
We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.
quote by George Bernard Shaw

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Sonnet -On Experience
One cannot learn from experience always,
For Knowledge is a sea; experience, Lake;
Some learn the same in hours or weeks or days;
Some never do all life, forever fake.
Experience implies one had done mistakes;
It is much wiser to learn from others;
To forget knowledge too, experience makes;
A continued process, it is, brothers.
Experience can't vouchsafe a man is wise;
And wisdom comes to one who God well loves;
Too much of experience could turn a vice.
All need not see the burst of bombs or stoves.
By experience, no man should turn haughty,
Nor should he try to be with peers, naughty.
poem by John Celes

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From their experience or from the recorded experience of others (history), men learn only what their passions and their metaphysical prejudices allow them to learn.
quote by Aldous Huxley

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Life's lesson!
Life's lesson, always changing not the same,
Sometimes hard, Sometimes easy,
Sometimes confusing, Sometimes daunting,
Theories of life's lessons,
Lighthouse in the sea shore,
It is always flicking and hiding,
Why do we learn through our own experience?
After many hours and years of research,
Theories are derived and approved.
Though it is wrong or right,
Why are we interested in learning,
Though our own experience?
The fire is hot; still want to touch it,
The volcanoes spewing, still want to dive into it,
Though the Arrival of tsunami is visible,
Not run opposite, but run towards it,
Why do we like to learn the life's lesson,
Through our own bad experience?
poem by Veeraiyah Subbulakshmi

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Learn
when broken
learn
when happy
learn
when bored
learn
when you float and does not know what to do
learn just the same
when filled with idealism
learn
when fed with what you cannot swallow
learn again
when the times get rough and you want to kill yourself
learn, learn, learn
you still have many things to learn
faces of life
bodies of life
learn, learn, learn everything
do not surrender
for in truth, you do not do what you only want
you will also do what you are told to do
no questions asked
or you will be left out
or you will be not a part of the picture
this life
learn, learn, learn, always learn
do not surrender
live, learn, live, learn
you will soon do all that others will tell you
learn, learn and learn again
and sooner you will have learned everything
and then do what you want to do
with firm conviction
you know now what is right
and that is what you will do,
now without even being told
you have become yourself
but still learn, learn, and learn again
because
you might be wrong,
try thinking some more, learn
relearn, learn, learn, learn, forevermore....
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

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The wise learn from the experience of others, and the creative know how to make a crumb of experience go a long way.
quote by Eric Hoffer

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Poetry is innocent, not wise. It does not learn from experience, because each poetic experience is unique.
quote by Karl Shapiro

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The only thing we have learnt from experience is that we learn nothing from experience.
quote by Chinua Achebe

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I learn
I learn when I teach others
I learn when I listen
I learn when I read
I learn from children
I learn from animals
I learn from nature
I learn how to breathe
I learn how to live
I learn how to love
I learn how to be a human being
I'm always learning ...
poem by Viorel Vintila

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Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.
C.S. Lewis in Chicken Soup for the Soul

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Coming Home
I - water of the sea,
I - vapor, I rise,
I - clouds above the mountains,
I experience, I learn,
I joyfully weep,
I return home.
*
I - body of the soul,
I live, I love,
I experience, I learn,
I - vapor, I rise
I joyfully
Return home.
poem by Ibrahim Ibn Salma

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The Screen Behind The Mirror
(m.cretu.) .
Heres the mirror
Behind there is a screen
Turn around
On both ways you can get in
The experience of survival
Look around just people, can you hear their voice
Find the one wholl guide you to the limits of your choice
The experience / of survival
Try to think about it ...
Thats the chance to live your life and discover
Try to think about it
The experience of survival
The experience ...
The experience of survival
The experience ...
song performed by by Enigma

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Warnings Aren't As Effective
Most times a warning,
Isn't as effective...
As the experience itself.
A child seems not to learn,
Until an action taken...
Creates the right affect.
It's like overeating and cheating.
Two essentially different concepts,
When one defines them.
However...
Lieing about either one of them,
Produces the same result.
Embarrassment.
And...
It eventually shows.
Most people who are embarrassed...
Immediately seek to deny the truth.
Most times warnings aren't as effective,
As the experience itself.
And...
The experience once admitted,
Doesn't have to be devastating...
If one seeks the right counseling,
And is determined to be honest with 'self'...
To get from under the weight,
Of what becomes obvious to many as seen.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar

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Oh Well, Ill Never Learn
Looking up at the sign
It said: please keep away
And so in I ran
You see ...
Ill never learn
Oh, Ill never learn
Ill never learn
Chapter one again
Here I go again
I found a fountain of youth
And I fell in
How could I ever win ?
Ill never learn
Ill never learn
Ill never learn
Why should I mind ?
Why should I care ?
Ill never learn
Ill never learn
song performed by by Morrissey

