The Lesson Quotes & Sayings

Happy will be those who take a lesson and warning from the mistakes and misfortunes of others and seek, nevertheless, to adopt the good they offer. Wisdom, wherever he finds it, it's a believer's goal, because he is more worthy of it than anyone else. — Yusuf Al-Qaradawi

You can read the Bible, and should, but until you study it, it doesn't come alive for you and teach you a lasting lesson.

Take time.
Study God's Word.
It will change you. — Gail Davis

In spite of this, our table's status on the Oronsay continued to be minimal, while those at the Captain's Table were constantly toasting to one another's significance. That was a small lesson I learned on the journey. What is interesting and important happens mostly in secret, in places where there is no power. Nothing much of lasting value ever happens at the head table, held together by familiar rhetoric. Those who already have power continue to glide along in the familiar rut they have made for themselves. — Michael Ondaatje

And here is the lesson I learned in the army. If you want to do a thing badly, you have to work at it as though you want to do it well. — Peter Ustinov

The problem after a war is with the victor. He thinks he has just proved that war and violence pay. Who will now teach him a lesson? — A.J. Muste

Oh, I think the biggest lesson in Wisconsin is that 60 percent of the people do not believe that recall elections were proper for policy differences, short of some criminal offense. — Martin O'Malley

The princess snorted. "If you haven't figured out by now that I don't care what you think of me, let this be the lesson that sticks. — C.J. Redwine

Change life! Change Society! These ideas lose completely their meaning without producing an appropriate space. A lesson to be learned from soviet constructivists from the 1920s and 30s, and of their failure, is that new social relations demand a new space, and vice-versa. — Henri Lefebvre

Progress is a natural result of staying focused on the process of doing anything. — Thomas M. Sterner

The tape measures and weighing scales of the Victorian brain scientists have been supplanted by powerful neuroimaging technologies, but there is still a lesson to be learned from historical examples such as these. State-of-the-art brain scanners offer us unprecedented information about the structure and working of the brain. But don't forget that, once, wrapping a tape measure around the head was considered modern and sophisticated, and it's important not to fall into the same old traps. As we'll see in later chapters, although certain popular commentators make it seem effortlessly easy, the sheer complexity of the brain makes interpreting and understanding the meaning of any sex differences we find in the brain a very difficult task. But the first, and perhaps surprising, issue in sex differences research is that of knowing which differences are real and which, like the intially promising cephalic index, are flukes or spurious. — Cordelia Fine

Take a rest and the world catches up with you. Lesson in life - keep moving. — Mark Lawrence

I realized that, while I would never be my mother nor have her life, the lesson she had left me was that it was possible to love and care for a man and still have at your core a strength so great that you never even needed to put it on display. — Anna Quindlen

But this, perhaps, is the enduring lesson of mountaineering: once we've hit our target we are but halfway. Soldier on. — Sebastian Marshall

I think to always treat others as you would want to be treated yourself and treat every single person with the same amount of respect. It's not often you see it, but sometimes you meet someone who is not very nice to their peers. But when you do, it's a massive lesson in treating everybody with respect. — Christine Bottomley

There are some who, for varying reasons, would appease Red China. They are blind to history's clear lesson, for history teaches with unmistakable emphasis that appeasement but begets new and bloodier war. It points to no single instance where this end has justified that means, where appeasement has led to more than a sham peace. Like blackmail, it lays the basis for new and successively greater demands until, as in blackmail, violence becomes the only other alternative. — Douglas MacArthur

The lesson is, because there will be many lemons in life, to learn to make the proverbial lemonade - and be open and honest. That's the best way of doing damage control and positioning yourself for success. — Vivek Wadhwa

Be very vigilant over thy child in the April of his understanding, lest the frost of May nip his blossoms. While he is a tender twig, straighten him; whilst he is a new vessel, season him; such as thou makest him, such commonly shall thou find him. Let his first lesson be obedience and his second shall be what thou wilt. — Francis Quarles

Decide.

Take one of the most unsettling things you feel exist in your life and decide.

Decide to meet it with love and understanding.
Decide to meet it with a proactive spirit that believes that a solution, an ease, a peaceful resolve rests in the meeting.

Prepare your heart for what it feels like to be joyous over the result. Give life to this solution with your breath.

Let any fear be a helpmate, let it actually support and lift you to an awareness that your next opportunity for growth is revisiting you through this present unsettling because you are now more than capable and authentically ready to meet it.

