Generational Knowledge Quotes

Civilization is not inherited; it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew; if the transmission should be interrupted for one century, civilization would die, and we should be savages again.

A succinct summary of the tragic vision was given by historians Will and Ariel Durant: Out of every hundred new ideas ninety-nine or more will probably be inferior to the traditional responses which they propose to replace. No one man, however brilliant or well-informed, can come in one lifetime to such fullness of understanding as to safely judge and dismiss the customs or institutions of his society, for these are the wisdom of generations after centuries of experiment in the laboratory of history.

There must be people who remember World War II and the Holocaust who can help us get out of this rut.

Without a generation of civilized people to study history, to preserve its records, to absorb its lessons and relate them to its own problems, history, too, would lose its meaning.

Question everything, even if it represents generations of conventional wisdom.

What would anyone want to write about me for? I'm just an old lady.

The only thing I have to go by is what my mother and father told me, how I was brought up.

Music was the medium through which knowledge was passed from generation to generation.

I know the hustle that is in Louisiana. Knowing where you are from, really where you're from, helps you to help the community. That's every city, but New Orleans is just different. We have big hearts, but it's just a matter of us having the information, having the people to push you along like I had.

People planted seeds into me. Older cats gave me the game. My family, especially my mother, gave me the game and I pass it on. That's what it's about. If somebody gives you mental jewelry and you wear it for so long, you want to give it to somebody else for them pass it on.

When I try to explain to people the big influences in my life, or at least when I first started, the most important ones were my friends who were also writing songs and were typically four or five years older than me.

Old Muttonhead

To be old is to be part of a huge and ordinary multitude... the reason why old age was venerated in the past was because it was extraordinary.

My dad died, I think, at 87. So I'll be lucky if I make 87. But in a lot of cases, the younger people live longer than their parents. And they know more. My dad used to tell me he ate the hog from his rooter to his tooter. So do I when I'm not trying to lose weight.

Young men, hear an old man to whom old men hearkened when he was young.

Parents are always more knowledgeable than their children, and children are always smarter than their parents.

The true critic is he who bears within himself the dreams and ideas and feelings of myriad generations, and to whom no form of thought is alien, no emotional impulse obscure.

How old am I? I'm as old as my mother told me. How's that?

Absolutely father knows best, always do what your fathers say, and if you can't find one then just ask me, I am a father and I know best.

Not every father gets a chance to start his son off in his own footsteps.

My father was an electrical engineer. He's presently 92 and still could be holding down a job. He had a very analytical way of looking at things, and I enjoyed that very much. I think that was a very large influence.

We have a complex system of government. You have to teach it to every generation.

One curious thing about growing up is that you don't only move forward in time; you move backwards as well, as pieces of your parents' and grandparents' lives come to you.

All I can say to the kids is if you've a problem in fishing or life, if you talk to an older person, you're gonna end up alright, because nine times out of 10, they've been through the same thing.

I would say the most help I got was from my dad. My dad is a civil engineer in Switzerland; he's 90 years old now, so he's no longer active as a civil engineer, but still a very active person.