0 comment Wednesday, November 19, 2014 | admin
Oliver Wendell Holmes, physician, author, critic, and poet, was born on August 29, 1809, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.Most of us, in earlier decades, read his poems in school, notably 'Old Ironsides' a patriotic poem about the frigate Constitution, which had defeated the British ship Guerriere in the War of 1812. When Holmes read a newspaper story indicating that the ship was to be dismantled, he was moved to write the poem.
Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;
Beneath it rung the battle shout,
And burst the cannon's roar;--
The meteor of the ocean air
Shall sweep the clouds no more!
Her deck, once red with heroes' blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood
And waves were white below,
No more shall feel the victor's tread,
Or know the conquered knee;--
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!
Oh, better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave;
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,
And give her to the God of storms,--
The lightning of the gale!
The poem was credited with saving the ship, which has been preserved and can be seen in Charlestown, Massachusetts.
Holmes, (who is often confused by later generations with his son, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who was a Supreme Court Justice,) also wrote many prose pieces, notably a series called the Breakfast Table series, which appeared in the Atlantic Monthly.
Here are a few quotes from Holmes:
The very aim and end of our institutions is that we may think what we like and say what we think."
"A page of history is worth a pound of logic."
"I value a man mainly for his primary relations with truth, as I understand truth, - not for any secondary artifice in handling his ideas." - The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table
"Language is a solemn thing," which "grows out of life - out of its agonies and ecstasies, its wants and its weariness. Every language is a temple, in which the soul of those who speak it is enshrined." - The Professor at the Breakfast Table
"The one great thought" that the American "inherits as his national birthright; free to form and express his opinions on almost every subject, and assured that he will soon acquire the last franchise which men withhold from men, - that of stating the laws of his spiritual being and the beliefs he accepts without hindrance except from clearer views of truth." - The Professor at the Breakfast Table
If a person "chooses to vote for the Devil, that is his lookout; - perhaps he thinks the Devil is better than the other candidates; and I don't doubt he's often right, Sir!" - The Professor at the Breakfast Table
Labels: American Culture, American History, Birthdays, Literature, Poetry
0 comment Tuesday, July 15, 2014 | admin
There's a very good post by Stephen Hopewell at the Heritage American.
It's about Louisa May Alcott's book Little Women, and its depictions of traditional womanhood. I'm sure all of you are familiar with the book; even some who have not read it have seen one of the several Hollywood treatments of the story. My favorite Hollywood version was the 1933 movie, starring Katharine Hepburn, but the 1949 version, with June Allyson, Janet Leigh, Elizabeth Taylor, and Mary Astor, was also good.
A critic could, of course, call the book false, a romantic fantasy. Even if this is so, the type of fantasy a society creates says something real about its soul. And in Little Women one sees a deep love between sisters and between mother and daughters that is utterly free of feminist distortion and resentment towards males. So, too, it was innovative as an early form of the American "domestic novel." In the words of Madeline Stern:
Little Women is great because it is a book on the American home, and hence universal in its appeal. As long as human beings delight in "the blessings that alone can make life happy," as long as they believe, with Jo March, that "families are the most beautiful things in all the world," the book will be treasured. (1)
The values held by the March family amount to a uniquely American conglomeration of stern Calvinism and English bourgeois values: a strong work ethic and a dislike of the pursuit of money, ostentation, and habits like drinking and gambling; but a very worldly enjoyment of art, music, games, nature, and conversation.''
I really like the second sentence in the excerpt above.
Read the rest at The Heritage American.
The discussion of Little Women started me thinking about the various books I read as a child, many of which were books that were read by virtually all children of the time. It's true that Little Women, like certain other popular childhood books, was a ''girls' book''. Many children's books, just as with adults' fiction, were divided between those for female readers and those for male readers. Boys tended to read more adventure books, involving action, travel, conquest, and so on.
But there were certain books that most children, both boys and girls, read. For example, The Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum. Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. Mark Twain's books. Aesop's Fables.The Arabian Nights. The Joel Chandler Harris 'Uncle Remus' stories.
Grimm's Fairy Tales. Hans Christian Andersen's stories. (I loved Andersen's stories, all of them. The Snow Queen was a special favorite for some reason.) Classical Mythology was popular with both boys and girls.
