„But… as bad as it was, I learned something about myself. That I could go through something like that and survive. I mean, I know it could have been worse--a lot worse-- but for me, it was all I could have handled at the time. And I learned from it.“

„I have never met a man so ignorant that I could not learn something from him.“

—  Galileo Galilei Italian mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer 1564 - 1642

As quoted in The Story of Civilization : The Age of Reason Begins, 1558-1648 (1935) by Will Durant, p. 605
Attributed

„I learned I had to stand for something so I could stand to be me.“

—  Martin Sheen American actor 1940

2000s, Progressive magazine interview (2003)

„I studied and absorbed everything I could from physics to counterfeiting, but most of all I learned the art of surviving.“

—  James Clavell American novelist 1921 - 1994

As quoted in "James Clavell, Best-Selling Storyteller of Far Eastern Epics, Is Dead at 69" by William Grimes in The New York Times (8 September 1994) http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D03E4D61138F93BA3575AC0A962958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
Context: Changi became my university instead of my prison. … Among the inmates there were experts in all walks of life — the high and the low roads. I studied and absorbed everything I could from physics to counterfeiting, but most of all I learned the art of surviving.

„Four years was enough of Harvard. I still had a lot to learn, but had been given the liberating notion that now I could teach myself.“

—  John Updike American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic 1932 - 2009

Life Magazine (September 1986)

„I've never had to go very far to learn everything I have learned. I just had to care about something & pay attention.“

—  David Allen American productivity consultant and author 1945

19 January 2010 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/7933461617
Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy

„Hey, you know something people?
I'm not black,
But there's a whole lots a times
I wish I could say I'm not white.“

—  Frank Zappa American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer 1940 - 1993

"Trouble Every Day".
Freak Out! (1966)
Variant: Hey, you know something people? I'm not black, but there's a whole lots a times I wish I could say I'm not white.

„Any time something is written against me, I not only share the sentiment but feel I could do the job far better myself.“

—  Jorge Luis Borges Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature 1899 - 1986

Cada vez que leo algo que han escrito contra mi, no sólo comparto el sentimiento sino que pienso que yo mismo podría hacer mejor el trabajo, quizá debería aconsejar a los aspirantes a enemigos que me envíen sus criticas de antemano, con la seguridad de que recibirán toda mi ayuda y mi apoyo. Hasta he deseado secretamente escribir con seudónimo, una larga invectiva contra mí mismo.
"Jorge Luis Borges visto por él mismo" http://www.diariomedico.com/entorno/ent271299com.html (Jorge Luis Borges seen by himself) In the case of this work, the Spanish version seems to have been published after the English version.
Autobiographical Notes (1970)
Context: Any time something is written against me, I not only share the sentiment but feel I could do the job far better myself. Perhaps I should advise would-be enemies to send me their grievances beforehand, with full assurance that they will receive my every aid and support. I have even secretly longed to write, under a pen name, a merciless tirade against myself.

„I'm going to tell you something: There's an element to that passion that I always leave out and that I have recently learned to understand, and it has helped me a lot. … I was okay if it didn't happen.“

—  Salma Hayek Mexican-American actress and producer 1966

O interview (2003)
Context: I'm going to tell you something: There's an element to that passion that I always leave out and that I have recently learned to understand, and it has helped me a lot. … I was okay if it didn't happen. … I didn't realize this before. As long as I knew I did my very, very best, I was okay. I was so okay that when I made the transition from Mexico to Los Angeles, I said to myself I have something now. Is it what I want? No. I was making money, I was an actress, and I was famous. It looked like it's what I wanted, but it was not. And I was wise enough to recognize it. It's what others would think that I'd want, and sometimes that makes you feel it's good enough... To be able to brag a lot on life — that's everybody's dream... But is it your dream? And it wasn't my dream. And so I said that I'm going to leave it. This means I go there, and maybe it doesn't happen. And I am trading this, which looks like it's great, for this nothing that could be anything. … And then I was excited about being brave about it and saying, "What I left didn't grab me by the balls."

