Norman Douglas Quotes

'The Chicken Soup for the Soul' books are the result of over 20 years of teaching seminars and giving speeches. The first book contains all of the stories that I used in my seminars to illustrate the points that I wanted to make.

They are the guiding oracles which man has found out for himself in that great business of ours, of learning how to be, to do, to do without, and to depart.

Proverbs are always platitudes until you have personally experienced the truth of them.

Proverbs are short sentences drawn from long experience.

You can't tell them anything, but hopefully they will learn from the example and won't have to go through it.

God, Nature, the wise, the world, preach man, exhort him both by word and deed to the study of himself.

Life is the only real counselor; wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral tissue.

I'm always giving life lessons in my music.

Sometimes you have to experience things for yourself to learn the lessons that you need to learn.

What is all wisdom save a collection of platitudes? But the man who orders his life according to their teachings cannot go far wrong.

Experience comes in two different flavors: your own and the experience of others. Most people can learn from their own experiences quite well, but many people simply ignore the experiences and lessons of others.

To live a single day and hear a good teaching is better than to live a hundred years without knowing such teaching.

My enemy is my greatest teacher.

Experience is a teacher that knows no favorites.

I thought of the bowl of water my mother taught me to look into. It was true, everything a person ever needed to know was right there in a single bowl small enough to fit in the palm of one hand.

No experience is ever wasted. Everything has meaning.

It's a good thing I learned some humility and perspective as I got older.

Though we may be learned by another's knowledge, we can never be wise but by our own experience.

Experience is the thing of supreme value".

We have to go through certain things in order to appreciate life and learn lessons.

No man should attempt to teach others what he has never learned himself

I have no regrets. The best thing to happen to me was for Lorne Michaels to hire me and fire me.

There's a reason you can learn from everything: you have basic wisdom, basic intelligence, and basic goodness.

Wisdom can be learned. But it cannot be taught.