We arrive complete novices at the different ages of life, and we often want experience in spite of the number of our years.—La Rochefoucauld: Max. 430.
The same idea may be found in the Adelphi of Terence, Act V. Sc. 2, v. 1–4.
For those that fly may fight again,
Which he can never do that’s slain.—Hudibras.
He who fights and runs away
May live to fight another day.—Sir John Minnes.
But Demosthenes, the famous Grecian orator, had said, long before,—
Ἀνὴρ ὁ φεύγων καὶ πάλιν μαχήσεται.