Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.
Experience
It is costly wisdom that is bought by experience. We know by experience itself, that it is a marvelous pain, to find out but a short way by long wandering. And surely, he that would prove wise by experience, he may be witty indeed, but even like a swift runner, that runneth fast out of his way, and upon the night, he knoweth not whither.
—Roger Ascham
Experience, like a pale musician, holds
A dulcimer of patience in his hand,
Whence harmonies, we cannot understand,
Of God’s will in his worlds, the strain unfolds
In sad, perplexed minors: deadly colds
Fall on us while we hear, and countermand
Our sanguine heart back from the fairyland
With nightingales in visionary worlds.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Human experience, like the stern lights of a ship at sea, too often illuminates only the path we have passed over.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge