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christopherc's review against another edition
3.0
THEY NEVER SAID IT is a collection of "fake quotes, misquotes and misleading atributions" compiled by Paul F. Boller Jr and John George. The authors were troubled by references to prestigious dead men to score political points without caring about the veracity of the quotation:
"Using quotations is a time-honored practice. There have always been people who liked to liven up what they were saying with appropriate statements from the writings of others. Today, however, quotations tend to be polemical rather than decorative. People use them to prove points rather than to provide pleasure. Quotemen (and quotewomen) do not simply quote; they quote in order to score points, usually of a political nature, and thereby throw their opponents off balance. Sometimes they merely quote a highly esteemed authority -- Jefferson, Lincoln, Emerson -- in order to bolster their own position."
One finds many quotations that have become set phrases in English, such as Marie Antoinette's "Let them eat cake,", Jimmy Cagney's "You Dirty Rat", and Galileo's "Eppur si muove". Others were part of McCarthy-era polemics about Communist intrigue.
As this is not meant to be an exhaustive compendium of spurious quotations, but rather somewhat light entertainment, the datedness of the work makes it less enjoyable than it might have been upon its 1990 publication. So many of the quotes date from postwar anti-Semites or John Birch Society figures, but these groups' rhetoric is increasingly forgotten. Samuel Goldwyn gets a long list of quotations that no one remembers any more, but Yogi Berra's similar sayings are not mentioned at all. For the book to be truly commendable, these quotations would have to not only be apocryphal, but persist in contemporary society. Still, there are enough fake quotations here that continue to circulate that reading this book can still be a profitable experience, but I can't recommend buying it.
"Using quotations is a time-honored practice. There have always been people who liked to liven up what they were saying with appropriate statements from the writings of others. Today, however, quotations tend to be polemical rather than decorative. People use them to prove points rather than to provide pleasure. Quotemen (and quotewomen) do not simply quote; they quote in order to score points, usually of a political nature, and thereby throw their opponents off balance. Sometimes they merely quote a highly esteemed authority -- Jefferson, Lincoln, Emerson -- in order to bolster their own position."
One finds many quotations that have become set phrases in English, such as Marie Antoinette's "Let them eat cake,", Jimmy Cagney's "You Dirty Rat", and Galileo's "Eppur si muove". Others were part of McCarthy-era polemics about Communist intrigue.
As this is not meant to be an exhaustive compendium of spurious quotations, but rather somewhat light entertainment, the datedness of the work makes it less enjoyable than it might have been upon its 1990 publication. So many of the quotes date from postwar anti-Semites or John Birch Society figures, but these groups' rhetoric is increasingly forgotten. Samuel Goldwyn gets a long list of quotations that no one remembers any more, but Yogi Berra's similar sayings are not mentioned at all. For the book to be truly commendable, these quotations would have to not only be apocryphal, but persist in contemporary society. Still, there are enough fake quotations here that continue to circulate that reading this book can still be a profitable experience, but I can't recommend buying it.
erin_oriordan_is_reading_again's review against another edition
4.0
I bought this book in a used bookshop (Selected Works on Michigan Ave. in Chicago) because I thought a lot of the misquoted persons discussed herein would probably be literary. I love a good literary anecdote. There are some in here: Mark Twain, Miguel de Cervantes, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Lillian Helman, Robert Frost, and Samuel Pepys are some of the writers mentioned in this book. However, it has much less to do with literature and much more to do with politics. A surprising number of these misquotes, mis-attributions, and misleading attributions were done intentionally for polemic purposes, to give the impression that a well-known name either supported or opposed one's position. This book was first published in 1989, but disgustingly enough, some of these fabrications are still making the rounds of the Internet (and talk radio shows, and YouTube videos, et al.) in 2016. This book is very much still worth a read. Fans of Ronald Reagan might want to check it out so you can see how often your hero "quoted" authorities with words made up by his speechwriters. Politics has always been dirty, dirty business.
ikovski's review against another edition
3.0
i'm sorry but this was fucking disaster.
good job, that's for sure, but me as an apolitical as much as possible, reading got worse and worse for me. I read it with zero interest. I'm giving three stars just to respect their effort. It was boring.
This is a sort of compilation I guess. In the notes there are many other 'they never said it' books.
these are the topics:
1. united states of america (and their presidents)
2. russia (and their presidents)
2. antisemitism-jews
3. communism
4. capitalism
5. christianity
6. hollwood people
what I was hoping was reading more writers, philosophers, painters... and there are so many people who I never heard of (my bad?).
the good thing is, as I always embrace the thought of you can not trust, and shouldn't, any kind of historical people, beliefs, events, or todays, so that's why i'm so have no truck with politics and history. you gonna see how other people put words in the person's mouth which stand up for, or for themselves, or people can bend and copy and steel those words. you gonna see how situations and people can be exaggerate and ennoble, and dramatize to fool and steer public.
I'm adding my notes here with more words. no more reviews from here.
♦ Worst thing I learned from this book is, god i'm so sad, Ezra Pound is a antisemitic actually (no, I'm not jewish, I'm a muslim but I hate every kind of anti).
♦ Second worst thing that break my heart is Galileo
Spoiler
never said "and yet it moves."♦ I dont know why people are so obsessed about 'play it again, Sam' btw.
♦ 'I have nothing to offer but blood, sweat, and tears' was not originally said by Churchill but Henry James; I'm damn happy. this beautiful words don't belong to a politician.
♦ Cervantes' "Along the streets of by-and-by, we come to the house of Never" is originally "in the street of the by-and-by stands the hostelry of never" from English poet William Ernest Henley. can't decide which one is more dramatically beautiful.
♦ The quote "the Guards dies but do not surrender" is originally "the Guards, it does not surrender", well,,, I can see the difference, I guess?
♦ When I read the "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition" I was like:
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