Girls read the 'Nancy Drew' mysteries while boys read The Hardy Boys.
In the realm of fantasy and fairy tales, George MacDonald was a popular writer among many children even when I was a child. I think he has been very influential over several generations.
Another more mundane writer whose books I enjoyed as a child was Lois Lenski ,who wrote about children in different regions of the country. Another series of ''girls' books'' which I read avidly were those by Maud Hart Lovelace. She wrote, among other things, the ''Betsy-Tacy" books about friends named Betsy and Tacy. They followed the lives of these girls as they grew up.
An interesting side note: this web page is devoted to explaining the cultural references in the Betsy-Tacy books, which would likely be foreign to any young girl of today who might read the books. I don't recall being baffled by these references when I read the books as a child; I think this is due to the fact that children of my era did not live in a world which was that drastically different, at least in a cultural sense, from that of 50 years earlier, the time in which the books were set. We did not need a translator or a lexicon to explain these things to us. Nowadays, however, children live in a very different world from that of my childhood, and the differences are not all due to our more advanced technology. It is more a matter of our not being conversant with the classic Western cultural matrix that everybody of earlier (pre-1960s) America shared. For instance, most of us knew the phrase ''All of Gaul is divided into three parts", and most of us knew the poem "Lochinvar." These things are absolutely foreign to the average child of today.
Many of the books we read as children were by British authors: those by Tolkien, Kenneth Grahame (The Wind in the Willows), Lewis Carroll, Enid Blyton, E. Nesbit, A.A. Milne, Edward Lear, Frances Hodgson Burnett (how I loved 'The Secret Garden!), Anna Sewell, Andrew Lang.
Mother Goose.
We read books by European authors like Johanna Spyri (Heidi), or the aforementioned Hans Christian Andersen, or books like The Wonderful Adventures of Nils by Selma Lagerlöf.
We read things like the stories of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, or the Robin Hood stories, or Aesop's Fables, or Grimm's, or Greek and Roman mythology, and we sensed that these things belonged to us; they were a part of our history and our origins, even we here in America. We had a sense of continuity.
But what I get from looking back at the books which most of us read as children is the message that we were much more a unified people then, with a common culture, a set of common cultural references, many of which were introduced to us as children. We had a sense of being part of a much larger, much more ancient culture. . Do children of today, except for some homeschooled children with good instruction, get that same sense?
Sadly, most of the young children I know of today, even those from good homes with conscientious parents. do not read that many books at all, and when they do it is the fad books of the moment, like Harry Potter. Now, I know some of my readers are probably Potter fans, and to each his own, but they are just not on a par with the books of the past, especially the truly classical books. I hear so many parents saying ''anything that gets them to read is good. We want them to read, and so whatever interests them in reading is good for them." Really? I question that sentiment. Suppose your child is undernourished. Would you say that ''anything they eat is good, so I let them eat whatever they like best; at least they're eating." I don't think you would find many parents who would use that line of reasoning; otherwise we'd be giving kids a diet of fast food, chips, twinkies, and cokes. So why is any reading material good ''just as long as they're reading"? We should take as much care to provide wholesome and edifying reading material as we take in choosing healthy food for our children's bodies. In fact I might say that unwholesome reading material can do more harm than junk food; childhood is a time for building good habits and good character, and that is even more important than the physical body in some senses.
Some of my Christian friends don't seem to try to feed their children wholesome mental food by encouraging good reading habits. I don't know that there are many good books for children out there, other than the classics; many of the newer books for young children are steeped in political correctness and liberalism in some form. Books for the 'young adult' group often feature foul language and sexual themes. The excuse is always that ''this is today's reality. Kids use profanity and hear it all the time, and they are exploring their sexuality." So it becomes self-fulfilling prophecy.
One of the reasons our culture and our people are in such dire straits is that we've lost touch with our roots and our longstanding cultural heritage. Without even basic familiarity with it, how can any of us, particularly the younger generations coming up now, be proud of or protective of something with which they lack even a passing acquaintance ?
Generations are divided against each other because our children, in many senses, have grown up in a different country and a different culture than that of our generation and earlier generations. This is by design; the leftists and liberals were very astute in seizing control of academia and the arts, so as to surround the younger generations with different ideas and influences than those of earlier eras.