„After all that I'd been through, after all that I'd learned and all that I'd been given, I was going to do what I had been doing every day for the last few years now: just show up and do the best that I could do with whatever lay in front of me.“

—  Michael J. Fox Canadian-American actor 1961

Source: Lucky Man

„Here is something I have learned the hard way, but which a lot of well-meaning people in the West have a hard time accepting: All human beings are equal, but all cultures and religions are not.“

—  Ayaan Hirsi Ali Dutch feminist, author 1969

A culture that celebrates femininity and considers women to be the masters of their own lives is better than a culture that mutilates girls' genitals and confines them behind walls and veils or flogs or stones them for falling in love. A culture that protects women's rights by law is better than a culture in which a man can lawfully have four wives at once and women are denied alimony and half their inheritance. A culture that appoints women to its supreme court is better than a culture that declares that the testimony of a woman is worth half that of a man.
Nomad: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations (2010)

„Today, I will try to remember to regret the past. I will think of how many mistakes I have made throughout my life. I will say to myself, "If only I could go back in time and make different choices, so that my life could be the way it should have been."“

—  John S. Hall Poet, author, singer, lawyer 1960

Then I will remind myself that I cannot.
March 16
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

„I learned that what happened to me did not have to define who I was. My past could not control my future unless I allowed it to.“

—  Joyce Meyer American author and speaker 1943

Source: Living Beyond Your Feelings: Controlling Emotions So They Don't Control You

„I'm a great believer in asking everyone for an opinion before I make a decision. … I ask and I ask and I ask, until I begin to get a gut feeling about something. And that's when I make a decision. I have learned much more from conducting my own random surveys than I could ever have learned from the greatest of consulting firms.“

—  Donald J. Trump 45th President of the United States of America 1946

Source: 1980s, pp. 51–52

„It was the first time I was ever in love, and I learned a lot. Before that I'd never even thought about killing myself.“

—  Steven Wright American actor and author 1955

„I enjoyed, and I tried to soak up and learn everything as fast as I could from doing any kind of music. It's good to have a gig.“

—  St. Vincent (musician) American singer-songwriter 1982

QRO Magazine interview (2007)
Context: I enjoyed, and I tried to soak up and learn everything as fast as I could from doing any kind of music. It's good to have a gig. If you're a musician, it's good to be working.
I love doing all of it, but Marry Me is my baby, St. Vincent is my child.

„I spent my life learning to feel less.
Every day I felt less.
Is that growing old? Or is it something worse?
You can not protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.“

—  Jonathan Safran Foer, book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Oskar's grandmother to his grandfather after she told him of her pregnancy.
"My Feelings" (p. 180)
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005)

„This could be the beginning of Civil War. There is no kind more distressing, no kind which so rapidly describes the pointlessness of human killing human. I have been fated, for a reason I cannot comprehend or for no reason at all, to witness the worst examples of insane warfare (and all warfare, it seems to me now, is that) and having to listen to the most ridiculous explanations as to its “necessity” from otherwise perfectly rational people, I have long since become weary, Moorcock, of the debate. If I appear to you to be in a more reconciled mood than when your grandfather first met me it is because I have learned that no individual is responsible for War—that we are all, at the same time, individually responsible for the ills of the human condition. In learning this, (and I am about to tell you how I learned it) I also learned a certain tolerance for myself and for others which I had never previously possessed.“

—  Michael Moorcock, book The Steel Tsar

Book 2, Chapter 4 “The Black Ships” (p. 359)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

„I been by myself for a long time I just wish that I could know if I was on your mind Runnin' out of time I just wish that I could know if you were by my side On the day I die, would you even cry?“

—  Lil Peep American rapper 1996 - 2017

Song About U

„Every time I learn the truth about something, I’m disappointed“

—  Chuck Klosterman, Eating the Dinosaur

Source: Eating the Dinosaur