Context: Opinions derived from long experience are exceedingly valuable, and outweigh all others, while they are consistent with facts and with each other; but they are worse than useless when they lead, as in this instance, to directly opposite opinions.
Peter Barlow (mathematician) (1776–1862) British mathematician and physicist
[Peter Barlow, Second report addressed to the directors and proprietors of the London and Birmingham Railway company, founded on an inspection of, and experiments made on the Liverpool and Manchester railway, B. Fellowes, 1835, 4]
Katherine Maher (1983) chief executive officer and executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation
Source: Twitter https://twitter.com/krmaher/status/1353456809424547840, (24 January 2021)
George Biddell Airy (1801–1892) English mathematician and astronomer
Introduction
Popular Astronomy: A Series of Lectures Delivered at Ipswich (1868)
“My opinion of my whole experience varies from time to time.”
H.P. Lovecraft book The Transition of Juan Romero
"The Transition of Juan Romero" - Written 16 Sep 1919; first published in Marginalia (1944)<!-- Arkham House p. 276-84 -->
Fiction
Context: My opinion of my whole experience varies from time to time. In broad daylight, and at most seasons I am apt to think the greater part of it a mere dream; but sometimes in the autumn, about two in the morning when winds and animals howl dismally, there comes from inconceivable depths below a damnable suggestions of rhythmical throbbing … and I feel that the transition of Juan Romero was a terrible one indeed.
Pindar (-517–-437 BC) Ancient Greek poet
γλυκύ δ᾽ἀπείρῳ πόλεμος.
πεπειραμένων δέ τις ταρβεῖ προσιόντα νιν καρδία περισσῶς.
Fragment 110; page 377.
Variant translations: This phrase is the origin of the Latin proverb "Dulce bellum inexpertis" which is sometimes misattributed to Desiderius Erasmus.
War is sweet to them that know it not.
War is sweet to those not acquainted with it
War is sweet to those who do not know it.
War is sweet to those that never have experienced it.
War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it.
James Wilson (1742–1798) one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and a signer of the United States Declaration of Independe…
Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. (2 Dallas) 419 (1793), at 455.
Gerd von Rundstedt (1875–1953) German Field Marshal during World War II
August 1942. Quoted in "Dieppe 1942: The Jubilee Disaster" - Page 263 - by Ronald Atkin - History - 1980
Joseph Priestley book An History of the Corruptions of Christianity
General Conclusions, Part I : Containing Considerations addressed to Unbelievers and especially to Mr. Gibbon
An History of the Corruptions of Christianity (1782)
Vernon Scannell (1922–2007) British boxer and poet
A Proper Gentleman, 1977
