Fair enough, I should have read your comment more charitably — as perhaps you could have of your parent's. They were being somewhat hyperbolic but the sentimen

Fair enough, I should have read your comment more charitably — as perhaps you could have of your parent's. They were being somewhat hyperbolic but the sentiment was more along the lines of "Euclid is approachable for anyone, not just maths people" than "if you haven't read Euclid, you won't understand proofs." Like your parent, I also took a Euclidean geometry course during undergrad and still cite it as one of my favourites. There's something beautiful about striping mathematics back its foundations and building it back up with just a ruler and a compass.