Learn and value the lesson and transcend its repetitive nature. — David Ault

The pain is always bringing me a lesson. If I listen to the lesson when the pain is manageable, the pain won't get gargantuan and flatten me entirely, because I will have received the message at the center. I receive it as gently as I can, because the cruelest thing that I do to myself is try to push myself through an experience. — Bellamy Young

How you ever gonna reach the stars
If you never get off the ground? — Big Time Rush

The road to greatness is often sought, but if journeyed with kindness, it is sweetly paved. — Tom Althouse

If there is reluctantly obstruction in our life then don't be amused life is itself immense lesson therefore learn from lesson — Avinash Advani

I was raised in the Marine Corps and I was taught as a boy that you feed your own men before you feed yourself. It was my belief then, and it remains so today, that my platoon who loves and respect me will slaughter your platoon that hates you. But here is the great lesson I took from the plebe system - it let me know exactly the kind of man I wanted to become. It made me ache to be a contributing citizen in whatever society I found myself in, to live out a life I could be proud of, and always to measure up to what I took to be the highest ideal of a Citadel man - or, now, a Citadel woman. The standards were clear to me and they were high, and I took my marching orders from my college to take my hard-won education and go out to try to make the whole world a better place. — Pat Conroy

There are often great lessons to be learned at the roots of stress, drama, and heartache. Don't let the magnitude of the circumstance blind you to the value of the lesson. — Steve Maraboli

She looked up at him and said,"What did you say?"
"You have beautiful eyes."
"You told my father that he has beautiful eyes?"
He smiled. "No. You distracted me. I told your father that, while I was very grateful for the lesson, I doubt I would ever need of it again- because I was planning to court only one woman in my lifetime. — Sarah MacLean

She was probably used to testing her maturity and newfound confidence around hesitant boys closer to her age, but the lesson to be learned was that unlike boys who are intimidated by feminine boldness, men like me are inflamed by it. — R.S. Grey

I sketch the faces upside down because it's like drawing from the left side of the brain or the right side of the brain. I never took an art lesson in my life. — Stevie Nicks

Scientists used to do an experiment whereby a dog's repeated reward for performing a task was unaccountably replaced by punishment. The dog, knowing it would be penalized for doing well or doing badly, would become melancholic and inactive. This and other unforeseeable results were funded by taxing up to sixty percent of people's earnings. People became strangely melancholic and inactive
— Steve Aylett

Another lesson is that smart professionals might give an instruction to a program based on a sensible-seeming and normally sound assumption (e.g. that trading volume is a good measure of market liquidity), and that this can produce catastrophic results when the program continues to act on the instruction with iron-clad logical consistency even in the unanticipated situation where the assumption turns out to be invalid. The algorithm just does what it does; and unless it is a very special kind of algorithm, it does not care that we clasp our heads and gasp in dumbstruck horror at the absurd inappropriateness of its actions. This is a theme that we will encounter again. — Nick Bostrom

In every political community there are varying shades of political opinion. One of the shadiest of these is the liberals. An outspoken group on many subjects. Ten degrees to the left of center in good times. Ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally. Here, then, is a lesson in safe logic. — Phil Ochs

Sometimes it is time to make new mistakes to finally learn a particular lesson, if making the same mistake again doesn't teach you. — Ben Tolosa

The only important lesson from the Vietnam War is this: Democrats lose wars. — Ann Coulter

Get through this little lesson, the sooner you get — Kiera Cass

The hardest lesson is Clare's solitude. Sometimes I come home and Clare seems kind of irritated; I've interrupted some train of thought, broken into the dreary silence of her day. Sometimes I see an expression on Clare's face that is like a closed door. She has gone inside the room of her mind and is sitting there knitting or something. I've discovered that Clare likes to be alone. But when I return from time traveling she is always relieved to see me. — Audrey Niffenegger

The lesson of the Clinton years and of Obama's win of both the nomination and the general election in 2008 is that Democrats need to be as tough as JFK was. — Jon Meacham

The danger of leaving overwhelming wealth and power in the grasp of a small minority is a lesson that leaders such as ousted Tunisian president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and deposed Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak have learned a little too late, as the demonstrations across the Arab world indicate. — Graydon Carter

As we speak, that is what we are doing. Projects that come to you are not written for you. We have to take a lesson from Will Smith, who develops projects he can shine in. We're trying to develop things from the ground up. — Columbus Short

Lesson for the day, kids: hangovers are real, and they are the opposite of fun. — Jeff Sampson

When there's a piano to be moved, don't reach for the stool. — H. Jackson Brown Jr.