Those of you who do home-school, I trust you are including classic reading material, and works that represent the best of our Western cultural traditions. Much of what is produced today is suspect, and is often tainted, even if unintentionally, with political correctness.
Older books, describing an earlier era and a different way of life, have the effect of broadening a child's outlook, and opening the mind to other and better possibilities than those visible in today's world.
I know that many parents will say that 'kids today won't read that old stuff; they have to have something they can relate to.' Many children today seem sadly rather cynical and steeped in 'streetwise' kinds of entertainment. The trash on some of the ''children's" TV networks is very much of the 'urban', multicult variety, and this alienates children from their own rightful culture. I don't know what the antidote to this trend may be; killing the TV is a good start. If I had young children now, there would be no TV, and no modern movies.
Another criticism often made of the older books or of any older traditional fare, like movies, is ''the world was never really like that; it was whitewashed and idealized. It was really uglier than that. No such world ever existed.'' All I can say to this is that it's true that the world is imperfect and has always been imperfect. But to insist on exploring ugliness and the dark side of everything is to shut out the light. We get more of what we choose to focus and concentrate on. Why not exalt the higher instincts and our better potential? Why not show the good of which we are capable, rather than the bad and the ugly, as we do today?
And it is not wrong to idealize and to show a world which is just that little bit better than the world we see outside our windows. It gives us something better toward which we can aspire and strive.
"We never reach our ideals, whether of mental or moral improvement, but the thought of them shows us our deficiencies, and spurs us on to higher and better things." - Tryon Edwards
What books did you read growing up? Which ones inspired you or shaped your character or outlook?
It's about Louisa May Alcott's book Little Women, and its depictions of traditional womanhood. I'm sure all of you are familiar with the book; even some who have not read it have seen one of the several Hollywood treatments of the story. My favorite Hollywood version was the 1933 movie, starring Katharine Hepburn, but the 1949 version, with June Allyson, Janet Leigh, Elizabeth Taylor, and Mary Astor, was also good.
A critic could, of course, call the book false, a romantic fantasy. Even if this is so, the type of fantasy a society creates says something real about its soul. And in Little Women one sees a deep love between sisters and between mother and daughters that is utterly free of feminist distortion and resentment towards males. So, too, it was innovative as an early form of the American "domestic novel." In the words of Madeline Stern:
Little Women is great because it is a book on the American home, and hence universal in its appeal. As long as human beings delight in "the blessings that alone can make life happy," as long as they believe, with Jo March, that "families are the most beautiful things in all the world," the book will be treasured. (1)
The values held by the March family amount to a uniquely American conglomeration of stern Calvinism and English bourgeois values: a strong work ethic and a dislike of the pursuit of money, ostentation, and habits like drinking and gambling; but a very worldly enjoyment of art, music, games, nature, and conversation.''
I really like the second sentence in the excerpt above.
Read the rest at The Heritage American.
The discussion of Little Women started me thinking about the various books I read as a child, many of which were books that were read by virtually all children of the time. It's true that Little Women, like certain other popular childhood books, was a ''girls' book''. Many children's books, just as with adults' fiction, were divided between those for female readers and those for male readers. Boys tended to read more adventure books, involving action, travel, conquest, and so on.
But there were certain books that most children, both boys and girls, read. For example, The Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum. Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. Mark Twain's books. Aesop's Fables.The Arabian Nights. The Joel Chandler Harris 'Uncle Remus' stories.
Grimm's Fairy Tales. Hans Christian Andersen's stories. (I loved Andersen's stories, all of them. The Snow Queen was a special favorite for some reason.) Classical Mythology was popular with both boys and girls.
Girls read the 'Nancy Drew' mysteries while boys read The Hardy Boys.
In the realm of fantasy and fairy tales, George MacDonald was a popular writer among many children even when I was a child. I think he has been very influential over several generations.
Another more mundane writer whose books I enjoyed as a child was Lois Lenski ,who wrote about children in different regions of the country. Another series of ''girls' books'' which I read avidly were those by Maud Hart Lovelace. She wrote, among other things, the ''Betsy-Tacy" books about friends named Betsy and Tacy. They followed the lives of these girls as they grew up.
