I think most people are aware that a substantial portion of the quotes on the internet are credited to the wrong people, and if they don't already know this, I doubt that many of them at all will be surprised to learn it.

This stuff grows like weeds. All it takes is one dishonest person to create a meme or post a quote and then attribute it to someone who didn't say it. From there, others propagate the quote with the misattributed author. If someone does take the time to research the validity of the quote, what they will find most often are dozens of instances of the same misattributed quote and decide from this evidence that the quote and author must be authentic. Three possible reasons a person might misattribute words to an author: Just trying to be clever and funny, no harm intended, though they are mistaken about that; intellectual laziness- thinking they know the source when they are in fact mistaken; last but certainly not least, good old fashioned dishonesty.

All of these reasons net the same result.

When you dig a bit deeper, though, and attempt to determine the source of the quote- the speech or book or whatever- you may end up not being able to find it. What you may find is that other people are asking the same questions- "Did so-and-so really say this, and if so, what is the source?"

Here's an example:

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

Attributed to Krishnamurti, but 'tis not so. Here is someone who appears to have the best intentions, and who actually edited their page to reflect this:

https://www.wildmind.org/blogs...ti-measure-of-health

On that page, he says "* I’ve since learned that this quotation is not from the Buddha, but is ultimately from the commentator Buddhaghosa. You can read more here."

Examples abound; seemingly endless. Here's a page with a list of misquotes, false quotes and misattributed quotes and though the article is titled "The Big List" it is but a mere sample, a grain of sand on an infinite beach:

The Big List of 47 Famous Misquotes That Have Fooled You

You may ask "Why should I care that a quote attributed to Krishnamurti actually was said by Buddhaghosa? I've heard of neither of these guys, so, who cares?"

Well, this is how we got here, and the answer to that question is that though you may not care, I care. I care very much about the accuracy of information which appears in the pages of this forum. We cannot stop the growth of these weeds on the internet, but we can tend to this small garden that is SIGforum. Some members refer to this forum as an island of sanity in an insane world, and any quotes which appears in this forum which are demonstrably false or for which the source cannot be determined, diminishes us ever so slightly. And since this is a publicly-accessible forum, anyone with an internet connection who happens to run across one of these misquotes posted here might turn around and post it elsewhere on the internet, and then it goes on from there. From one single weed, we get many.

Am I asking you to stop quoting anyone while you are here? Of course not. I am asking that if we're going to quote someone- in a thread or in a signature line that we take a minute to determine if the quote is attributed correctly.

It may sound silly to some of you when I say that if I stop and think about all this misinformation (genuine misinformation, and not the misuse of this term for political gain as is now happening with the perpetually dishonest leftist elements of the American government) being spread around so casually, it angers me. It makes me want to say "Stop. Can't you see what you're doing?" But, it's impossible, of course.

It's just as Joseph Campbell said: We can't fix the world. It's a mess and it's always going to be a mess, but we can fix ourselves.

In this one small way, and in this one small place, I am asking this of you. If you quote someone in this forum, be prepared to cite the source. Lacking that, please err on the side of caution.

By the way, though I merely paraphrased what Campbell said, I can cite the source of his words and I have no doubt he said it.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Acknowledged

For clarification -

Are you making the same ‘ask’ about memes that get posted in the meme thread?

I only ask because I’ve lost count of the times I’ve wanted to share a quote I’ve seen in a meme, only to research it first (I learned my lesson after being burned a couple of times) and then learn it was not even remotely tied to the person it was attributed to.

Bruce Lee, Keanu Reeves, and Abe Lincoln are pretty common misquotes.

quote:

Originally posted by Ronin1069:
Are you making the same ‘ask’ about memes that get posted in the meme thread?

Yes, I am.

Ooh: another thing that irritates me, especially the ones that have been accepted so widely that even otherwise smart people parrot them without any real thought or effort to confirm them. The ones attributed to Einstein, “infinite stupidity” and “insanity,” are especially common, but it always seemed unlikely to me that he would have said something like them. Some attributed quotations border on being anachronistic and should be suspicious for that reason alone.

That is a great list, BTW, and I admit I was wrong in my understanding about some of them.

Added: Another quotation that’s popular is the one about “rough men in the night” who protect us. I had seen its attribution to either Winston Churchill or George Orwell challenged before, but I just finished a book on the two men by Thomas E. Ricks who said it originally appeared in the newspaper the Washington Times in 1991.

Love it, para. Thanks!

One of the most widely disseminated quotes in the pro-gun community is this one, attributed to Hitler:

quote:

“This year will go down in history. For the first time a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future.”

Only problem is: There's absolutely zero evidence that he ever said or wrote it. And, believe me, many have tried to find it. Or even anything remotely like it, such that the quote could be paraphrasing.

IOW: It just plain ain't true.

Another "quote" one sees from time-to-time is this one, attributed to Aristotle:

quote:

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

Sometimes it's written as "enlightened," rather than "educated."

