There is no denying the fact that learning improves us and make us better

There is absolutely no doubt about that, any moment we stop learning that mean we are already dead because our day to day activities always involved us learning new things or building the old experience we have had. Learning shaped our thinking, we are sum total of all we have ever learned.

You either learn from the mistakes of others or you learn from yours

The truth of this could not be far fetched, is either we learn from our mistakes or from others around us that is why sometimes our thinking is shaped by the things around us( our culture ).

Observation as you have said is really a great tool towards learning new things in this life, a soul that couldn't observe is surely equiped to met its doom in no time. As a student we observe, even an adult, that is why people often tend to ask what's our observation about a particular issues or matter.