Quotation
Last reviewed:
“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.”
Cicero · Academic philosophy · Ancient · 46 BCE
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is that a person who does not know what happened before their birth stays a child, however old, because a human life should be woven into a longer record. A competing reading keeps the sentence inside its job: Cicero is telling orators why they need history, not issuing a general theory of maturity. The line is in Orator 120, and the Latin goes on about the life of our ancestors. The short form is the part everyone quotes.
Did Cicero really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Cicero's Latin continues: what is a human life worth if it is not woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history? The short form is the part everyone quotes.
Where it comes from
Orator 120
Approximate date: 46 BCE.
How to use it
Before you call a housing mess unprecedented in a local Facebook group, spend an hour finding who already met a version of it: the same lease trick, the same council delay. The search is part of being an adult in his sense. Your three years in the flat are real, and they are a short sample.
A mindset reading
Your experience is real and it is narrow, and both can be true at once. The habit is to treat 'I have never seen this' as a fact about you, not as a fact about the world. A short sample is not a history, however strongly it felt while you were in it.
Understand the philosophy
Cicero is answering how wide an orator's education must be. History, for him, is the record that ties a life to ancestors and to the res publica. 'Child' means someone whose world is only their own few years. The line has been used ever since as a case for memory, which fits its thrust and is larger than its original job.
- knowledge
- society
FAQ
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is that a person who does not know what happened before their birth stays a child, however old, because a human life should be woven into a longer record. A competing reading keeps the sentence inside its job: Cicero is telling orators why they need history, not issuing a general theory of maturity. The line is in Orator 120, and the Latin goes on about the life of our ancestors. The short form is the part everyone quotes.
Did Cicero really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Cicero's Latin continues: what is a human life worth if it is not woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history? The short form is the part everyone quotes.
Which work is it in?
Orator 120 Approximate date: 46 BCE.