There is tragedy all around us, we pick up pieces, we find our feet and before long another turn of events stare us in the eyes; like we're some kind of magician- the fight seems endless, so I look to the world for inspiration. I observe and I watch how others face adversity, some hide from it, some master each lesson and some create a life with it ... Our lessons don't define us, our integrity to keep rising after every fall is. — Nikki Rowe

One of the greatest lesson is humility. Humility is like oxygen to the soul. You won't get too far without it! — Dina Rolle

The first lesson of history is that evil is good. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is no substitute for kindness in the home. This lesson I learned from my father. He always listened to my mother's advice. As a result, he was a better, wiser, and kinder man. — Joseph B. Wirthlin

Exposure to a two-year-old boy was probably the best possible object lesson in the dangers of motherhood, — Diana Gabaldon

If there is one thing about my family that I do identify with, it is that everyone is extremely hardworking. Also, the people whom I grew up with all did things they really loved. And I think that's an important lesson. — Rooney Mara

My first teacher was Steven Spielberg. I worked on Amazing Stories. That was my first job, as a writer and as a story editor. Watching him and his command of the tools of filmmaking, and his admiration for writing and the story itself, was the greatest lesson I ever had. — Mick Garris

Madison understood that if you want to protect rights from government abuse, you would be wise not to give government the power in the first place that can be used to abuse rights. That is a lesson we have forgotten. As we have asked government to do more and more for us, we have forgotten that a government big enough to give us everything we want will be powerful enough to take everything we have. — Roger Pilon

Finally my heart is starting to self heal it is like the skin eventually the cut that was once so painful and deep is on the mend as the time passes ... Time heals everything! But at least I have experienced that pain so next time I know how to avoid such an event and take it as a life lesson — Abe

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

We never learn to value what is simple; what is difficult is worthy to us. But, the beauty of life is in the simplicity. — Debasish Mridha

The mythology of the Reagan presidency is that he induced the collapse of the Soviet Union by luring it into unsustainable military spending and wars: should there come a point when we think about applying that lesson to ourselves? — Glenn Greenwald

As much as I loved the model of St. Francis, I realized that I couldn't afford to be poor, because unlike St. Francis, I'm not celibate. I was enlightened that God's call to me was not poverty but generosity and simplicity. And I had to go back to the lesson I learned from my parents: that is, simplicity. — Bo Sanchez

It was as though in those last minutes he was summing up the lessons that this long course in human wickedness had taught us - the lesson of the fearsome, word-and-thought-defying banality of evil. — Hannah Arendt

We are born into this world with clenched fists, we leave it with fingers apart- preaching the lesson that you take nothing with you. — Ethel Percy Andrus

First, separate ground, sea and air warfare is gone forever. This lesson we learned in World War II. I lived that lesson in Europe. Others lived it in the Pacific. Millions of American veterans learned it well. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

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

People have got to make their best calls in what they think about a case when they're covering it. But I do think the lesson there, and I guess stating the obvious, that oral argument can as often send a false signal as an accurate signal about where the thing is going. — Donald Verrilli Jr.

Take, for example, the African jungle, the home of the cheetah. On whom does the cheetah prey? The old, the sick, the wounded, the weak, the very young, but never the strong. Lesson: If you would not be prey, you had better be strong. — G. Gordon Liddy

Experience, they say, is the best teacher, but we get the grade first and the lesson later. — Ann Landers

Sometimes kids ask how I've been able to write so many books. The answer is simple: one word at a time. Which is another good lesson, I think. You don't have to do everything at once. You don't have to know how every story is going to end. You just have to take that next step, look for that next idea, write that next word. — Andrew Clements

[Martin Luther King, Jr.] concluded the learned discourse that came to be known as the 'loving your enemies' sermon this way: 'So this morning, as I look into your eyes and into the eyes of all my brothers in Alabama and all over America and over the world, I say to you,'I love you. I would rather die than hate you.'
Go ahead and reread that. That is hands down the most beautiful, strange, impossible, but most of all radical thing a human being can say. And it comes from reading the most beautiful, strange, impossible, but most of all radical civics lesson ever taught, when Jesus of Nazareth went to a hill in Galilee and told his disciples, 'Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you. — Sarah Vowell

The most important lesson I have ever learned is that I haven't learned anything. — Michel Templet

You learn this great lesson of life: it's not about me. It's just not. The matter of talent-which seemed so important to you when you were young-is not of great importance. We're simply a conduit. We take things out of the air into us and put them in the form of stories. That's pretty much it. — Garrison Keillor