An interesting side note: this web page is devoted to explaining the cultural references in the Betsy-Tacy books, which would likely be foreign to any young girl of today who might read the books. I don't recall being baffled by these references when I read the books as a child; I think this is due to the fact that children of my era did not live in a world which was that drastically different, at least in a cultural sense, from that of 50 years earlier, the time in which the books were set. We did not need a translator or a lexicon to explain these things to us. Nowadays, however, children live in a very different world from that of my childhood, and the differences are not all due to our more advanced technology. It is more a matter of our not being conversant with the classic Western cultural matrix that everybody of earlier (pre-1960s) America shared. For instance, most of us knew the phrase ''All of Gaul is divided into three parts", and most of us knew the poem "Lochinvar." These things are absolutely foreign to the average child of today.
Many of the books we read as children were by British authors: those by Tolkien, Kenneth Grahame (The Wind in the Willows), Lewis Carroll, Enid Blyton, E. Nesbit, A.A. Milne, Edward Lear, Frances Hodgson Burnett (how I loved 'The Secret Garden!), Anna Sewell, Andrew Lang.
Mother Goose.
We read books by European authors like Johanna Spyri (Heidi), or the aforementioned Hans Christian Andersen, or books like The Wonderful Adventures of Nils by Selma Lagerlöf.
We read things like the stories of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, or the Robin Hood stories, or Aesop's Fables, or Grimm's, or Greek and Roman mythology, and we sensed that these things belonged to us; they were a part of our history and our origins, even we here in America. We had a sense of continuity.
But what I get from looking back at the books which most of us read as children is the message that we were much more a unified people then, with a common culture, a set of common cultural references, many of which were introduced to us as children. We had a sense of being part of a much larger, much more ancient culture. . Do children of today, except for some homeschooled children with good instruction, get that same sense?
Sadly, most of the young children I know of today, even those from good homes with conscientious parents. do not read that many books at all, and when they do it is the fad books of the moment, like Harry Potter. Now, I know some of my readers are probably Potter fans, and to each his own, but they are just not on a par with the books of the past, especially the truly classical books. I hear so many parents saying ''anything that gets them to read is good. We want them to read, and so whatever interests them in reading is good for them." Really? I question that sentiment. Suppose your child is undernourished. Would you say that ''anything they eat is good, so I let them eat whatever they like best; at least they're eating." I don't think you would find many parents who would use that line of reasoning; otherwise we'd be giving kids a diet of fast food, chips, twinkies, and cokes. So why is any reading material good ''just as long as they're reading"? We should take as much care to provide wholesome and edifying reading material as we take in choosing healthy food for our children's bodies. In fact I might say that unwholesome reading material can do more harm than junk food; childhood is a time for building good habits and good character, and that is even more important than the physical body in some senses.
Some of my Christian friends don't seem to try to feed their children wholesome mental food by encouraging good reading habits. I don't know that there are many good books for children out there, other than the classics; many of the newer books for young children are steeped in political correctness and liberalism in some form. Books for the 'young adult' group often feature foul language and sexual themes. The excuse is always that ''this is today's reality. Kids use profanity and hear it all the time, and they are exploring their sexuality." So it becomes self-fulfilling prophecy.
One of the reasons our culture and our people are in such dire straits is that we've lost touch with our roots and our longstanding cultural heritage. Without even basic familiarity with it, how can any of us, particularly the younger generations coming up now, be proud of or protective of something with which they lack even a passing acquaintance ?
Generations are divided against each other because our children, in many senses, have grown up in a different country and a different culture than that of our generation and earlier generations. This is by design; the leftists and liberals were very astute in seizing control of academia and the arts, so as to surround the younger generations with different ideas and influences than those of earlier eras.
Those of you who do home-school, I trust you are including classic reading material, and works that represent the best of our Western cultural traditions. Much of what is produced today is suspect, and is often tainted, even if unintentionally, with political correctness.
Older books, describing an earlier era and a different way of life, have the effect of broadening a child's outlook, and opening the mind to other and better possibilities than those visible in today's world.
