The man who has no sense of history is like a man with no ears or eyes.
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Ahh I think the issue is a certain Austrian was being quoted. Not to invoke Godwins law, but there a bit of a problem here
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So absolutely everything and anything that he said is verboten?
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True, Beethoven’s behaviour towards others was for the most part, unpardonable and horrible. Still, quite unlike the Austrian corporal, he didn’t start a world war or set in motion a genocide that led to the murder of 6 million people because of their race and religion.
So yeah, I would agree that quoting Hitler for inspiration is wholly inappropriate no matter how innocuous the platitude might appear in isolation. Hitler, like Stalin and Mao, are really in a sinister league of tyrants all of their own in history.
Better to quote George Santayana who wrote:
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” …
Sure it’s less populist and folksy, but it presents the same message and lesson without conjuring the personality and ideology of pure evil.