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You have the knowledge but that does not entitle you to be superior. Knowledge makes you the servant not the master.

Alan Bennett

Had your forefathers, Wigglesworth, been as stupid as you are, the human race would never have succeeded in procreating itself.
ALAN BENNETT

Human People Proceed Procreate Race Standard Stupid
They may not have two spondees to rub together but they still want to pen their saga untrammelled by life-threatening activities like trailing round Sainsbury’s, emptying the dishwasher or going to the nativity play.
ALAN BENNETT

Dishwasher Empt Nativity Pen Play Round Saga Sainsbury Threat Trailing
To play Trivial Pursuit with a life like mine could be said to be a form of homeopathy.
ALAN BENNETT

Could Form Homeopathy Life Mine Play Pursuit Trival
But then books, as I’m sure you know, seldom prompt a course of action.
ALAN BENNETT

Action Aure Book Buy Know Prompt Se; Dom
Soft Left, Hard Right, Soft Right and Centre. I am not listed. I should probably come under Soft Centre.
ALAN BENNETT

Come Hard Left List Probably Right Soft Under
Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting.
ALAN BENNETT

Discursive Invite Perpetual Raed Untidy
At the drabber moments of my life (swilling some excrement from the steps, for instance, or rooting with a bent coat-hanger down a blocked sink) thoughts occur like.
ALAN BENNETT

Bent Block Coat Drabber Excrement Hanger Insane Life Moment Root Some Step Swill
It’s subjunctive history. You know, the subjunctive? The mood used when something may or may not have happened. When it is imagined.
ALAN BENNETT

Happen History Mood Something Subjunctive Use
Art comes out of art; it begins with imitation, often in the form of parody, and it’s in the process of imitating the voice of others that one comes to learn the sound of one’s own.
ALAN BENNETT

Art Begin Come Form Imitate Parofy Process Voice
The trouble is, as soon as you’ve chosen somebody it obscures anybody else you might have thought of.
ALAN BENNETT

Anybody Chosen Else Night Obscure Somebody Soon Thought Trouble
Books generally just confirm you in what you have, perhaps unwittingly, decided to do already.
ALAN BENNETT

Already Book Confirm Decide Generally Just Perhaps Unwittingly
So, half a dozen of us tried – not all of us in history – and we all eventually got in. So, to that extent, it [The History Boys] comes out of my own experience.
ALAN BENNETT

Dozen Eventually Experience Extent Half History Own Try
And one of the historian’s jobs is to anticipate what our perspective of that period will be… even on the Holocaust.
ALAN BENNETT

Anticipate Historian Holocaust Period Perspective Remote
You must take people as they come. Remember, too that though you will generally know more about the condition than the patient, it is the patient who has the condition and this if nothing else bestows on him or her a kind of wisdom.
ALAN BENNETT

Condition Else Generally Kind Nothing Patient People Remember Wisdom
Why do we not care to acknowledge them? The cattle, the body count.
ALAN BENNETT

Acknowledge Care Cattle Count Foo
A photograph on every mantlepiece. And all this mourning has veiled the truth. It’s not so much lest we forget, as lest we remember.
ALAN BENNETT

Every Forget Lest Mantlepiece Mourn Much Photograph Remember Veiled

You have the knowledge but that does not entitle you to be superior. Knowledge makes you the servant not the master.

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You have the knowledge but that does not entitle you to be superior. Knowledge makes you the servant not the master.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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