Never Said It... Does It Matter?
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| Ralph Waldo Emerson actually did say this***** - from Morguefile |
The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered "Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived."
I saw it this morning and it just didn't sound right. Sure enough, it's fiction. I mean, it's a good enough quote, but not from the Dalai Lama...
Here's some other famous "never said them's":
"Just the facts, ma'am" - Joe Friday
"Elementary, my dear Watson" - Sherlock Holmes (never says this exact phrase - he says Elementary often enough...but not together with "my dear Watson")
"Play it again, Sam." Rick Blaine (Bogey never said this, though Woody Allen called a movie by this title so that's probably where the misquote came from - but it's one of those iconic lines like Cagney's "You dirty rat!" that he never said either that is still the actors' legacy...)
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke (This is one of those "summary" quotes - he didn't say it, but it summarizes his thoughts in Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents - 1770)
"Preach the Gospel always, and if necessary use words" - St. Francis of Assisi
"Spare the rod and spoil the child." - Proverbs (Actually it's He that spareth his rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him chaseneth him betimes.)
"Be the change you wish to see in the world." - Gandhi (again, a summary of a longer quote: "If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in this world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change toward him. ... We need not wait to see what others do.")
And the list goes on. You can Google misquotes or something if you like. Here's a Wikipedia Article* if you want a link.
Anyway, the point of this exercise? Partly just because it interests me. But I think there's three primary reasons we misattribute quotes.
First, we're lazy. No, really. "You dirty rat" or "Elementary, my dear Watson" is, well, close enough. It's not exact. It sounds right so we roll with it. "Preach the Gospel at all times and if necessary use words." That's sort of St. Frank like, yeah, okay. Craig Groeschel was speaking one time and made reference to John Wesley saying, "Light yourself on fire for Christ and people will come from all around to watch you burn." Or words to that effect.** At some point somebody says, "That sounds like so-and-so. Good enough."
Second, we want bumper stickers, not paragraphs. The opening quote being an exception, most of the time we reduce what people say to single sentences. "All that is necessary for evil to triumph..." being a great example of that. Now, that was an era of slogans, so it could have been said. After all, we heard, "Give me liberty or give me death." And, very similarly to the mis-attributed Burke quote is Franklin's "We must all hang together or assuredly we will all hang separately." "Be the change" always strikes me as trying to make Gandhi some guy like Ty Webb, Chevy Chase's character from Caddyshack. You know, "Be the change... na, na, na, na..." Sigh...
Third, we want wisdom to be attached to people whose names are trusted. It's not enough for a quote to just be, well, good. I remember a thing went around the internet a long time ago that was attached to George Carlin*** called Paradox of Our Time. Of course it was written by some pastor somewhere - but that wasn't good enough - especially since the pastor, it turns out, was a predator - so you wouldn't want HIS name attached to it... but why, then LIE? Why not just pull the "anonymous" or even the "I heard this and it really means something to me?" Why isn't that good enough for us anymore?
Actually, I think we're moving into an era where we'll see more and more of that. Since you can't trust a quote to be from who it's said to be from I think we'll read/hear a lot more either original thoughts or "I read this/heard this somewhere" without attribution. And that'll probably be okay because I think most of our Google-fu is good enough that if we really want to know who said "Cleanliness is next to Godliness"**** we can find it in about ten seconds.
*That needs some further research, I admit, but it's a start.
**Not Craig's fault. Someone had told HIM that Wesley had said that. I had heard that in Seminary, in fact. Wesley never said it, sorry. Great quote. Not John. Or Charles, just for the record...
***Or from a Columbine survivor, or the Dalai Lama. Carlin called it...um...sappy excrement. I don't think he liked it so much...
****No, seriously, Google it. That one's not even a challenge. Who really said "God shaped hole"? That is a challenge. No, not C.S. Lewis, sorry...
*****Maybe he actually said this - I can't find any disputation of him saying this, but I can't find the actual SOURCE, dangit...argh....
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