Some of the most important life lesson quotes are learned the hard way.
Sometimes, it is best to learn from the experiences of others instead of going through things yourself. Wherever you are in life, it pays to learn from those who have the experience to teach. The more you learn, the better person you become. You’ll avoid mistakes and focus more of your energy on succeeding in life.
We’ve collected some of the most intriguing and captivating lessons learned in life from great men and women. Read them, reflect and learn from them.
Quotes About Life Lessons
Short cuts make long delays.
J.R.R. Tolkien
It’s not the load that weighs you down; it’s how you carry it.
C.S. Lewis
A comfort zone is a wonderful place, but nothing ever grows there.
Unknown
Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.
Alexander Pope
You make mistakes. Mistakes don’t make you.
Maxwell Maltz
Knowledge is King Quotations
Living your life is a task so difficult, it has never been attempted before.
Unknown
So far, you’ve survived 100% of your bad days. This, too, shall pass.
Unknown
People generally see what they look for and hear what they listen for.
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
Failure is a lesson learned. Success is a lesson applied.
Unknown
Life is too short to spend your precious time trying to convince a person who wants to live in gloom and doom otherwise.
Zig Ziglar
You only lose what you cling to.
Buddha
Seek to be worth knowing rather than well known.
Unknown
Never be a prisoner of your past. It was just a lesson, not a life sentence.
Unknown
To be successful, you must act big, think big, and talk big.
Aristotle Onassis
But one of the big lessons I have learned from my journey is you can’t please everyone, so don’t try.
Chris Colfer
You gotta stop watering dead plants.
Unknown
Check out the 17 Best Chess Quotes.
Valuable Learnings
What to do with a mistake – recognize it, admit it, learn from it, forget it.
Dean Smith – More Dean Smith Quotations
Courage is the most important of all the virtues because, without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.
Maya Angelou
Be like a tree. Let the dead leaves drop.
Rumi
It’s the will, not the skill.
Unknown
Life is available only in the present. That is why we should walk in such a way that every step can bring us to the here and the now.
Thich Nhat Hanh
I know I made a lot of mistakes, but they, in turn, were my life lessons.
Drew Barrymore
If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you’ Not much.
Jim Rohn
We all make mistakes, how we correct them is what makes all the difference between success and failure.
Zane Baker
It’s easier to ask forgiveness than to beg for permission.
Unknown
In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Whenever you want to achieve something, keep your eyes open, concentrate and make sure you know exactly what it is you want. No one can hit their target with their eyes closed.
Paulo Coelho
You may like our Commitment Quotations.
Life Lesson Quotes
Do not let the memories of your past limit the potential of your future. There are no limits to what you can achieve on your journey through life, except in your mind.
Roy T. Bennett
Be grateful for what you already have while you pursue your goals. If you aren’t grateful for what you already have, what makes you think you would be happy with more.
Chico Xavier
Some of life’s best lessons are learned at the worst times.
Ani DiFranco
There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew.
Marshall McLuhan
Doubt is wisdom. People are dangerous when they are certain that their cause is just and their facts are right.
Paulo Coelho
Though nobody can go back and make a new beginning… Anyone can start over and make a new ending.
Chico Xavier
Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
In every success story, you will find someone who has made a courageous decision.
Peter F. Drucker
Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way.
Al Franken
Experience – A Hard Teacher
No matter how much suffering you went through, you never wanted to let go of those memories.
Haruki Murakami
Some people come in your life as blessings; others come in your life as lessons.
Mother Teresa – More Mother Teresa Sayings and Prayers
Life is a grindstone. Whether it grinds us down or polishes us up depends on us.
Thomas L. Holdcroft
Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward.
Vernon Saunders Law
If you can dream it, you can do it.
Walt Disney
In this life, when you deny someone an apology, you will remember it at time you beg forgiveness.
Toba Beta
In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.
Robert Frost
“You’re going to be happy,” said Life, “But, first, I’ll make you strong.”
Unknown
Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them ―that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.
Lao Tzu
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.
Steve Jobs – More of The Best of Steve Jobs
Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.
Zig Ziglar
Hard Work Sayings
I didn’t get there by wishing for it or hoping for it, but by working for it.
Estee Lauder
And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.
Abraham Lincoln
If there’s a single lesson that life teaches us, it’s that wishing doesn’t make it so.
Lev Grossman
If there are things you don’t like in the world you grew up in, make your own life different.
Dave Thomas
Life is inherently risky. There is only one big risk you should avoid at all costs, and that is the risk of doing nothing.
Denis Waitley
Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.
Oprah Winfrey
The trouble is if you don’t spend your life yourself, other people spend it for you.
Peter Shaffer
Good times become good memories, and bad times become good lessons.
Unknown
Life happens at the level of events, not words.
Alfred Adler
God helps them that help themselves.
Benjamin Franklin
Between saying and doing many a pair of shoes is worn out.
Italian proverb
Life is 10 percent what you make it and 90 percent how you take it.
Irving Berlin
Teachable Moments Quotes
Here are some of our favorite life lesson quotes.
Singleness of purpose is essential for success in life.
John D. Rockefeller – The Richest Person to Ever Live
You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.
Oprah Winfrey
Saddle your dreams before you ride ’em.
