sadder but wiser

Idioms  

1. Unhappy but having learned from one's mistakes, as in Sadder but wiser, she's never going near poison ivy again. The pairing of these two adjectives was first recorded in Samuel Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798).

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Example Sentences

The new administration will begin its Middle East policymaking sadder but wiser.

From Washington Post

The man, sadder but wiser, yet still diaphanously crapulent, went back to bed.

From Washington Post

Yet where celebrity leaves Ally sadder but wiser, truer than before to her scarred heart, Celeste buries her pain in its sparkly privileges.

From The Guardian

Here’s what I draw from this survey: Young Arabs are sadder but wiser; they want a freer, more modern life; and they’re skeptical about easy answers from religion or democratic elections.

From Washington Post

One of Wilson’s four defeats was at the hands of the Bronx Bull just a month before when he entered the ring as a 4-1 favourite and left it 10 rounds later, in La Motta’s words, “a sadder but wiser man”.

From The Guardian