Potted wisdom: Short sentences drawn from long experiences. [ Cervantes ]

No man, be he who he may, but experiences a last happiness and a last day. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

Man, be he who he may, experiences a last piece of good fortune and a last day. [ Goethe ]

Our sweetest experiences of affection are meant to be suggestions of that realm which is the home of the heart. [ Beecher ]

The life of a woman can be divided into three epochs: in the first she dreams of love, in the second she experiences it, in the third she regrets it. [ Saint-Prosper ]

The head learns new things, but the heart forevermore practices old experiences. Therefore our life is but a new form of the way men have lived from the beginning. [ Henry Ward Beecher ]

There are very few moments in a man's existence when he experiences so much ludicrous distress, or meets with so little charitable commiseration, as when he is in pursuit of his own hat. [ Dickens ]

My own firm conviction is that no education can make a writer. The heart must be hot behind the pen. Out of the abundance of life and its manifold experiences comes the power to touch life. [ Amelia E. Barr, The Art of Authorship, 1891 ]

I put myself, my experiences, my observations, my heart and soul into my work. I press my soul upon the white paper. The writer who does this may have any style, he or she will find the hearts of their readers. Writing a book involves, not a waste, but a great expenditure of vital force. Yet I can assure you I have written the last lines of most of my stories with tears. The characters of my own creation had become dear to me. I could not bear to bid them good-bye and send them away from me into the wide world. [ Amelia E. Barr, The Art of Authorship, 1891 ]