paved by what they taught me. Therefore, if God is not my teacher and His truth is not my topic I will find myself where I don't want to be, having trod a path I didn't want to take. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Nothing will go wrong,Micheal said soothingly. Me and you? We've been through to much together. And your too unpleasant to die.Too bossy.God will keep you down here for a while until you learn your lesson and start learning to work and play well with others. Now your talking.Will you go with me a week from Friday when I get my biopsy? Wild horses and an evil head nurse with rubber gloves couldn't keep me away.
Now your just being gross. — Erica Orloff

I learned a lot from my Mom. My favorite lesson: remember there is no such thing as a certain way to parent and to remember that you are learning along with your child - it's ok to make mistakes. — Regina King

Whatever you are doing, put your whole mind on it. If you are shooting, your mind should be only on the target. Then you will never miss. If you are learning your lessons, think only of the lesson. In India boys and girls are taught to do this. — Swami Vivekananda

You can learn a lot from your lovers, but-for the most part-you get to keep your friends longer, and you learn more from them. — John Irving

Learning your lesson from a mistake is healthy, but living forever in the emotions of your past mistakes is toxic and debilitating. — Bryant McGill

Leading isn't about being perfect, but learning from mistake one made by you or others. It's showing by example and, if you do make a mistake, you own it and rise above it. You don't hang your head down, but lift it up and say, "Fuck. I guess I won't do that again!". The one thing you can't do is let it destroy your self-confidence . If you do, the mistake wins. If you rise above it and tuck the lesson in your bag of tricks, you win. -- Jack Walker (A New World: Conspiracy) — John O'Brien

Being a mom changes your life. It actually has made me become more comfortable in my own skin and my own body because it's such a growth and a learning lesson. — Christina Aguilera

Our country has had a hard time learning that lesson with energy. — Mac Thornberry

A man can spend his whole existence never learning the simple lesson that he has only one life and that if he fails to do what he wants with it, nobody else really cares.
Louis Auchincloss — Louis Auchincloss

I received comments on how extraordinary it was that I could keep up speaking for exactly 45 minutes. Indeed, in an age of soundbites lasting some seconds and of quick quotes in the news, all those minutes do seem like an eternity, easy to get lost in. Yet, wait a moment. Television is not the only place where speeches are given. Some hundred thousand teachers teach every day. They all speak 45 minutes, more times a day. They have been doing this for years. Every teacher knows exactly when the time will be over and that by then his speech will need to come to a natural end. It is this tension that determines the success of a lesson. It is a sign of the times that we forget these daily achievements in education. A million students daily attend several 'live' lectures and this in secondary education alone. These are high ratings! — Robbert Dijkgraaf

If any lesson may be learned from the academic breakthroughs achieved by Pineapple and Jeremy, it is not that we should celebrate exceptionality of opportunity but that the public schools themselves in neighborhoods of widespread destitution ought to have the rich resources, small classes, and well-prepared and well-rewarded teachers that would enable us to give to every child the feast of learning that is now available to children of the poor only on the basis of a careful selectivity or by catching the attention of empathetic people like the pastor of a church or another grown-up whom they meet by chance. Charity and chance and narrow selectivity are not the way to educate children of a genuine democracy. — Jonathan Kozol

He wants us to think for ourselves, without fear of ridicule or judgment. He wants us to make up our minds and ignore what the rest of the world is saying. Pay no attention to fads or fashions, and listen, always, to the voice of your innermost self. Learning who you are is your primary task. There are no mistakes in life, as far as Emerson's concerned, only lessons. Once you master one lesson, you move on to the next. And the only place you can learn is right now. In the everlasting present. — Mark Frost

We must all learn a good lesson - how to live together. That is the new challenge of the new world ... learning to co-exist and not co-annihilate. — Jesse Jackson

Will this generation be able to turn things around and learn a valuable lesson from all of this? I hope so, but I have my doubts. The damage has been done. And as a lifelong student of history, it's quite evident that human beings don't learn from the mistakes of past generations. — Aaron B. Powell

It seems obvious that there comes period in your life when you have to learn to say no to things you don't want to do. But the biggest trickiest lesson in holding on the stalwart committment to your creativity is learning how to say no to the things you do want to do. — Elizabeth Gilbert

In God's economy, nothing is slag, nothing is wasted. Every relationship we build is a teacher, every experience we have is a coach. In every scar there is a lesson. In every memory there lives potential to make more. — Toni Sorenson

He uses our problems for His miracles. This was my first lesson in learning to trust Him completely ... — Corrie Ten Boom

I think it's never too late to learn - or it's a lesson that's good to continue learning - that you need to treat everyone on a set with respect. — Alison Brie

