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Shawords

Quote#War

No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by the experience of life…

Quote byRobert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury · 1830–1903

Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Letter to Lord Lytton (15 June 1877), quoted in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1999) Elizabeth M. Knowles, p. 642; this has also been published without the word "insipid"..

English (original)

No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by the experience of life as that you should never trust experts. If you believe doctors, nothing is wholesome: if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent: if you believe the soldiers, nothing is safe. They all require their strong wine diluted by a very large admixture of insipid common sense.

— Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

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