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Seeing that I am on HN and can unleash unrestrained pedantry I wish to ask where Cicero actually writes that because I cannot find it?
by whatnow37373 1y ago
Seeing that I am on HN and can unleash unrestrained pedantry I wish to ask where Cicero actually writes that because I cannot find it?
- crims0n 1y agoThe full quote is allegedly "The purpose of education is to free the student from the tyranny of the present." ...I picked it up in Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, but he didn't cite which work it came from. Goodreads attributes it to "Selected Works".
- literalAardvark 1y agoThe Roman version of "trust me bro"
- ChuckMcM 1y agoI thought Mark Twain said that. /ducks
- MarkusQ 1y agoI dodn't think it's a quote; more a paraphrase of: https://www.loebclassics.com/view/marcus_tullius_cicero-orator/1939/pb_LCL342.395.xml?readMode=recto https://www.loebclassics.com/view/marcus_tullius_cicero-orat...
- ahazred8ta 1y agoTo 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?
- whatnow37373 1y agoThat’s a very … liberal interpretation. I find it fascinating how many interesting quotes turn out to be fabrications of unknown origin.
- MarkusQ 1y agoI suspect what happened here (and possibly in other similar cases) is that some author glossed a body of work in a way that made sense in context, and others mistook it as a quotation. It's as if I remarked that Isaac Asimov said a lot of prescient things about robots, and people saw that and started quoting it: > A lot of prescient things about robots. > -- Issac Asimov