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Tertullian: what was
he on about?
Quotes: misquoted, oft-quoted, too oft quoted.
Never
mind that nobody ever said "Play it again, Sam" or "Come up and see me
some
time", "When I hear the word culture I reach for my gun" – sometimes
misquotes
are snappier than the original. But some quotes are oft-quoted with the
wrong
meaning, or misquoted, or misattributed in a way that matters. Or
oft-quoted to
support a point of view they actually demolish.
“If
t’were done when ‘tis done, t’were well it were done quickly.” Macbeth meant “If
it’s over when it [the murder] is done, it’s better to do it quickly”. (That's dramatic
irony.)
to
the manor born Hamlet said "to the manner born".
Ignorance is bliss. The whole line goes: "If ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise." There are three
kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics. Said Winston Churchill? When Mark Twain
mentioned this pithy saying in his autobiography, he credited it to Benjamin
Disraeli.
There
are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio. “There are more things in heaven
and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy.” What was Horatio’s
philosophy? Was Horatio a Protestant who didn’t believe in purgatory? Or did
Hamlet just mean “philosophy”? Whatever he meant, it doesn't prove that UFOs are flown by little green men, or that homeopathy is medically useful.
Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive.
From Marmion by Sir Walter Scott. (But when we've practised for a while, how vastly we improve our style.)
Honesty is the best policy. Policy used to mean something like diplomacy, so this means "honesty is the best kind of deviousness".
Every sperm is
sacred. From an amusing comedy skit by those zany jokesters,
Monty Python, not promulgated by the Pope.
Thou
shalt not kill, but need'st not strive/ Officiously to keep alive. These
lines by Arthur Hugh Clough are often quoted to support the view that abortion,
embryo research and euthanasia are acceptable. They are from his poem The
Latest Decalogue which is a satire of the ten commandments. Other commandments in his list: "Thou shalt have one God only - who/ would be at the expense of two?/ Adultery do not commit -/ Advantage rarely comes of it." You get the idea?
Religion is the opium of the people. Marx is often dismissed for being
anti-religious. After all, didn’t he say "Religion is the opium of the people"?
He did, but in context it means something more like "Religion is the Prozac of
the people, and if you don’t want people to take Prozac you should make sure
they don’t need to."
Here's what he actually said: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a
heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of
the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of
the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to
give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give
up a condition that requires illusions."
The bells! The bells! Catchphrase
of Charles Laughton as Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame? Actually said
by Henry Irving in a famous melodrama in which he played a character called
Matthias who was haunted by the sound of the sleighbells of the man he murdered.
Give me a child until he is seven years old, and he is mine
for life. Said St Ignatius. Or was it a Jesuit? Or the Jesuits? Until he’s seven? When he’s
seven? For six years? For the first six years?
I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right
to say it. Said Voltaire. Or did he? The phrase was invented by a later author as an epitome of
his attitude. It appeared in The Friends of Voltaire (1906), written by Evelyn
Beatrice Hall under the pseudonym S[tephen] G. Tallentyre... probable source
for the quotation was a line in a 6 February 1770 letter to M. le Riche:
``Monsieur l'Abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it
possible for you to continue to write. (Web))
Webster was much obsessed with death. Actually T.S. Eliot wrote that he was “possessed” by it.
Wherefore art thou, Romeo? Means “Why are you ‘Romeo’?”, not “Where are you, Romeo?”
The poor are always with us. Jesus didn't mean that
any effort to eliminate poverty won’t work. He said, foretelling his death: “The poor are always
with you, but I will not always be with you.”
slouch towards (“much of western Europe has slouched toward the
decriminalisation of cannabis”) It doesn't mean reach your destination
in a slack and disorganised way, but fulfil a date with destiny. W.B. Yeats asked: What rough
beast/ slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
The truth is seldom pure and never simple. Oscar Wilde
What is truth? said
jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Francis Bacon, Essays, Civil and
Moral
Both of these are wheeled out by people
who are losing an argument through lack of data or logic. They should read Bacon's
next sentence: “Certainly there be that delight in giddiness, and count it a
bondage to fix a belief; affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in
acting.”
Credo quia
impossibile. Tertullian
said he believed in Christianity because it was impossible. Or did he? (And even if he did, does that mean we should believe the impossible?) What he really said was:
“Crucifixus
est dei filius; non pudet, quia pudendum est. Et mortuus est dei filius;
credibile est, quia ineptum est. Et sepultus resurrexit; certum est,
quia
impossibile.”
“The
son of God was crucified: it does not shame, because it is shameful. The
son of
God died: it is believable because it is absurd. And arose from the
grave: it
is certain because it is impossible.”
Here’s what the Catholic Encyclopaedia
says: ‘There is a controversy
whether the same truth can be an object both of faith and of knowledge. In other words, can we believe a
thing both because we are told it
on good authority and because we ourselves perceive it to be true? St. Thomas, Scotus, and others hold
that once a thing is seen to be
true, the adhesion of the mind is in no wise strengthened by the authority of one who states that it is
so, but the majority of
theologians maintain, with De Lugo, that there may be a knowledge which does not entirely
satisfy the mind, and that authority
may then find a place, to complete its satisfaction. -- We may note
here the absurd expression Credo
quia impossibile, which has provoked many sneers. It is not an axiom of the
Scholastics, as was stated in the
"Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale" (March, 1896, p. 169), and
as was suggested more than once in the "Do we believe?"
correspondence. The expression is
due to Tertullian, whose exact words are: "Natus est Dei Filius; non pudet, quia pudendum est: et
mortuus est Dei Filius; prorsus
credibile est, quia ineptum est; et sepultus, resurrexit; certum est, quia impossibile" (De Carne
Christi, cap. v). This treatise dates from Tertullian's Montanist days, when he was carried away by his
love of paradox. At the same time
it is clear that the writer only aims at
bringing out the wisdom of God manifested in the humiliation of the Cross; he is perhaps paraphrasing St.
Paul's words in 1 Cor., i, 25.’
And here is some meaningless uplift...
We
have nothing to fear but fear itself. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
We
need'st must love the highest when we see it. Tennyson
Consistency
is the hobgoblin of little minds. "A foolish consistency is the
hobgoblin
of little minds ... With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to
do," said Ralph Waldo Emerson. But he was wrong.
Ah,
but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?
Robert Browning But was he being ironic?
 We know what Mahatma Gandhi and Albert
Einstein are doing in the afterlife – churning out pious platitudes for
automatic spam tweets. Why not add these to the fortune cookie database?
If you touch one thing with deep awareness,
you touch everything.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Real freedom is about living with
limitations. (Template: real x is [the opposite of X].)
Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
Soren Kierkegaard
Only a life
lived for others is a life worth living. Albert Einstein
(allegedly)
Strength does not
come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. Mahatma
Gandhi
Life begets life. Energy
creates energy.
It is by
spending oneself that one becomes rich.
Sarah Bernhardt
The future belongs to those who prepare for
it today.
Evil is
obvious only in retrospect.
The purpose of life is to fight maturity.
The purpose of life is
to live a life of purpose.
You
have to meet life on life’s terms.
Geri Halliwell
That which does not destroy me makes me
stronger.
The purpose of
life is to live it.
Catholics
believe that the purpose of life is to have life and have it more
abundantly.
Man
is disturbed not by things but by the views he takes of them. Epictetus (This isn't meaningless so much as wrong.)
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Quotes
