“What we can learn from the good is that we will be filled with gratitude. Conversely, from the bad we learn to become a stronger person.”

Last update Nov. 30, 2023. History

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Terence V. Powderly photo

“I learned that we are all good and bad instead of good or bad”

Terence V. Powderly (1849–1924) American mayor

Context: Many men, aware of the treatment I received at the hands of Walter Dawson, have asked me why I did not avenge the wrongs he inflicted on me. I am not aware that he did inflict wrong on me … I did some good through being blacklisted. It made me more than determined to perfect an organization that would render blacklisting impossible; it made me mayor of Scranton where I learned that we are all good and bad instead of good or bad. It taught me how to put myself in the place of the vilest, filthiest, lowest-down tramp that comes to me for help. It taught me when men were brought before me for trial how to pierce the veil between cause and effect, between motive and act; it enabled me to come down from the bench as a magistrate, a representative of the law, and before the bar of my own heart, and conscience, place the prisoner then before me on the bench in my stead.

Pablo Casals photo
Desmond Tutu photo

“We learn from history that we don't learn from history!”

Desmond Tutu (1931) South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner

Often attributed to Desmond Tutu, actual source is G. W. F Hegel: What experience and history teach is this — that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it. Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1832)
Misattributed

John Dewey photo

“We do not learn from experience… we learn from reflecting on experience.”

John Dewey (1859–1952) American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer
C. Wright Mills photo

“Hegel is correct: we learn from history that we cannot learn from it.”

Source: The Power Elite (1956), p. 23.

Claude Bernard photo

“It is what we think we know that keeps us from learning.”

Chester Barnard (1886–1961) American businessman

Attributed to Chester Bernard in: Brand, Richard A. "Hypothesis-based research." Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy 28.2 (1998): 71-73.

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