“To be ignorant of the past is to remain a child.”

—  Karl Popper

Cicero
Misattributed

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "To be ignorant of the past is to remain a child." by Karl Popper?
Karl Popper photo
Karl Popper 82
Austrian-British philosopher of science 1902–1994

Related quotes

Marcus Tullius Cicero photo

“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.”
Nescire autem quid antequam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Carlos Ruiz Zafón photo

“The words with which a child's heart is poisoned, whether through malice or through ignorance, remain branded in his memory, and sooner or later they burn his soul.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

Marcus Tullius Cicero photo

“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?”
Nescire autem quid ante quam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum. Quid enim est aetas hominis, nisi ea memoria rerum veterum cum superiorum aetate contexitur? ([http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/cicero/orator.shtml#120 120])

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Variant translation: To be ignorant of the past is to be forever a child.
Chapter XXXIV, section 120
Orator Ad M. Brutum (46 BC)
Variant: Not to know what happened before you were born is to be a child forever. For what is the time of a man, except it be interwoven with that memory of ancient things of a superior age?

William Hazlitt photo

“Prejudice is the child of ignorance…”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

" On Prejudice http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/Hazlitt/Prejudice.htm"
Men and Manners: Sketches and Essays (1852)

John Berger photo

“To remain innocent may also be. to remain ignorant.”

John Berger book Ways of Seeing

Source: Ways of Seeing

Robert G. Ingersoll photo

“There is no slavery but ignorance. Liberty is the child of intelligence.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child (1877)
Context: There is no slavery but ignorance. Liberty is the child of intelligence.
The history of man is simply the history of slavery, of injustice and brutality, together with the means by which he has, through the dead and desolate years, slowly and painfully advanced.

José Ortega Y Gasset photo

“To remain in the past means to be dead.”

José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955) Spanish liberal philosopher and essayist
Gaston Bachelard photo

“One must always maintain one’s connection to the past and yet ceaselessly pull away from it. To remain in touch with the past requires a love of memory. To remain in touch with the past requires a constant imaginative effort.”

Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962) French writer and philosopher

A Retrospective Glance at the Lifework of a Master of Books
Fragments of a Poetics of Fire (1988)

Epictetus photo

“For what constitutes a child?—Ignorance. What constitutes a child?—Want of instruction; for they are our equals so far as their degree of knowledge permits.”

Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece

That Courage is not inconsistent with Caution, book ii. Chap. i.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Related topics