Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
NUMBER:
576
AUTHOR:
Mark Twain (1835–1910)
QUOTATION:
We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it—and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again—and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.
ATTRIBUTION:
MARK TWAIN (Samuel L. Clemens), Following the Equator, vol. 1 (vol. 5 of The Writings of Mark Twain), chapter 11, epigraph, p. 125 (1897, reprinted 1968).
