“Man's books are but man's alphabet,
Beyond and on his lessons lie — The lessons of the violet,
The large gold letters of the sky”

— Joaquin Miller

"The Larger College".
In Classic Shades, and Other Poems (1890)
Context: p>Man's books are but man's alphabet,
Beyond and on his lessons lie — The lessons of the violet,
The large gold letters of the sky; The love of beauty, blossomed soil, The large content, the tranquil toil:The toil that nature ever taught,
The patient toil, the constant stir,
The toil of seas where shores are wrought,
The toil of Christ, the carpenter;
The toil of God incessantly
By palm-set land or frozen sea.</p

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Joaquin Miller 43

American judge 1837–1913

Len Deighton book An Expensive Place to Die

An Expensive Place to Die, Jonathan Cape (1967) Ch. 39

“As sure as time, history is repeating itself, and as sure as man is man, history is the last place he’ll look for his lessons.”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

“Every book teaches a lesson, even if the lesson is only that one has chosen the wrong book.”

Mason Cooley (1927–2002) American academic

“Say what some poets will, Nature is not so much her own ever-sweet interpreter, as the mere supplier of that cunning alphabet, whereby selecting and combining as he pleases, each man reads his own peculiar lesson according to his own peculiar mind and mood.”

Herman Melville book Pierre: or, The Ambiguities

Bk. XXV, ch. 4
Pierre: or, The Ambiguities (1852)

“The worst lesson that can be taught a man is to rely upon others and to whine over his sufferings.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

"How Not To Better Social Conditions" in Review of Reviews (January 1897), p. 39 https://books.google.com/books?id=J2FAAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA39 · Full text online (with at least two typos — in the last sentence of the article) as "How Not To Help Our Poor Brother" http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/images/research/speeches/trhnthopb.pdf
1890s

“The lesson they took home with them was simple; it takes a full belly before a man or woman gives a tinker’s damn about anything as large as a planet.”

David Brin book Earth

Part IX (p. 493)
Earth (1990)

“The Bible is God's great lesson book.”

Ellen G. White book Christ's Object Lessons

Source: Christ's Object Lessons (1900), Ch. 8, p. 107

“This lesson is the principal object of the whole Book of Job”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.23
Context: As there is a difference between works of nature and productions of human handicraft, so there is a difference between God's rule, providence, and intention in reference to all natural forces, and our rule, providence, and intention in reference to things which are the objects of our rule, providence, and intention. This lesson is the principal object of the whole Book of Job; it lays down this principle of faith, and recommends us to derive a proof from nature, that we should not fall into the error of imagining His knowledge to be similar to ours, or His intention, providence, and rule similar to ours. When we know this, we shall find everything that may befall us easy to bear; mishap will create no doubts in our hearts concerning God, whether He knows our affairs or not, whether He provides for us or abandons us. On the contrary, our fate will increase our love of God; as is said in the end of this prophecy: "Therefore I abhor myself and repent concerning the dust and ashes" (xlii. 6); and as our Sages say: "The pious do everything out of love, and rejoice in their own afflictions." If you pay to my words the attention which this treatise demands, and examine all that is said in the Book of Job, all will be clear to you, and you will find that I have grasped and taken hold of the whole subject; nothing has been left unnoticed, except such portions as are only introduced because of the context and the whole plan of the allegory. I have explained this method several times in the course of this treatise.