I know that many parents will say that 'kids today won't read that old stuff; they have to have something they can relate to.' Many children today seem sadly rather cynical and steeped in 'streetwise' kinds of entertainment. The trash on some of the ''children's" TV networks is very much of the 'urban', multicult variety, and this alienates children from their own rightful culture. I don't know what the antidote to this trend may be; killing the TV is a good start. If I had young children now, there would be no TV, and no modern movies.
Another criticism often made of the older books or of any older traditional fare, like movies, is ''the world was never really like that; it was whitewashed and idealized. It was really uglier than that. No such world ever existed.'' All I can say to this is that it's true that the world is imperfect and has always been imperfect. But to insist on exploring ugliness and the dark side of everything is to shut out the light. We get more of what we choose to focus and concentrate on. Why not exalt the higher instincts and our better potential? Why not show the good of which we are capable, rather than the bad and the ugly, as we do today?
And it is not wrong to idealize and to show a world which is just that little bit better than the world we see outside our windows. It gives us something better toward which we can aspire and strive.
"We never reach our ideals, whether of mental or moral improvement, but the thought of them shows us our deficiencies, and spurs us on to higher and better things." - Tryon Edwards
What books did you read growing up? Which ones inspired you or shaped your character or outlook?
Labels: American Culture, Books, Literature, Western Culture, Western Decline
0 comment Friday, May 16, 2014 | admin
Some of you, I know, have read this, but for those who haven't, it's a quick read. Was Lovecraft prophetic?
There be those who say that things and places have souls, and there be those who say they have not; I dare not say, myself, but I will tell of the Street. Men of strength and honour fashioned that Street: good valiant men of our blood who had come from the Blessed Isles across the sea. At first it was but a path trodden by bearers of water from the woodland spring to the cluster of houses by the beach. Then, as more men came to the growing cluster of houses and looked about for places to dwell, they built cabins along the north side, cabins of stout oaken logs with masonry on the side toward the forest, for many Indians lurked there with fire-arrows. And in a few years more, men built cabins on the south side of the Street. Up and down the Street walked grave men in conical hats, who most of the time carried muskets or fowling pieces. And there were also their bonneted wives and sober children. In the evening these men with their wives and children would sit about gigantic hearths and read and speak. Very simple were the things of which they read and spoke, yet things which gave them courage and goodness and helped them by day to subdue the forest and till the fields. And the children would listen and learn of the laws and deeds of old, and of that dear England which they had never seen or could not remember. There was war, and thereafter no more Indians troubled the Street. The men, busy with labour, waxed prosperous and as happy as they knew how to be. And the children grew up comfortable, and more families came from the Mother Land to dwell on the Street. And the children's children, and the newcomers' children, grew up. The town was now a city, and one by one the cabins gave place to houses - simple, beautiful houses of brick and wood, with stone steps and iron railings and fanlights over the doors. No flimsy creations were these houses, for they were made to serve many a generation. Within there were carven mantels and graceful stairs, and sensible, pleasing furniture, china, and silver, brought from the Mother Land.
Read the rest here. It's worth reading.
There be those who say that things and places have souls, and there be those who say they have not; I dare not say, myself, but I will tell of the Street. Men of strength and honour fashioned that Street: good valiant men of our blood who had come from the Blessed Isles across the sea. At first it was but a path trodden by bearers of water from the woodland spring to the cluster of houses by the beach. Then, as more men came to the growing cluster of houses and looked about for places to dwell, they built cabins along the north side, cabins of stout oaken logs with masonry on the side toward the forest, for many Indians lurked there with fire-arrows. And in a few years more, men built cabins on the south side of the Street. Up and down the Street walked grave men in conical hats, who most of the time carried muskets or fowling pieces. And there were also their bonneted wives and sober children. In the evening these men with their wives and children would sit about gigantic hearths and read and speak. Very simple were the things of which they read and spoke, yet things which gave them courage and goodness and helped them by day to subdue the forest and till the fields. And the children would listen and learn of the laws and deeds of old, and of that dear England which they had never seen or could not remember. There was war, and thereafter no more Indians troubled the Street. The men, busy with labour, waxed prosperous and as happy as they knew how to be. And the children grew up comfortable, and more families came from the Mother Land to dwell on the Street. And the children's children, and the newcomers' children, grew up. The town was now a city, and one by one the cabins gave place to houses - simple, beautiful houses of brick and wood, with stone steps and iron railings and fanlights over the doors. No flimsy creations were these houses, for they were made to serve many a generation. Within there were carven mantels and graceful stairs, and sensible, pleasing furniture, china, and silver, brought from the Mother Land.
