sadder and/but wiser

sadder and/but wiser

Enlightened by an unfortunate experience; learning from one’s mistakes. The pairing of these two thoughts appears in the concluding stanza of Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (1798): “He went like one that hath been stunned,/And is of sense forlorn:/A sadder and a wiser man,/He rose the morrow morn.”See also: and, but, sad, wiser