No matter what you do, you can never please everyone. And that was the hardest lesson to learn. In fact, I'm still learning it. — Chris Colfer

When everything is added up, the frequent blows weighted against the sporadic triumphs, this is I have to say not just a vocation, it's a great gift. But you also know this, for your work, for your passion, every day is a rededication. Painters, dancers, actors, writers, filmmakers. It's the same for all of you, all of us. Every step is a first step. Every brush stroke is a test. Every scene is a lesson. Every shot is a school. So, let the learning continue. — Martin Scorsese

Lou Holtz is a brilliant strategist, a first-class motivator, and an inspiring role model. Winning Every Day coaches you through the hard-won lessons of life that Coach Holtz has gleaned from a lifetime of learning. Using personal behind-the-scenes experiences he shows you how to break through obstacles, capitalize on fleeting opportunities, and achieve success. There is no better mentor than Lou Holtz. — Peter Lowe

Where there is a lesson to be learned there is always an opportunity of change to be gained. Change comes by learning, help us Lord Jesus to learn something from every lesson. — Euginia Herlihy

Put off the fire of pride and save your life from burning with flames of failure. Pride is the reason why many dreams only survive as ashes today. Learn the lesson; hung on to humility! — Israelmore Ayivor

In my small way, I preserved and catalogued, and dipped into the vast ocean of learning that awaited, knowing all the time that the life of one man was insufficient for even the smallest part of the wonders that lay within. It is cruel that we are granted the desire to know, but denied the time to do so properly. We all die frustrated; it is the greatest lesson we have to learn. — Iain Pears

I am finally learning my lesson. Anyone can betray anyone. — Victoria Aveyard

Cupcakes The first time you bake cupcakes, you will certainly follow the recipe with rigor. The third time, you might improvise and screw up. Learning your lesson, you will follow the recipe again and again as closely as you can. At this point, by the fifth time, some people actually learn to bake. They improvise successfully. They understand the science and the outcomes. They develop a kind of gracefulness in the kitchen. Others merely plod along. They're cooks, not chefs. A cook follows a recipe. A chef invents one. We have too many cooks. The world is begging for chefs. — Seth Godin

I learned an important lesson - that the value of the stock is not the same as the underlying value of the company. The stock goes up and down according to the whims and wiles of Wall Street. The value of the company depends on elements that contribute to the creation of real value - things like providing superior products at fair prices. You need to be learning and innovating, giving your people interesting, motivating work and compensating them fairly, creating value for your community, and doing it all in a way that yields a good profit. That's not what much of Wall Street values, but it's what creates long-term value for investors. — Jim Koch

Always be conscious of the fact that someone somewhere is learning a new lesson watching you live your life — Wogu Donald

I would prefer," Pat said, his voice a little stiff, as if he expected resistance, "that I be the cosigner on the loan, if you go through with this. I know I'm not a famous billionaire, but I think my credit's just as good."
No, you're wrong about that," Tess said, shaking her head.
What?"
As far as I'm concerned, it's better. I'd much rather do business with you."
They shook on it. It was a deal, after all, not a time for hugging.
Favors, Arnie Vasso had once said. Your father knows all about favors. He had meant it as an insult, a sly reference to the corners the Monaghans and Weinsteins cut here and there. Now Tess saw it for the simple truth it was: Her father understood favors. How to do them, how to accept them, how to walk away when the price was too steep. It was a lesson she wouldn't mind learning someday.
Maybe this was the place to start. — Laura Lippman

The emphasis on technology over an understanding of the realities of war and conflict reflect[s] the ahistoricism not only of too much of the U.S. military officer corps, but of the American educational system as well. Our mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan were the result of a pervasive failure to understand the historical framework within which insurgencies take place, to appreciate the cultural and political factors of other nations and people, and to encourage the learning of foreign languages. In other words, in Afghanistan and Iraq we managed to repeat many of the mistakes we made in Vietnam, because America's political and military leaders managed to forget nearly every lesson of that conflict. — Peter R. Mansoor

Wisdom stems from personal accountability. We all make mistakes; own them ... learn from them. Don't throw away the lesson by blaming others. — Steve Maraboli

Each day becomes as a learning environment that provides an unexpected teachings:
. Everything you see is an opportunity to learn.
. Every word you hear is an opportunity to learn.
. Good or bad decisions you make each day are the opportunity to learn. Every experience you come across becomes a lesson of the day. Every failure you encounter can be your teacher. — Euginia Herlihy

When you keep explaining and rehashing you just keep your mistake alive. Learn your lesson and adjust your behavior and move forward. — Bryant McGill

