
“I’m not accusing you of anything, but we both have studied too much history to ignore coincidence.”
Source: Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard (2015), Chapter 17, “Dead Voices” (p. 170)
Source: The Laundry Files, The Fuller Memorandum (2010), Chapter 5, “Lost in Committee” (p. 87)
“I’m not accusing you of anything, but we both have studied too much history to ignore coincidence.”
Source: Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard (2015), Chapter 17, “Dead Voices” (p. 170)
Generation X (1991)
“A generation which ignores history has no past —and no future.”
Source: Time Enough for Love (1973)
“The trouble with modern education is you never know how ignorant they are”
Part 1, Chapter 3
Brideshead Revisited (1945)
“Creators of history always play with our impotence and our ignorance.”
"Game III," p. 98
The Sun Watches the Sun (1999), Sequence: “A Game”
"Exultation and Explanation", p. 187
An Urchin in the Storm (1987)
Source: "The Happy Days Ahead" in Expanded Universe (1980)
Context: I started clipping and filing by categories on trends as early as 1930 and my "youngest" file was started in 1945.
Span of time is important; the 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots.
This "aphorism" was expressed in different forms by Josh Billings and Socrates. note: Often misquoted as, "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge," and often misattributed to Stephen Hawking.
Source: Cleopatra's Nose: Essays on the Unexpected (1995).