Read the rest here. It's worth reading.
Labels: American Culture, American History, Literature
0 comment Saturday, May 3, 2014 | admin
Those of you who read this blog even occasionally will have noted that I like great quotes. Now, I know some people have a dim view of those who resort to quoting others to make a point, but I think a well-chosen quote from an appropriate source is effective. I personally find a lot of mental and spiritual food in the words of great writers and thinkers of the past.
I've collected a number of books of quotes, some of them quite old, and I of course find the older books more profound than much of what passes for wisdom today. Just compare today's Bartlett's with one from, say, 90 years ago.
The difference in the quality of the quotes, and the points of view represented is stark. Political correctness has also tainted the recent versions, which is to be expected. For those reasons, it's valuable to go back to the older books to get some intellectual oxygen, as it were, and to escape the stifling air of PC.
And speaking of quotes, here's an interesting piece from the Times Online:
Never said it: 10 famously inaccurate quotes
Following my post on Voltaire and his failure to say "I disagree with what you have to say but I defend to the death your right to say it" here are ten other famous characters who didn't say the things most often associated with them.
Sherlock Holmes: Elementary, my dear Watson
Except for the fact that it's not. The most notorious resident of Baker St never actually used these words in the original books. Not that that's stopped his onscreen counterparts.
Edmund Burke: All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
And nothing is precisely what the statesman had to do with this phrase. Blame Bartlett's Familiar Quotations for the first mistaken attribution. The words do not appear in any of Burke's papers.''
I've quoted that line which is supposedly by Burke more than once, and wrote one blog entry about why I thought the quote does not make sense. Then a commenter told me that the phrase was in fact mis-attributed to Burke.
The other wrongly-attributed quotes are others that are often repeated; read the rest at the link.
One other incorrect quote which comes to my mind is the famous 'Biblical phrase' which enjoins us to ''hate the sin, love the sinner."
In a past blog post, I repeated that phrase, which all of us have no doubt heard many times, and again, a commenter pointed out to me that the phrase is not in the Bible, and upon some reflection I had to admit that I had never seen it anywhere in the Bible, and I am familiar enough with the Bible to have some memory of it if it were found there, though I don't have the Bible memorized.
I have done searches to be sure that the quote does not appear in some slightly different wording in the Bible, but I can find none nor can I think of even a similarly-phrased verse in the Bible.
Do any of you know the origin of this overused phrase? I know that it is popular today because it fits so well with our postmodern secular philosophy of nonjudgmentalism, and the phrase is most often pressed into service to scold Christians who criticize homosexuality.
Another popular phrase which I have heard quoted as being Biblical is 'God helps those who help themselves.' I have read that in some survey or poll, a large percentage of people believed that the phrase came from the Bible. But of course it does not, and as the answer here indicates, Ben Franklin was the author of the quote, and the idea itself is not consistent with Biblical teaching.
Another apparent misquote is the one attributed to George Orwell saying "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."
According to this Wikipedia page on misquotations, it is not a legitimate Orwell quote.
The page has many other examples of misquotations, some of them from popular culture, especially movies, apparently the largest source of the quotes often repeated these days.
One more contested quote is this one from Samuel Adams, which I, like a lot of people, have quoted on occasion:
'It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.''
But the correct version is apparently this one:
It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.''
Another phrase which is so often quoted on the Internet is the phrase by George Santayana: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'' However it's usually misquoted in some way, as this interesting piece tells us:
As a reference librarian, I have heard many variations on this theme by George Santayana.
This particular quotation has eluded more than one library customer, who recalled the keyword "history" instead of what American philosopher George Santayana (1863-1952) actually said: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" (from "Life of Reason I"). Searching for the wrong word in indexes can get you nowhere, fast. When using either book indexes or online search engines, it pays to think of synonyms and other other words of related meaning.
On August 26, syndicated columnist Trudy Rubin misquoted Santayana (""Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.") in her "Wordlview" column, "Bush's bid to tie Iraq to Vietnam doesn't work."