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons we could not learn in any other way. The way we learn those lessons is not to deny the feelings but to find the meanings underlying them.
quote by Stanley Lindquist

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Look At Me
I know I'm still young
With your life experience
But I gotta learn from my mistakes - not yours
Let me fly to my own fate a little please
Wrap me up and guard no more
And I'll never learn
[Chorus]
Look at me
I'm still your little girl
Look at me
The centre of your world (your world
song performed by by Sugababes from One Touch

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Whatever The Experience Teaches
You be proud.
Don't let those doubts sit,
Inside of you with ease.
Nor should you allow excuses,
To rule your life as a cosmetic disguise.
Refuse to fear unknown adventures.
You be proud...
Whatever the experience teaches.
Reach to learn and earn your happiness.
That is the only way,
You will come to recognize it!
You be proud...
Whatever the experience teaches!
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar

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Learning the Trees
Before you can learn the trees, you have to learn
The language of the trees. That's done indoors,
Out of a book, which now you think of it
Is one of the transformations of a tree.
The words themselves are a delight to learn,
You might be in a foreign land of terms
Like samara, capsule, drupe, legume and pome,
Where bark is papery, plated, warty or smooth.
But best of all are the words that shape the leaves –
Orbicular, cordate, cleft and reniform –
And their venation – palmate and parallel –
And tips – acute, truncate, auriculate.
Sufficiently provided, you may now
Go forth to the forests and the shady streets
To see how the chaos of experience
Answers to catalogue and category.
Confusedly. The leaves of a single tree
May differ among themselves more than they do
From other species, so you have to find,
All blandly says the book, "an average leaf."
Example, the catalpa in the book
Sprays out its leaves in whorls of three
Around the stem; the one in front of you
But rarely does, or somewhat, or almost;
Maybe it's not catalpa? Dreadful doubt.
It may be weeks before you see an elm
Fanlike in form, a spruce that pyramids,
A sweetgum spiring up in steeple shape.
Still, pedetemtim as Lucretious says,
Little by little, you do start to learn;
And learn as well, maybe, what language does
And how it does it, cutting across the world
Not always at the joints, competing with
Experience while cooperating with
Experience, and keeping an obstinate
Intransigence, uncanny, of its own.
Think finally about the secret will
Pretending obedience to Nature, but
Invidiously distinguishing everywhere,
Dividing up the world to conquer it.
And think also how funny knowledge is:
You may succeed in learning many trees
And calling off their names as you go by,
But their comprehensive silence stays the same.
poem by Howard Nemerov

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You Learn
I recommend getting your heart trampled on to anyone
I recommend walking around naked in your living room
Swallow it down (what a jagged little pill)
It feels so good (swimming in your stomach)
Wait until the dust settles
You live you learn
You love you learn
You cry you learn
You lose you learn
You bleed you learn
You scream you learn
I recommend biting off more then you can chew to anyone
I certainly do
I recommend sticking your foot in your mouth at any time
Feel free
Throw it down (the caution blocks you from the wind)
Hold it up (to the rays)
You wait and see when the smoke clears
You live you learn
You love you learn
You cry you learn
You lose you learn
You bleed you learn
You scream you learn
Wear it out (the way a three-year-old would do)
Melt it down (you're gonna have to eventually anyway)
The fire trucks are coming up around the bend
You live you learn
You love you learn
You cry you learn
You lose you learn
You bleed you learn
You scream you learn
You grieve you learn
You choke you learn
You laugh you learn
You choose you learn
You pray you learn
You ask you learn
You live you learn
song performed by by Alanis Morissette from Jagged Little Pill

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Hard Times (from Michigan)
In these hard times
Of unreported unemployed voices
Of ignored college graduates
Of desperate youth
As well as desperate old
In these times
Education is overlooked
Pale profit wins over ethics
Our youth gets pushed further
Further away from their hard earned achievements
Further away from their intricate dreams
In these times
Fresh bread is left behind to turn into mold
Experience overtakes knowledge
Education becomes a burden
The educated are the punished
When they should be awarded
Education is no longer counted as experience
Our interactions with one another
Is no longer experience
They become experience (in the eyes of employers) by the documentation of a paycheck
To be qualified
We must be paid to interact with each other
We must be paid to use our knowledge
We must be paid to develop our skills
When in reality
We pay for our education ourselves
And in our education in which we pay
We interact and learn from others without demanding to be paid
In the eyes of the employer
Education is not experience
Eight years of college and achieving a P.H.D.
Is no longer experience
What employers don't realize is...
Education is a full-time job
A full time job that we do not get paid for
Education doesn't employ us
We employ education for ourselves
Yet...education is still not experience
When will they open their eyes and enlighten their minds?
Education should never have to come last
But should always come first
No wonder we are behind
poem by Diana Poems

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Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?