Incomplete quotes

[bansaisequoia]

We've seen a number of quotes on this site which seem to be incomplete. In this particular quote, what is being defined? Obviously something is a system in which there are two great commandments. No more of these quote fragments.


"A system in which the two great commandments are to hate your neighbor and to love your neighbor's wife. "
— Thomas B. Macaulay

[munchlet]

A quick search on Google...

returns this clarification:

From the poetry of Lord Byron they drew a system of ethics, compounded of misanthropy and voluptuousness, in which the two great commandments were to hate your neighbor and to love your neighbor's wife.

Note the indefinite referent "they" -- to whom does this refer?

Further search brings up the following:

"A Biographical Sketch of Lord Byron (1788-1824)"

(under blupete.com/literature)

The great Macaulay wrote that the 19th century romantics drew from Byron's poetry "a system of ethics compounded of misanthropy and voluptuousness: a system in which the two great commandments were to hate your neighbor and to love your neighbor's wife."

Now this references:

Macaulay's essay, "Moore's Life on Lord Byron," June, 1831

which prompts a Google Book Search with the following result:

Macaulay on Byron (1831)

Thomas Babington Macauley (1800-59), essayist, historian, and politician. Review of Thomas Moore's Letters and Journals of Lord Byron: with Notices of his Life (1830), Edinburgh Review, June 1831, LIII, 544-72. (The essay was reprinted with minor revisions in Macaulay's Critical and Historical Essays, 1843, which ran through many editions.)

So. What we have, abbreviated into a sentence fragment and propagated through cyberspace, seems to be Thomas Babington Macauley's commentary on contemporary 19th century interpretation of the late Lord Byron's poetry. These romantic interpreters were perhaps distant forebears of 20th century beatniks and hippies. Macauley, a Scotsman, might not have approved.

You think?

Luckily for Bansaisequoia, I won't be winning a trophy in the monthly competitions... leaving ample free time for these ad hoc literary investigations. See next post for Stevenson vs. Stevenson (not incomplete but misattributed).

[munchlet]

Oops... wrong century, wrong country.

It took 744 secs to solve this one, attributed to 20th century American politician, Adlai Stevenson:

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.

What's wrong with this quotation? Well, it's a poem, for starters, and to my knowledge our two-time failed presidential candidate wrote no poetry. It turns out to be an excerpt from Requiem, by Robert Louis Stevenson (another Scottish writer, best known for Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde).

Plagued by lifelong illness (tuberculosis or maybe sarcoidosis a la Bernie Mac), Stevenson died in 1894, aged 44, tragically young by today's standards. But in his epitaph he claims no regrets:

Sick and well, I have had a splendid life of it, grudge nothing, regret very little ...

Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

Andrea

[smoochie222]

¿verdad?

"Quotation: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another."
— Ambrose Bierce

[bansaisequoia]

vérité

Was it actually Ambrose Bierce who said this? Are you sure you're not paraphrasing? Is this really complete, or is there a larger context? Something doesn't feel right.

[Laura]

Aλήθεια

I have in truth enjoyed this thread immensely. And Munchlet, thanks for all your research.

[impededredwood]

Clueless in Palm Beach

Laura, does that word mean truth too? It's all Greek to me.

[Laura]

Yes, it does impeded. It's pronounced Alêtheia. (I took a semester of school in Greece ;-)

[bansaisequoia]

Not again

"The disease which inflicts bureaucracy and what they usually die from is routine. "
— John Stuart Mill

Still yet another. D'oh!

[bansaisequoia]

Not again

"To spend life for something which outlasts it. "
— William James

D'oh!

[bansaisequoia]

Not again

"That perfect bliss and sole felicity, the sweet fruition of an earthly crown. "
— Christopher Marlowe

D'oh!

[smoochie222]

Must be true

"Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language. "
— Samuel Johnson

or


"The point of quotations is that one can use another's words to be insulting."
— Amanda Cross

[bansaisequoia]

Not again

"It is the child of avarice, the brother of iniquity, and the father of mischief. "
— George Washington


D'oh!

[maradnu]

Washington quote

Gambling - or so it would appear from a quick googling.

I agree that it does not seem fair to omit that however.

I'd prefer if the quote were: "Gambling ... is the child of avarice, the brother of iniquity, and the father of mischief."

[bansaisequoia]

Not again

"They are so filthy and bestial that no honest man would admit one into his house for a water-closet doormat. "
— Charles Dickens

I'm dying to know who he's referring to, but I'm not able to find it by a quick internet search.

D'oh!