A dictionary of Proverbs (Oxford Paperback Reference)

expect see also BLESSED is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.
EXPERIENCE is the best teacher
The Latin tag experientia docet, experience teaches, gave rise to a large number of proverbs. There is no standard form, and the sayings given below illustrate the themes that ‘one learns (also, fools learn) by experience’ and that ‘experience is a hard teacher’. See also EXPERIENCE keeps a dear school.

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  a 1568 R. ASCHAM Schoolmaster (1570) I. 19 Erasmus.. saide wiselie that experience is the common scholehouse of foles. 1618 N. BRETON Court & Country B4 Let ignorance be an enemy to wit, and experience be the Mistris of fools. 1670 J. RAY English Proverbs 86 Experience is the mistress of fools. Experientia stultorum magistra. Wise men learn by others harms, fools by their own. 1732 T. FULLER Gnomologia no. 1484 Experience teacheth Fools; and he is a great one, that will not learn by it. 1856 F. M. WHITCHER Widow Bedott Papers xxix. I.. dident know how to do anything as well as I do now. .. Experience is the best teacher, after all. 1874 G. J. WHYTE-MELVILLE Uncle John I. x. Experience does not make fools wise. .. Most proverbs are fallacious. None greater than that which says it does. 1962 Infantry Nov.-Dec. 26 Experience is a hard teacher, and we cannot afford to learn on the battlefield what should be taught during normal training. 2002 Washington Post 11 Jan. C10 Whoever said ‘experience is the best teacher’ got it right—as you can certainly testify. ■ experience
  

EXPERIENCE is the father of wisdom
Cf. ALCMAN Fragments cxxv. (Page) “^p; experience is the beginning
of knowledge.

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  1539 R. TAVERNER Garden of Wisdom II. 24^V This be commonly true, for experience is mother of prudence, yet suche prudence & wysedom cost the comon weale moch. a 1547 E. HALL Chronicle (1548) Rich. III 31 He by the longe and often alternate proof.. had gotten by greate experience the very mother and mastres of wisedome. 1581 G. PETTIE tr. S. Guazzo’s Civil Conversation I. 11 Experience is the father of wisedom, and memorie the mother. 1788 American Museum III. 183 If it be true, that experience is the mother of wisdom, history must be an improving teacher. 1981 P. O‘DONNELL Xanadu Talisman ii. Experience is the father of wisdom, remember. ■ experience; wisdom