“ Our lesson all the world has learned,
And men are wiser than before. ”
 Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858). copy citation

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“Whene’er we groan with ache or pain, Some common ailment of the race,— Though doctors think the matter plain,— That ours is “a peculiar case.” That when like babes with fingers burned We count one bitter maxim more, Our lesson all the world has learned, And men are wiser than before. That when we sob o’er fancied woes, The angels hovering overhead Count every pitying drop that flows And love us for the tears we shed. That when we stand with tearless eye And turn the beggar from our door,” source