Mary Webb
To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.
Benjamin Disraeli
Be like a tree; let the dead leaves drop.
Rumi
When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.
Mary Angelou
Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass…it’s about learning how to dance in the rain!
Unknown
The chief lesson I have learned in a long life is that the only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him, and the surest way to make him untrustworthy is to distrust him and show your distrust.
Henry L. Stimson
Close some doors today. Not because of pride, incapacity, or arrogance, but simply because they lead you nowhere.
Paulo Coelho
Life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.
Soren Kierkegaard
Grow through what you go through.
Unknown
Little by little does the trick.
Aesop
When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.
Alexander Graham Bell
Words of Wisdom
The best things in life are not things.
Ann Landers
Little strokes fell great oaks.
Benjamin Franklin
Why let go of yesterday? Because yesterday has already let go of you.
Steve Maraboli
Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.
Og Mandino
A very wise man once told me that you can’t look back-you just have to put the past behind you and find something better in your future.
Jodi Picoult
He who receives a benefit with gratitude repays the first installment on his debt.
Marcus Annaeus Seneca
The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which bridge to burn.
David Russell
Who seeks a faultless friend remains friendless.
Turkish Proverb
What you are must always displease you, if you would attain to that which you are not.
Saint Augustine
It’s always the simple that produces the marvelous.
Amelia Barr
Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.
C.S. Lewis
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.
Steve Jobs
Short Life Lessons Quotes
It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.
Henry David Thoreau
It is not death that a man should bear, but he should fear never beginning to live.
Marcus Aurelius
Be the change you would like to see in the world.
Gandhi
Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.
Ovid
Today is yesterday’s pupil.
Tobias Smollett
It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.
Howard Ruff
The best way to save face is to keep the bottom half shut.
Unknown
Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength.
Phaedrus
Deliberate often, decide once.
Latin Proverb
Experience is the best of schoolmasters, on the school fees are heavy.
Thomas Carlyle
On Success
There are three ingredients in the good life: learning, earning, and yearning.
Christopher Morley
If a man wants his dreams to come true, he must wake up.
Unknown
The work praises the man.
Irish proverb
The secret of success is the constancy of purpose.
Benjamin Disraeli
Big shots are little shots who keep shooting.
Christopher Morley
Success is not a doorway, it’s a staircase.
Dottie Walters
Self-trust is the first secret of success.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ideas are lie rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
John Steinbeck
Success is counted sweetest by those who ne’er succeed.
Emily Dickinson
A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
Francis Bacon
Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.
Henry David Thoreau
Victory belongs to the most persevering.
Napoleon Bonaparte
High station in life is earned by the gallantry with which appalling experiences are survived with grace.
Tennessee Williams
The reward of the general is not a bigger tent, but command.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
To climb steep hills requires slow pace at first.
William Shakespeare
The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Your goal should be out of reach but not out of sight.
Anita DeFrantz
Memorable Quotes on Life
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.
Plato
By three methods, we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; And third, by experience, which is the bitterest.
Confucius.
Time and tide wait for no man.
Geoffrey Chaucer
To distance yourself from another, give them unsolicited advice. To become closer, take theirs.
Unknown
Look deep into nature and you will understand everything better.
Albert Einstein
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.
Arthur Conan Doyle, The Valley of Fear
We look at the world once, in childhood. The rest is memory.
Louise Gluck
Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people that they don’t like.
Will Rogers
Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.
Suzy Kassem
A ship does not sail with yesterday’s wind.
Louis L’Amour, The Walking Drum
Common sense is not so common.
Voltaire
Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Life-Changing Quotes
These life lessons quotes can change your approach and attitude.
Nurture your mind with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.
Benjamin Disraeli
The reason angels can fly is because they take themselves lightly.
G.K. Chesterton
The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.
Rob Siltanen
The things that we love tell us what we are.
Thomas Aquinas
Knowing Is not enough; We must apply. Wishing Is not enough; We must do.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.
Bob Marley
Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.
Saint Francis de Sales
Creativity Is intelligence having fun.
Albert Einstein
In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Philosophy of Life Sayings
When they close doors on you – buy the building.
Unknown
When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.
Jimi Hendrix
Whatever you are, be a good one.
Abraham Lincoln
Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand-and melting like a snowflake.
Francis Bacon
Live each day as if your life had just begun.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.
Thomas Carlyle
Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today, I am wise, so I am changing myself.
Rumi
The great thing in this world is not so much where you stand, as in what direction you are moving.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.
Rumi
And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.
Frederick Nietzsche
Happiness is not the absence of problems, it’s the ability to deal with them.
Steve Maraboli
Heartwarming Insights
A friend might well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is no better exercise for strengthening the heart than reaching down and lifting up another.
Unknown
The one thing we can never get enough of is love. And the one thing we never give enough of is love.
Henry Miller
Life is ours to be spent, not to be saved.
D.H. Lawrence
Love doesn’t make the world go round, Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
There is only one happiness in life: to love and be loved.
George Sand
These life lessons quotes work great for emails, Facebook posts, Instagram captions, Twitter, letters, speeches, and more.
By Mike O’Halloran
Mike is the founder and editor of Sports Feel Good Stories.
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