“Life has been very hard on me, but, at the same time, it has taught me a great deal.”

Part II, Chapter 18, Colour Bar
1920s, An Autobiography (1927)

Source: The Open Door

La lettre écrite m'a enseigné à écouter la voix humaine, tout comme les grandes attitudes immobiles des statues m'ont appris à apprécier les gestes.
Source: Memoirs of Hadrian (1951), p. 21

Brekkukotsannáll (The Fish Can Sing) (1957)

Source: Woman, Church and State (1893), p. 539

Source: The Walk

As quoted in Forbes Magazine (3 December 2001)
Context: Without cancer, I never would have won a single Tour de France. Cancer taught me a plan for more purposeful living, and that in turn taught me how to train and to win more purposefully. It taught me that pain has a reason, and that sometimes the experience of losing things — whether health or a car or an old sense of self — has its own value in the scheme of life. Pain and loss are great enhancers.

Variant: Time has taught me not to loose hope, yet not to trust too much in hope either
Source: The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Magus