Sublime places repeat in grand terms a lesson that ordinary life typically teaches viciously: that the universe is mightier than we are, that we are frail and temporary and have no alternative but to accept limitations on our will; that we must bow to necessities greater than ourselves. — Alain De Botton

After a harassing warfare, prolonged by the nature of the country and by the difficulty of procuring subsistence, the Indians were entirely defeated, and the disaffected band dispersed or destroyed. The result has been creditable to the troops engaged in the service. Severe as is the lesson to the Indians, it was rendered necessary by their unprovoked aggressions, and it is to be hoped that its impression will be permanent and salutary. — Andrew Jackson

We made them drink poison last night and Saddam Hussein's soldiers and his great forces gave the Americans a lesson which will not be forgotten by history. Truly. — Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf

Experience is a hard teacher. She gives the test first, then the lesson afterward. — Suzanne Woods Fisher

The past is an obdurate stranger that puts as many marks on us as we attempt to impose on it. — Joanne Harris

Possible Ending #16 (Life Imitates Art Imitates Life Imitates Art Imitates): I'd seen this movie. Obvious ending: outright betrayal, lesson learned, life is heartbreak, people who mean well still fuck you over, everyone's sad, greedy, looking out for number one, no consideration for the fragile fat boy whose displayed cynicism only masks a deeper hope that everyone's okay, will ultimately end up all right, that love exists, that happiness may not be stable but at least comes in bursts, that everything worthwhile wasn't just a self-created illusion. — Adam Wilson

Shall we go away whenever life looks like turning in the slightest uncanny, or not quite normal, or even rather painful and mortifying? No, surely not. Rather stay and look matters in the face, brave them out; perhaps precisely in so doing lies a lesson for us to learn. — Thomas Mann

When we play, we sense no limitations. In fact, when we are playing, we are usually unaware of ourselves. Self-observation goes out the window. We forget all those past lessons of life, forget our potential foolishness, forget ourselves. We immerse ourselves in the act of play. And we become free. — Lenore Terr

A lesson will keep repeating itself until it is learned. Life first will send the lesson to you in the size of a pebble; if you ignore the pebble, then life will send you a brick; if you ignore the brick, life will send you a brick wall; if you ignore the brick wall, life will send you a demolition truck. — Oprah Winfrey

Every lesson I learned as a kid was at the dinner table. Being Greek, Sicilian and Ruthenian - we are an emotional bunch. It is where we laughed, cried and yelled - but most importantly, where we bonded and connected. — Michael Symon

When the present feels as endless as an impossibly long hallway between airport terminals, white and sterile and numb, we're particularly receptive to signs. — Kate Bolick

[In reference to cases of testicular feminization]: The incredible lesson about our sexual biology is that all men at one point in their fetal development have the capacity to be women. Moreover the body is programmed to develop as a female unless it sees and recognizes specific biochemical signals such as testosterone and anti-mullerian factor that tell it to develop as a male. — Abraham Morgentaler

Trains induce such terrible anxiety. They image the possibility of total and irrevocable failure. They are also dirty, rackety, packed with strangers, an object lesson in the foul contingency of life: the talkative fellow-traveller, the possibility of children. — Iris Murdoch

Why are there such long words in the world, Miss?' enquires Sophie, when the mineralogy lesson is over.
'One long difficult word is the same as a whole sentence full of short easy ones, Sophie,' says Sugar. 'It saves time and paper.' Seeing that the child is unconvinced, she adds, 'If books were written in such a way that every person, no matter how young, could understand everything in them, they would be enormously long books. Would you wish to read a book that was a thousand pages long, Sophie?'
Sophie answers without hesitation.
'I would read a thousand million pages, Miss, if all the words were words I could understand. — Michel Faber

The public expects sentences to be punitive but also rehabilitative; however, what we expect and what we get from our prisons are very different things. The lesson that our prison system teaches its residents is how to survive as a prisoner, not as a citizen - not a very constructive body of knowledge for us or the communities to which we return. — Piper Kerman

Your right is to work, and not to expect the fruit. The slave-owner tells the slave: 'Mind your work, but beware lest you pluck a fruit from the garden. Yours is to take what I give.' God has put us under restriction in the same manner. He tells us that we may work if we wish, but that the reward of work is entirely for Him to give. Our duty is to pray to Him, and the best way in which we can do this is to work with the pick-axe, to remove scum from the river and to sweep and clean our yards. This, certainly, is a difficult lesson to learn. — Mahatma Gandhi