A deliberately incorrect Google search (with search terms "santayana," "remember history," and "doomed to repeat"), yielded 269 Web pages misquoting Santayana ("Those who cannot remember history are doomed to repeat it."). Those who cannot remember quotations are condemned to paraphrase them.''
Do any of you have examples of misquotations?
I've collected a number of books of quotes, some of them quite old, and I of course find the older books more profound than much of what passes for wisdom today. Just compare today's Bartlett's with one from, say, 90 years ago.
The difference in the quality of the quotes, and the points of view represented is stark. Political correctness has also tainted the recent versions, which is to be expected. For those reasons, it's valuable to go back to the older books to get some intellectual oxygen, as it were, and to escape the stifling air of PC.
And speaking of quotes, here's an interesting piece from the Times Online:
Never said it: 10 famously inaccurate quotes
Following my post on Voltaire and his failure to say "I disagree with what you have to say but I defend to the death your right to say it" here are ten other famous characters who didn't say the things most often associated with them.
Sherlock Holmes: Elementary, my dear Watson
Except for the fact that it's not. The most notorious resident of Baker St never actually used these words in the original books. Not that that's stopped his onscreen counterparts.
Edmund Burke: All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
And nothing is precisely what the statesman had to do with this phrase. Blame Bartlett's Familiar Quotations for the first mistaken attribution. The words do not appear in any of Burke's papers.''
I've quoted that line which is supposedly by Burke more than once, and wrote one blog entry about why I thought the quote does not make sense. Then a commenter told me that the phrase was in fact mis-attributed to Burke.
The other wrongly-attributed quotes are others that are often repeated; read the rest at the link.
One other incorrect quote which comes to my mind is the famous 'Biblical phrase' which enjoins us to ''hate the sin, love the sinner."
In a past blog post, I repeated that phrase, which all of us have no doubt heard many times, and again, a commenter pointed out to me that the phrase is not in the Bible, and upon some reflection I had to admit that I had never seen it anywhere in the Bible, and I am familiar enough with the Bible to have some memory of it if it were found there, though I don't have the Bible memorized.
I have done searches to be sure that the quote does not appear in some slightly different wording in the Bible, but I can find none nor can I think of even a similarly-phrased verse in the Bible.
Do any of you know the origin of this overused phrase? I know that it is popular today because it fits so well with our postmodern secular philosophy of nonjudgmentalism, and the phrase is most often pressed into service to scold Christians who criticize homosexuality.
Another popular phrase which I have heard quoted as being Biblical is 'God helps those who help themselves.' I have read that in some survey or poll, a large percentage of people believed that the phrase came from the Bible. But of course it does not, and as the answer here indicates, Ben Franklin was the author of the quote, and the idea itself is not consistent with Biblical teaching.
Another apparent misquote is the one attributed to George Orwell saying "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."
According to this Wikipedia page on misquotations, it is not a legitimate Orwell quote.
The page has many other examples of misquotations, some of them from popular culture, especially movies, apparently the largest source of the quotes often repeated these days.
One more contested quote is this one from Samuel Adams, which I, like a lot of people, have quoted on occasion:
'It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.''
But the correct version is apparently this one:
It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.''
Another phrase which is so often quoted on the Internet is the phrase by George Santayana: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'' However it's usually misquoted in some way, as this interesting piece tells us:
As a reference librarian, I have heard many variations on this theme by George Santayana.
This particular quotation has eluded more than one library customer, who recalled the keyword "history" instead of what American philosopher George Santayana (1863-1952) actually said: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" (from "Life of Reason I"). Searching for the wrong word in indexes can get you nowhere, fast. When using either book indexes or online search engines, it pays to think of synonyms and other other words of related meaning.
On August 26, syndicated columnist Trudy Rubin misquoted Santayana (""Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.") in her "Wordlview" column, "Bush's bid to tie Iraq to Vietnam doesn't work."
A deliberately incorrect Google search (with search terms "santayana," "remember history," and "doomed to repeat"), yielded 269 Web pages misquoting Santayana ("Those who cannot remember history are doomed to repeat it."). Those who cannot remember quotations are condemned to paraphrase them.''
Do any of you have examples of misquotations?
Labels: Famous People, Literature, Quotations