The discovery of the alphabet will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories [; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves … You give your disciples not truth but only the semblance of truth; they will be heroes of many things, and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing].”

— Socrates, quoted in “Phaedrus” by Plato, see also “Joyce, Mallarmé, and the Press”, p. 2