Nope, he never wrote nor said it. Or at least not that anybody can prove. He wrote something vaguely similar to it, but, the above quote is so bastardized from what he's actually documented to have written as to be only very vaguely similar.

I'm so cynical and jaded by everything on the internet nowadays that I don't post stories or quotes anymore without first confirming it. And even then there is still some doubt.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

One of the most widely disseminated quotes in the pro-gun community is this one:

quote:

“This year will go down in history. For the first time a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future.”

Only problem is: There's absolutely zero evidence that he ever said or wrote it. And, believe me, many have tried to find it. Or even anything remotely like it, such that the quote could be paraphrasing.

Never heard that quote before. And I have no idea who "he" is you're referring to.

Alan, it’s attributed to Hitler

"The piano ain't got no wrong notes." -Thelonious Monk

Damn, I love that! Listen to his music and you would say "Yeah, it sounds like something he would say." But what is the source?

As usual, when you search the internet for this phrase, you find dozens of pages with the quote and attribution, but not the source.

But, in this case, at the top of a Brave search, this link appeared:

https://nyacknewsandviews.com/...2015/06/dyk20150622/

quote:

Thelonious Monk once called the Columbia University student radio station WKCR to complain about something he heard on the air. An expert, talking about the music Monk created, said the jazz-legend used the wrong notes when playing his unique style of music. Monk called the station with a message for the on-air guest. “The piano ain’t got no wrong notes,” said one of the first creators of modern jazz and a pioneer of bebop.

OK, so, he said it over the air on a radio station, meaning it wasn't written down and most likely there is no recording of that radio segment. That's a tough one. But- WKCR- now there's a unique term for search, so, adding 'WKCR' to the search pointed me to Wikiquote:

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thelonious_Monk

...which has a citation for the quote at the bottom of the page:

"Evan Spring, Phil Schaap Interview, WKCR, 5 October, 1992"

...which lead me to this page:

https://www.cc-seas.columbia.e...hil-schaap-interview

quote:

There was a guy on the air doing that standard gibberish about Monk: "and Monk, playing the wrong notes on the piano, is able to create this kind of music....". Anyway, Monk called the Columbia switchboard, and the Columbia switchboard got in touch with me and said that Thelonious Monk had called to say that we should tell the guy on the air, "The piano aint got no wrong notes."

...and that is proof enough for me.

How long did it take me to track it down, start to finish? Less than two minutes.

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
Alan, it’s attributed to Hitler

Well, I assumed as much. So I guess I had an idea after all. Thanks.

Winston Churchill had a whole shedload misattributed to him. The one most commonly seen on gun, or conservative forums/pages: ‘If you’re not a liberal when you’re 25, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative by the time you’re 35, you have no brain.’

Link

.

quote:

Examples abound; seemingly endless. Here's a page with a list of misquotes, false quotes and misattributed quotes and though the article is titled "The Big List" it is but a mere sample, a grain of sand on an infinite beach:

The Big List of 47 Famous Misquotes That Have Fooled You

It's an interesting list.

What usually gets me is those that are so widely used that they are just common sayings, often misattributed or attributed to a different person than who originated it.

For example:
“Walk softly and carry a big stick.” —Teddy Roosevelt (he did say this, but didn’t originate it. It originated from an African proverb)
although I've often heard it as:
“ Speak softly and carry a big stick.”

and:
“Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” — Vince Lombardi (he did say it, but did not originate it. It was first said by Red Sanders)

Those are widely used in conversation without attribution. But when attributed, it's usually to the famous person who repeated it.

Also, under the meme section at the link, I found this hilarious:

quote:

Originally posted by Pyker:
Winston Churchill had a whole shedload misattributed to him. The one most commonly seen on gun, or conservative forums/pages: ‘If you’re not a liberal when you’re 25, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative by the time you’re 35, you have no brain.’

This is particularly important. When positing an Argument from Authority, we do ourselves no favors whatsoever when we use misinformation.

Leftists have no problem at all doing this. We say with great conviction that we are not like they. Let's strive to make this as true as possible.

BTW, with regards the heart/brain quote referenced, I think the concept (worded far differently) goes back to one of those Enlightenment Age philosophers- Rousseau, I think.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
Never heard that quote before. And I have no idea who "he" is you're referring to.

Sorry. Fixed it.

So that I am understanding you correctly.

If we quote and state the author you need it to be the correct author.

But it's ok to quote a saying with out quoting the author if we don't know who said it ?

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
So that I am understanding you correctly.

If we quote and state the author you need it to be the correct author.

But it's ok to quote a saying with out quoting the author if we don't know who said it ?

If only I had your knack for economy of language, bendable.

Yes, that is correct. There's nothing wrong with citing a concept; only incorrectly putting words into the mouths of others.

Roger Roger

For "quotes" such as the alleged Hitler quote, which my research strongly suggests is entirely fabricated, I simply never use them anymore--unattributed or otherwise.

For quotes like the alleged Aristotle quote I'll do something like:

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” -- Aristotle (apocryphal)

There are exceptions, of course; when you see a quote from Lincoln talking about the internet, for example.