I learned a great lesson early on, even before I was really an actor, from that movie 'Planes, Trains & Automobiles' that John Hughes made: that you could make a movie that's really, really, really, really funny, and sometimes you can still achieve ... making the audience feel very deep emotions as well. — Joel Edgerton

The debacle of European pacifism has at least one clear lesson to teach us: pacifists, if they are to be effective in the modern world, must be as wholehearted and as brave as Gandhi. — Freeman Dyson

The best lesson I learned was to just do it. It doesn't matter what it is, or how hard it might seem, as the ancient Greek, Plato, said, 'The beginning is the most important part of any work. — Richard Branson

Religion is the secret of life. It teaches us to love, to serve, to forgive, to endure, and to interact with our brothers and sisters with empathy and compassion. Advaita (non-duality) is a purely subjective experience. But in daily life it may be expressed as love and compassion. This is the great lesson taught by the great saints and sages of India, the exponents of Sanatana Dharma. — Mata Amritanandamayi

It's always a kind of liberation to leave the classroom during a lesson, even just for a few minutes. As if you have managed to steal a little time for yourself, to take a break from reality — Sara Bergmark Elfgren

The lesson taught us by these kindly commentators on my present experience is that dogmatic faith compels the best minds and hearts to narrowness and insolence. — Harriet Martineau

Thank goodness we don'y meet many people like [Miss Trunchbull] in this world, although they do exist and all of us are likely to come across at least one of them in a lifetime. If you ever do, you should behave as you would if you met an enraged rhinoceros out in the bush
climb up the nearest tree and stay there until it has gone away. — Roald Dahl

Use your heart. Understand. Learn to see things
in the now, not as they were or will be, or as they might or
should be, but as they are, right now, in this moment. The
heart sees the now; the mind only sees the next. If you can't
learn to see the now, you'll never see what's truly there, and
then where will you be?"
"Trapped"
"Precisely. But if you take care of the now, the future will
work out as it should. — E.J. Patten

'The Piano Lesson' is very sophisticated, easily the most adult or complex material I've attempted. It's the first film I've written that has a proper story, and it was a big struggle for me to write. It meant I had to admit the power of narrative. — Jane Campion

It's in our nature, Julian would say. We destroy. It's the constant of our kind. No matter the color of blood, man will always fall.
I didn't understand that lesson a few days ago, but now, with Cal's hands in mine, guiding me with the lightest touch, I'm beginning to see what he meant.
I can feel myself falling. — Victoria Aveyard

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

The greatest lesson you taught me is that parents' actions and choices resonates into their child's life, sometimes affecting them in a way it never should. — Samantha Young

My best life lessons and education didn't come from a classroom - they've come from the wild. How you act in the big moments, the ones that challenge you, scare you, tempt you, and force you to make the right decisions, is what defines you. — Bear Grylls

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. — Kelly Cutrone

Every picture I make, every experience of my private life, every lesson I learn are the keys to my future. And I have faith in it. — Clark Gable

What do you suppose 'Jack and the Beanstalk' is about?" she asked. Conner contemplated a moment and slyly grinned. "Bad beans can cause more than indigestion," he answered, laughing hysterically to himself. Alex pursed her lips to hide a smile. "What do you think the lesson of 'Little Red Riding Hood' is?" she asked him. "Do you think she should have just mailed her grandmother the gift basket?" "Now you're thinking!" he said. "Although, I've always felt sorry for Little Red Riding Hood. It's obvious her parents didn't like her very much." "Why do you say that?" Alex asked, wondering how he could have possibly construed that from the story. "Who sends their young daughter into a dark and wolf-occupied forest carrying freshly baked food and wearing a bright jacket?" Conner asked. "They were practically asking for a wolf to eat her! She must have annoyed the heck out of them!" Alex held back laughter with all her might but, to Conner's delight, she let a quiet chuckle slip. "I — Chris Colfer

Letting go is the lesson. Letting go is always the lesson. Have you ever noticed how much of our agony is all tied up with craving and loss? — Susan Gordon Lydon

Everyday of your life is a another lesson. If you learn the lesson well and apply it; whether positive or negative, you determine what happens in your tomorrow. — David Kofi Awusi

Accept the fact that life presents us with opportunities to find more than one "one," and that you have learned a mighty life lesson when the next one comes along. — Emily Yoffe

Men of sense often learn from their enemies. It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls and ships of war; and this lesson saves their children, their homes, and their properties. — Aristophanes

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