Importance Of Practical Experience

Swami Vivekananda observed—^[Source]

All our knowledge is based upon experience.

He also told—^[Source]

Experience is the only teacher we have.

In this article we'll make a collection of Swami Vivekananda's quotations where he discussed importance of practical experience.

Importance of Practical Experience

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

Swami Vivekananda told—

• All our knowledge is based upon experience. What we call inferential knowledge, in which we go from the less to the more general, or from the general to the particular, has experience as its basis.^[Source]
• Experience is the only source of knowledge.^[Source]
• Experience is the only teacher we have. We may talk and reason all our lives, but we shall not understand a word of truth, until we experience it ourselves. You cannot hope to make a man a surgeon by simply giving him a few books. You cannot satisfy my curiosity to see a country by showing me a map; I must have actual experience. Maps can only create curiosity in us to get more perfect knowledge. Beyond that, they have no value whatever.^[Source]
• The secret of life is not enjoyment, but education through experience.^[Source]
• There cannot be any knowledge but from experience.^[Source]
• We get truth from both of these by means of experience. The truth gathered from internal experience is psychology, metaphysics, and religion; from external experience, the physical sciences.^[Source]
• We may read books, hear lectures, and talk miles, but experience is the one teacher, the one eye-opener. It is best as it is. We learn, through smiles and tears we learn. We don't know why, but we see it is so; and that is enough.^[Source]
• You may sit down and listen to me by the hour every day, but if you do not practice, you will not get one step further. It all depends on practice. We never understand these things until we experience them. We will have to see and feel them for ourselves. Simply listening to explanations and theories will not do.^[Source]

See also

• See more Swami Vivekananda's quotations on experience

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This page was last updated on: 10 December 2014, 1:35 pm IST (UTC+5:30 hours)
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