Hi! Welcome to “Dusty Phrases.” You will find below an ancient phrase in one language or another, along with its English translation. You may also find the power to inspire your friends or provoke dread among your enemies.
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Latin:
Ut est rerum omnium magister usus
English:
Experience is the teacher of all things, or
Experience is the best teacher
The most successful business man I know is entirely self-taught. The willingness to try and fail and try again teaches far more than a formal education. Of course, we can take the idea too far (which I’ll get back to in a moment.)
But first… This famous Latin adage comes from perhaps the most famous Roman of all – Julius Caesar. (via wiki)
Ut est rerum omnium magister usus (roughly “experience is the teacher of all things” or more generally “experience is the best teacher”) is a quote attributed to Julius Caesar in De Bello Civili, the war commentaries of the Civil War. Since then the phrase has become a common saying regarding learning and leadership.
Commentary
John C. Maxwell stated that the only way of learning from personal experiences is to reflect on them, something he feels Caesar had done a lot of, which was the only way he was able to become successful and write down his thoughts.
Sometimes experience alone is not a particularly good teacher. You wouldn’t go into battle without training with your weapon first. It might be a bad idea to find out who is the faster pistoleer by dueling.
In this case, rather than say that experience is the best teacher, we might say:
“Eventus stultorum magister.”
“Experience is the teacher of fools.”
