[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Skybird

While techncially you are right, I must admit I think there are more important things than to become this pedantic about such famous quotations that are this popular that even in books by best-intending professional authors on for exmaple history or politics and history give these quotes time and again. I really do not know how often I have stumbled over them by now, onine as well as in books. VERY often.

So I can misquote anybody I like, and justify it because to point out that it's wrong is pedantic? It's okay to say something is commonly attributed to somebody but is not confirmed, but to say somebody said it is to state that it is true. And if it's not?

Too judge whether such claimed popular quotes by somebody are fakes or are real, requires an intimate expertise on the author in question.

Not really. I treasure history the way you treasure psychology. I double-check every quote I use. It's not that hard to do.

And that is kind of specialised knowledge that most people simply do not have, and do not care to get, for acchieving it means too much investment for them (time), while providing too litte benefits.

Five minutes is all it takes, and the benefit is telling the truth from a lie. Are you saying the truth isn't important to you?

So there we have it again: "rational ignorrance" that I already mentioned above. Both "quotes" have a meaning and a message, and I think it matches what I wanted to hint, and I also think they meet the general direrciton of thought in Franklin. At least as long as all the other things I read about him and quotes I read that are claimed to be by him, maybe even his full biography, have not been a fake as well.

Benjamin Franklin was a very famous man, even in his own time. Every single quote has been checked and rechecked. The same is true of every very famous man. All it takes is a couple of minutes to look for the checking that's already been done. To misquote somebody is understandable, especially when so many have deliberately done so in an attempt to make someone famous seem to support their cause. To attempt to justify it by saying "he could have said it" is a deliberate distortion of the truth. You like to point out when others are wrong. Are you trying to misdirect the facts when you are shown to be the same?

Relax, good man. No real harm was done, nor intended. And I fear you will need to live with that these quotes will be continued to be attributed to Franklin by many, many people, right or wrongly so.

And I will continue to point out that it is wrongly so. And the ones who use them will continue to try to justify their wrongness.

Heck, not even the Bible's originality is beyond doubt in so many passages that might or might not be correctly translated. Not even the Quran is original. LOL.

Yes and no. There are enough experts who know their stuff to translate the Bible correctly. The problem is that so many of the original manuscripts disagree with each other, and none of them are early enough to be truly "original". On the other hand if someone misquotes the Bible you can bet that plenty of others will point it out.