“What happens to one man may happen to all.”

Texts and Pretexts (1932), p. 5
Variant: Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you.
Source: Texts & Pretexts: An Anthology With Commentaries
Context: The poet is, etymologically, the maker. Like all makers, he requires a stock of raw materials — in his case, experience. Now experience is not a matter of having actually swum the Hellespont, or danced with the dervishes, or slept in a doss-house. It is a matter of sensibility and intuition, of seeing and hearing the significant things, of paying attention at the right moments, of understanding and co-ordinating. Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him. It is a gift for dealing with the accidents of existence, not the accidents themselves. By a happy dispensation of nature, the poet generally possesses the gift of experience in conjunction with that of expression.

Nobel lecture (1989)
Context: Today, we are truly a global family. What happens in one part of the world may affect us all. This, of course, is not only true of the negative things that happen, but is equally valid for the positive developments. We not only know what happens elsewhere, thanks to the extraordinary modern communications technology. We are also directly affected by events that occur far away.

"Auctorial Induction"
The Certain Hour (1916)

While receiving a group of servicemen on the anniversary of the April victories of the Azerbaijani army (31 March 2017) http://en.apa.az/nagorno_karabakh/ilham-aliyev-nagorno-karabakh-conflict-is-azerbaijan-s-internal-affair.html
Nagorno-Karabakh

Misattributed

Artûs der meienbære man,
swaz man ie von dem gesprach,
zeinen pfinxten daz geschach,
odr in des meien bluomenzît.
Bk. 6, st. 281, line 16; p. 147.
Parzival

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified