"Everything has been said, yet few have taken notice of it. Since all our knowledge is essentially banal, it can only be of value to minds that are not"
Raoul Vaneigem
I'm having an extremely hard time understanding this quote. Its premises seem to contradict themselves.
How can a mind be original (not banal) if everything has been said and all knowledge is banal?
Only the set of beliefs that are actually routinely expressed can be considered banal; no matter if someone else has already said something, if it occurs to me organically, then it's probably useful.
This is our monthly thread for collecting these little gems and pearls of wisdom, rationality-related quotes you've seen recently, or had stored in your quotesfile for ages, and which might be handy to link to in one of our discussions.