c/o Arts & Letters Daily, a link to the Churchill Centre's quarterly journal partly debunks the oft-cited claim that in 1919 WSC was "strongly in favor of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes". The precise moral qualities of lachrymatory gas (to which Churchill was apparently referring) I leave to others. But this is another cautionary example of how dangerous it is to rely on conventional Net wisdom, particularly when it comes to "famous quotes". I had a pratfall myself a little while back when I spouted a maxim of Chesterton's that 'everyone knows', only to find out that it was bogus. Examples from Orwell and Burke followed. Dodgy quotes are not necessarily spurious - as in the Churchill case, they may be literally accurate but so ripped out of context as to be misleading. In any case - as George Washington never said - a careless cite can be "a troublesome servant and a fearful master".
(Oh, and you can forget rum, sodomy and the lash too).
Posted by Alan Allport at June 13, 2004 12:26 AMA version of that alleged George Washington quote is on the Tea Tree Oil version of the Dr. Bronner's soap label in our bathroom so I thought I'd look for it online. It turns out the company does have a website with considerable homage to its good but eccentric founder.
Dilute! Dilute! OK!
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at June 14, 2004 11:28 AMThis raises an interesting question. What history books do we rely on?
I could quote Churchill as well as Goering on this subject, but I can't afford any of the original documents.
The Nuremberg trial transcripts, or at least some of them are copyrighted-or at least there are claims of copyright on them (strange but true, look it up).
I hope this quote is correct:
"Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world."
Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
FWIW from the man who hated quotations. Maybe he was on to something.