Quotations are tricky things, best handled with tongs. Sherlock Holmes never said Elementary, my dear Watson in Arthur Conan Doyles books. Machiavelli never wrote, The end justifies the means, and Freud never said, Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Al Gore never claimed, I invented the Internet, just as Humphrey Bogart never said, Play it again, Sam in Casablanca. On Star Trek, Kirk never demanded, Beam me up, Scotty. His colleague, Bones, never protested, Dammit, Jim, Im a doctor, not a _____.
You may recall the famous speech attributed to Chief Seattle, in which he proclaimed that the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. This speech has circulated through the media for decades, although there is no verbatim transcript in existence. In 1993, Nancy Zussy, a librarian at the Washington State Library, followed the paper trail all the way to back to a turn-of-the-century question mark. As in a childrens game of telephone, it appears the Chiefs words were transformed by repeated retelling and revision.
The first version originated in 1887 from Dr. Henry A. Smith, a columnist for the Seattle Sunday Star. His hastily written notes were from a translated speech by the chief in either Duwamish or Suquamish. In the late 1960s, the poet William Arrowsmith penned a second, more literary version. Texas professor Ted Perry wrote the third version for a 1971 film script, giving us the current piece of Cascadian eco-scripture. The majestic, sweeping prose likely bears as much resemblance to the original aboriginal words as apparitions to apples.
In spite of its Hollywood provenance, the third version of Chief Seattles speech remains a hardy fixture in the speeches of environmentalists and high school valedictorians. Gore may not have claimed invention of the Internet, but he quoted liberally from the Chief Seattle speech in his 2006 film, An Inconvenient Truth. So did late mythologist Joseph Campbell in his filmed lectures from the late 1980s.
Not surprising, memorable quotes are even dodgier when you toss in translation. It is well documented that during a visit to Berlin, U.S. president John F. Kennedy said, Ich bin ein Berliner. However, its incorrect that Kennedys inclusion of the indefinite article ein rendered his line as, I am a jelly donut, in vernacular German. Yet media outlets and historians have circulated this entertaining misconception for years.
If the famous cant get a fair shake quote-wise, there isnt much hope for the infamous, either. You may recall Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejads statement from 2005 that Israel should be wiped off the map. Juan Cole, a University of Michigan Professor of Middle Eastern History, contested the news agencies translation, pointing out the wiped off the map is an English idiom, with no equivalent in Persian. Coles translation read: The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time. This didnt sound like a warm and fuzzy assessment of the Israeli government, but it also didnt sound like an explicit call for a missile attack on the nation itself.
This controversial translation is still regularly trotted out as proof of Ahmadinejads nuclear intentions against Israel, and justification for a possible preemptive strike against Irana country with strong alliances to Russia and China. The tinder is already there in the Mideast; its not inconceivable that one questionable translation of a Farsi quote could supply the spark for a Third World War.
Yet of all incorrectly quoted sources, Einstein wears the crown. Every documented smart thing the physicist ever wrote or said, whether in German or English, is outnumbered by smart things he didnt. (Attributed: God doesnt play dice with the world. Misattributed: Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity. And Im not even sure about the first one.) It seems that if a cerebral quote kicks around long enough without a source, it gets pegged on Berns most famous patent office clerk. To this day, the phantom Einsteins lines are recycled in magazines, newspapers and documentaries with maddening regularity.
Of all the real Einstein quotes, one in particular is worth reciting by U.S. President Barack Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Ahmadinejad, or any other leader with an itchy trigger finger. Striving for peace and preparing for war are incompatible with each other, and in our time more so than ever.
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