“All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience.”

Another reason that liberty and wisdom cannot be inherited. Like our Founders, we must make that Declaration of Independence for ourselves and take a stand for our self-declared, self-evident, inalienable rights.

Archer, said well

There is nothing new under the sun.

Goethe is touching upon the "joy of philosophy", and the joy of thinking and doing mental experiments. Einstein conceptualized many of his ideas just by thought experiments before working out the mathematics.

Do not disdain the wisdom of your fathers. If you do you'll live to regret it. It is no accident that we are repeating many and will probably repeat many more of the mistakes that lead to the great depression after those who lived through it are all gone.