Channeling logic...

"Logic will get you from A to B but imagination will get you everywhere."

And yet another quote often attributed to Albert Einstein. Sometimes the quote starts "Logic will get you from A to Z." But there is no evidence that he ever actually said it in any of his works. Yes, this quote is attributed all over the internet to Einstein but no one cites a source. I guess a lot of folks imagined that he said it. 

When no sources are cited, that should be a clue. So, ever the curious one, I got out The Ultimate Quotable Einstein to find this quote. Hm...it is not listed in The Ultimate Quotable Einstein as a true Einstein quote. So I went to the online book and searched, thinking that maybe I missed the quote in the book. Nope. Not in The Quotable Einstein online, either. The author, Alice Calaprice, put this quote under probably not said by Einstein and she should know, as her bio states: "Alice Calaprice is a renowned expert on Albert Einstein and was a longtime senior editor at Princeton University Press. She has worked with the Collected Papers of Albert Einstein since the founding of the project, has copyedited and overseen the production of all the volumes, and administered the accompanying translation series with a grant from the National Science Foundation. She is the author of several popular books on Einstein and was a recipient of the Literary Market Place's award for individual achievement in scholarly editing."

On this page someone posts several of Einstein's quotes and gives sources. However, the "source" for this quote merely says "attributed." More like misattributed...

Another clue is that this quote can only be traced back about 10 years but to no definitive Einstein source. 

It is reported that Einstein did say something even better: "I am enough of the artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." Source: The Saturday Evening Post, 1929 (see, I even found it and linked to it for you!)

Now, using logic (!), if Einstein did say this quote then why is there never a source cited? But if you'd rather imagine that he said it...

So logic may get you from A to B but facts will take everywhere...

Blog posts © copyrighted 2015 Julie Patrick Clark

Anyway...

What if you had written the words quoted here and then people began giving credit to someone else? What if you had written something that you were very proud of and someone else got the credit? It wouldn't feel very good, would it?

Mother Teresa, known and beloved the world over, has done many wonderful works. And said many wonderful things. But she did not write the words quoted here.

That honor goes to Kent M. Keith, who, as a 19-year-old Harvard student, who put together a leadership booklet for high school leaders. Who knows why it is attributed to Mother Teresa--maybe people would not pay it much attention if they knew it came from someone as-yet-unknown, Kent Keith? I mean, who can trust a person with two first names, right? And a 19-year-old kid, at that!

It is good advice to live by, no doubt about it. But let's give the credit where it is due.

There are reports that Mother Teresa these commandments on her bedroom wall and they were discovered after she died. According to the Kent M. Keith, the author of these commandments, she actually posted them on the wall in in her Calcutta children's home. So while Mother Teresa approved of and thought the commandments important, she did not author them.

While Kent M. Keith is probably a bit miffed at the credit going to Mother Teresa, he probably gives them...anyway.

You can read (and learn) more about how these quotes came to be written, and learn more about Kent Keith here: The origin of The Paradoxical Commandments

And the website devoted to all things Mother Teresa also debunks this meme (and other sayings falsely attributed to Mother Teresa: Quotes falsely attributed to Mother Teresa

And more from the Quote Investigator: Do Good Anyway


Blog posts © copyrighted 2015 Julie Patrick Clark

"Facts" on Facebook

If, with the literate, I am

Impelled to try an epigram,

I never seek to take the credit;

We all assume that Oscar said it.

~Dorothy Parker

A while back I was chatting with someone about the memes being passed around Facebook as fact when, in fact, many of them are wrong. Either the quote itself is wrong, or the quote is attributed to the wrong person. Sometimes both.

She said to me that it doesn't matter who said it or if the quote was not passed along in original form but it was the thought that the meme contained that was important. I disagree. A lot. How does it help anyone to memorize an incorrect quote, scientific fact, or just plain bad information? If we pass these memes around to help, shouldn't we make sure they are accurate and not harmful?

Facts are important. Would you like it if facts were left off of your paycheck? Would you like your paycheck to have someone else's name on it?

It isn't just inaccuracies in memes; it is also not real communication. Whatever happened to posting original thoughts? Whatever happened to posting about your favorite book and why it is your favorite, what impressed you, what you didn't like and why. Whatever happened to opening a book or newspaper and quoting someone directly? Whatever happened to passing along the wisdom from grandparents?

Some of the memes contain historical inaccuracies. It surprises me how many of those get passed around by Really Smart People who claim to know their history. I asked someone who passed along one of the historically inaccurate memes if he knew it was inaccurate. He said he was "testing to see if anyone else would catch it." Uh huh...

Memes with medical inaccuracies can cost someone their life. Most of the memes that I've seen with scientific "facts" are not factual. If facts don't matter why send kids to school? Why go to college? If it is just the message that's important then why go into all that student debt when Facebook is free?

A warm, cozy feeling is good. We like warm and cozy. Facts are not always warm and cozy. But blindly, unquestioningly passing memes around Facebook does no one any good. It further dumbs down the human race. It shows that we have, to a large extent, given up thinking for ourselves. We're too quick to trust, and too slow to do a little fact checking. Often these memes are put out there on purpose to fool the gullible--and they succeed.

It often does not take long to do a little checking. Other times you will have to do a bit of digging. Try to use primary sources whenever possible. For instance, there is a meme going around on Facebook that says our cell phone numbers will be made public "this month" and that we will be charged when telemarketers call us. Think about it--this meme has been circulating since at least 2004...which month is the actual month our numbers will be made public? Which year? Instead of blindly passing this along as fact, a good primary source to check would be...your telephone carrier. Or the FTC. C'mon, people! Think!

Take all memes with a grain of salt. Use a little common sense. Do a little research. I will be fact checking many memes and posting them on this blog, hopefully one or two per week. But don't blindly trust what you read here--check the sources, do a little digging on your own.

Are cell phone numbers "going public" this month?

Blog posts © copyrighted 2015 Julie Patrick Clark.