“To Generalize is to be an Idiot. To Particularize is the Alone Distinction of Merit — General Knowledges are those Knowledges that Idiots possess.”

— William Blake

The quote "To Generalize is to be an Idiot. To Particularize is the Alone Distinction of Merit — Gen…" is famous quote attributed to William Blake (1757–1827), English Romantic poet and artist.

Annotations to Sir Joshua Reynolds's Discourses, pp. xvii–xcviii (c. 1798–1809)
1790s

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update April 18, 2023. History

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William Blake249

English Romantic poet and artist 1757–1827

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“To generalize is to be an idiot.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

“As regards the sequence in the movement of man's knowledge, there is always a gradual growth from the knowledge of individual and particular things to the knowledge of things in general. Only after man knows the particular essence of many different things can he proceed to generalization and know the common essence of things.”

Mao Zedong book On Contradiction

On Contradiction (1937)
Original: (zh-CN) 就人类认识运动的秩序说来，总是由认识个别的和特殊的事物，逐步地扩大到认识一般的事物。人们总是首先认识了许多不同事物的特殊的本质，然后才有可能更进一步地进行概括工作，认识诸种事物的共同的本质。

“Complete knowledge of every theoretical and instrumental detail can only be obtained by those who will devote… a large portion of their lives; but sound knowledge of the principles… can be obtained by the reasonable efforts of persons possessing common opportunities for general knowledge.”

George Biddell Airy (1801–1892) English mathematician and astronomer

Introduction
Popular Astronomy: A Series of Lectures Delivered at Ipswich (1868)

“In a certain sense all knowledge is inductive. We can only learn the laws and relations of things in nature by observing those things. But the knowledge gained from the senses is knowledge only of particular facts, and we require some process of reasoning by which we may collect out of the facts the laws obeyed by them. Experience gives us the materials of knowledge: induction digests those materials, and yields us general knowledge. When we possess such knowledge, in the form of general propositions and natural laws, we can usefully apply the reverse process of deduction to ascertain the exact information required at any moment. In its ultimate foundation, then, all knowledge is inductive—in the sense that it is derived by a certain inductive reasoning from the facts of experience.”

William Stanley Jevons (1835–1882) English economist and logician

Source: The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method (1874) Vol. 1, p. 14

“Now we live in an amazing, amazing world and it’s wasted on the crappiest generation of spoiled idiots.”

Louis C.K. (1967) American comedian and actor

Conan http://www.thatvideosite.com/v/94 (2006)

“I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Variants: I fear the day when the technology overlaps with our humanity. The world will only have a generation of idiots. I fear the day when technology overlaps our humanity. It will be then that the world will have permanent ensuing generations of idiots. 1995 film Powder includes a similar quotation attributed to Einstein: It’s become appallingly clear that our technology has surpassed our humanity. Although it is a popular quote on the internet, there is no substantial evidence that Einstein actually said that. It does not appear in "The Ultimate Quotable Einstein" from Princeton University Press nor in any reliable source. " Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/19/tech-surpass/" concluded that it probably emerged as a meme on the internet as late as 2012. Misattributed

“Generals are, as a matter of course, allowed to be far more idiotic than ordinary human beings are permitted to be.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Our Federal Union (1975), p. 248
General sources

“Freedom and idiots make a volatile mix. And the sad truth is that the idiocy quotient in the general population is alarmingly high.”

Jack McDevitt (1935) American novelist, Short story writer

Source: Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins, Odyssey (2006), Chapter 7 (p. 59)

“One idiot is one idiot. Two idiots are two idiots. Ten thousand idiots are a political party.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

Was written in a slightly different way by Leo Longanesi in Italian, above form has been attributed to Kafka without evidence. Misattributed Source: One Idiot Is One Idiot. Two Idiots Are Two Idiots. Ten Thousand Idiots Are a Political Party, Quote Investigator, 2021-10-08 https://quoteinvestigator.com/2021/10/08/idiots/,

“A society’s stock of knowledge is structured in terms of what is generally relevant and what is relevant only to specific roles… the social distribution of knowledge entails a dichotomization in terms of general and role-specific relevance… because of the division of labor, role-specific knowledge will grow at a faster rate than generally relevant and accessible knowledge… The increasing number and complexity of [the resulting] sub universes [of specialized knowledge] make them increasingly inaccessible to outsiders.”

Peter L. Berger book The Social Construction of Reality

Source: The Social Construction of Reality, 1966, p.77-87

“To Generalize is to be an Idiot. To Particularize is the Alone Distinction of Merit — General Knowledges are those Knowledges that Idiots possess.”

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William Blake249

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