One more word about giving instruction as to what the world ought to be. Philosophy in any case always comes on the scene too late to give it. As the thought of the world, it appears only when actuality is already there cut and dried after its process of formation has been completed ...
When philosophy paints its grey in grey, then has a shape of life grown old. By philosophy's grey in grey it cannot be rejuvenated but only understood. The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk. — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Everything I do is kind of a lesson, even if I am the only person who learns it. — Taylor Mali

And I am revealed for exactly what I am - a particularly stupid fish, moving from hook to hook, never learning my lesson — Victoria Aveyard

He went to work in this preparatory lesson, not unlike Morgiana in the Forty Thieves: looking into all the vessels ranged before him, one after another, to see what they contained. Say, good M'Choakumchild. When from thy boiling store, thou shalt fill each jar brim full by-and-by, dost thou think that thou wilt always kill outright the robber Fancy lurking within - or sometimes only maim him and distort him! — Charles Dickens

So many people have touched my heart and made an impact on my world. I'm thankful for every lesson and learning experience. — Bindi Irwin

Still, it is not perverse to wonder whether the spectacle of America, currently learning a lesson - one that conservatives should not have to learn on the job - about the limits of power to subdue an unruly world, has emboldened many enemies. — George Will

Sometimes, soulmates may meet, stay together until a task or life lesson is completed, and then move on. This is not a tragedy, only a matter of learning. — Brian L. Weiss

Can't you give me brains?" asked the Scarecrow.
"You don't need them. You are learning something every day. A baby has brains, but it doesn't know much. Experience is the only thing that brings knowledge, and the longer you are on earth the more experience you are sure to get. — L. Frank Baum

Absolutely devout in her complete care of my body, she had only taught me to be weak and voiceless.

But I had unlearned that lesson. Our enmeshment no longer felt to me like proof of love. I was no longer willing to permit this silencing. Helplessness didn't have to be my identity, I wasn't condemned to it. I was willing - able - to change. Our enmeshment had been enabled by my belief that I needed her to help me, to take care of things for me - and to save me - but, back in the home where I'd learned this helplessness, I found I no longer felt that I was trapped in it. — Aspen Matis

Learning patience was not an easy lesson. — Michael Douglas

Every lesson in life is worth learning except for the ones you can't afford. — Euphrates Arnaut Moss

Carpe diem was the lesson to be learned. It's what I had been trying to teach Ben when I let him run ahead in the woods. Seize the day - be brave - be independent - be thoughtful - don't be scared to make mistakes - keep learning - all of those things, all the time. And somebody had taken him. More fool me. Ruth's — Gilly Macmillan

It definitely has learning a lesson about the way you're living your life. I wouldn't compare our movie to that, but it has a structure where it's about a man who doesn't appreciate all that he has and finds out at the end that life has been great and he has to enjoy that. — Adam Sandler

One great lesson from history we need to keep on re-learning. It is that sometimes your adversaries tell you exactly what they're going to do. How many times did [Osama] bin Laden say prior to 9/11 that he was coming after the U.S.? ISIS made clear that when they established their caliphate in Iraq and Syria, they were coming after the United States too. — Michael Morell

*Have humility. Learn from everyone you can. Even if it's just one takeaway. *Be grateful for the many lessons you get, and realize that everything is a lesson. *Only be around people you love and who inspire you. *Life is a billion times smaller than the point of a needle. Don't waste it doing things you were told to do. Do the things you love to do. *Health is the most important thing, else your body today won't let you enjoy tomorrow. *Every day, be creative. Creativity is a muscle. *You're going to make mistakes, but 80% is always good enough. Keep learning the next thing. *Life will constantly hit you until you are senseless. Don't forget these are lessons. — James Altucher

For if there is one lesson worth retaining from the travails of the Cold War and the miseries it brought in its wake, it is the folly of seeking simple answers to complicated questions. It is a lesson which governments still show no sign of learning. — Philip Short

Grown ups' could learn a lesson from watching cartoons. — James Jean-Pierre

We sometimes hurt those we love because they need to be "taught a lesson," when we really want to punish. We were depressed and complained we felt bad, when in fact we were mainly asking for sympathy and attention. This odd trait of mind and emotion, this perverse wish to hide a bad motive underneath a good one, permeates human affairs from top to bottom. This subtle and elusive kind of self-righteousness can underlie the smallest act or thought. Learning daily to spot, admit, and correct these flaws is the essence of character-building and good living. An honest regret for harms done, a genuine gratitude for blessings received, and a willingness to try for better things tomorrow will be the permanent assets we shall seek. — Alcoholics Anonymous

Potomac School proved to be my first big adjustment - one that helped me with a basic lesson of growing up: learning to get along in whatever world one is deposited. — Katharine Graham