“Reality is the name we give to our disappointments.”
City Aphorisms, Ninth Selection (1992)
Source: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
“Reality is the name we give to our disappointments.”
City Aphorisms, Ninth Selection (1992)
“Experience, the name men give to their mistakes.”
Mr. Dumby, Act III.
Vera; or, The Nihilists (1880)
Variant: Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes.
Variant: Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Context: Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes. [First used by Wilde in Vera; or, The Nihilists http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera;_or,_The_Nihilists. ]
Ibid., p. 89
The Book of Disquiet
Original: A civilização consiste em dar a qualquer coisa um nome que lhe não compete, e depois sonhar sobre o resultado. E realmente o nome falso e o sonho verdadeiro criam uma nova realidade. O objecto torna-se realmente outro, porque o tornámos outro. Manufacturamos realidades.
Michel Henry, Material Phenomenology, Fordham University Press, 2008, p. 118-119
Books on Phenomenology and Life, Material Phenomenology (1990)
“Experience is the name everyone gives to his mistakes.”
The Roycraft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams (1923)
Chap. 2 : Experience and Its Modes
Experience and Its Modes (1933)
1920s, Whose Country Is This? (1921)
Context: From its very beginning our country has been enriched by a complete blend of varied strains in the same ethnic family. We are, in some sense, an immigrant nation, molded in the fires of a common experience. That common experience is our history. And it is that common experience we must hand down to our children, even as the fundamental principles of Americanism, based on righteousness, were handed down to us, in perpetuity, by the founders of our government.