Knowledge comes from learning. Wisdom comes from living.

Meaning: Your own mistakes can teach caution, but another person’s experience may offer the same lesson without the same cost. Listen for relevant lessons before repeating an avoidable error.

Meaning: A lesson that costs something can make its consequences easier to remember. The saying values learning from experience, without requiring costly mistakes or treating every painful experience as an improvement.

Meaning: Difficulty can expose weaknesses that praise or favourable circumstances leave unnoticed. Adversity is pictured as an unflattering observer, inviting an honest assessment without making hardship necessary for growth or a complete test of someone’s character.

Meaning: The rhyme presents a spring ague as medicine fit for a king. It gives a feverish illness a surprising positive value rather than simply treating it as misfortune.