“In learning . . . a person can only be a master in one particular field, namely as a specialist, and in some field he should be a specialist. But if a person is not to forfeit his capacity for taking a general view, or even his respect for general views, he must be an amateur at as many points as possible, privately at any rate, for the increase of his own knowledge and the enrichment of his possible standpoints. Otherwise he will remain ignorant in any field lying outside his own specialty and perhaps, as a person, a barbarian.”

Jakob Burckhardt (1818-1897), Reflections on History, published posthumously, 1905.