I therefore formulate and offer to the world the following Principles for Quotations, two for quoters and two for readers, which, if universally followed, would make an immense improvement to the reliability of the information available on the world wide web.
- Principle 1 (for readers)
- Whenever you see a quotation given with an author but no source assume that it is probably bogus.
- Principle 2 (for readers)
- Whenever you see a quotation given with a full source assume that it is probably being misused, unless you find good evidence that the quoter has read it in the source.
- Principle 3 (for quoters)
- Whenever you make a quotation, give the exact source.
- Principle 4 (for quoters)
- Only quote from works that you have read. —Martin Porter —Four Principles of Quotation (Martin Porter’s Home Page)
Porter launched a detailed study of a quotation often attributed to Edmund Burke, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
One of my students chose, as the title for her portfolio, a quotation that she identified as being from Shakespeare: “We know what we are, but know not what we may be.” This is from Hamlet, and the speaker is Ophelia, who is at this point mad, and who will soon be found drowned in the pond. (I told the student I hoped she ended up better off in life.)
Thank goodness for Clueless, which has a brief exchange in which Cher corrects a snobby would-be intellectual who misattributes “To thine own self be true.”
I also like Porter’s close reading of four lines from Hamlet, “Doubt thou, the stars…“
Update: Rosemary suggested Ogden Nash, and I think she’s right. Thanks! (And have fun in Aruba.)
Now I’ve really got a mystery… Anonymous, can you give me a citation for this poem? I seem to remember having read it before, but I googled a few phrases and couldn’t find it anywhere online.
The Strange Case of the Lovelorn Letter Writer
Dear Miss Dix, I am a young lady of Scandinavian origin, and I am in a quandary.
I am not exactly broody, but I am kind of pondery.
I got a twenty-five waist and a thirty-five bust,
And I am going with a chap whose folks are very uppercrust.
He is the intellectual type, which I wouldn’t want to disparage
Because I understand they often ripen into love after marriage,
But here I am all set
For dalliance,
And what do I get?
Shilly-shalliance.
Just when I think he’s going to disrobe me with his eyes,
He gets up off the davenport and sighs.
Every time I let down my hair,
He starts talking to himself or the little man who isn’t there.
Every time he ought to be worrying about me,
Why, he’s worrying about his mother, that’s my mother-in-law to be,
And I say let’s burn that bridge when we come to it, and he says don’t I have any sin sense.
His uncle and her live in incense.
Well, with me that’s fine,
Let them go to their church and I’ll go to mine.
But no, that’s not good enough for Mr. Conscience and his mental indigestion,
He’s got to find two answers for every question.
If a man is a man, a girl to him is a girl, if I correctly rememma,
But to him I am just a high pathetical dilemma.
What I love him in spite of
Is, a girl wants a fellow to go straight ahead like a locomotive and he is more like a loco-might-of.
Dear Miss Dix, I surely need your advice and solace.
It’s like I was in love with Henry Wallace.
Well, while I eagerly await your reply I’m going down to the river to pick flowers. I’ll get some rosemary if I can’t find a camellia.
Yours truly, Ophelia