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Who's the most misquoted person in History? (pg. 4)
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lews
Elaborate for the slower ones of us? |
Give it a listen. This guy is one of the most prominent Nietzsche scholars alive, and they usually need to struggle against misreadings, misunderstandings, and misinterpretations. It's actually kind of funny. |
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| Capitalizt |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lews
Wasn't Darwin not trying to disprove Christianity? I thought he didn't really have any problem with it, he was just a scientist trying to show how things had changed over time and . |
Correct.. He never really got in any debates over religion and had a live and let live attitude. I'm talking about more recent instances of that quote being taken out of context. Google it and you'll find it on about 5000 Christian sites saying "Seeee? Even Darwin didn't think evolution can explain the eye..It's just a failed theory..lollercopterz!!" The out of context uses of that quote outnumber the full quotation by about 100-1 |
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| Moral Hazard |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
True that. But, even though his sister did her best in order to distort his ideas so he would be perceived as a Proto-Nazi, the guy never bothered to state his ideas clearly himself. |
That's bull. The clarity part. Zarathustra is pretty clear; however, if that's not enough he even writes the exact same book only from a different approach with Beyond Good and Evil. Truthfully, Nietzsche is terribly misunderstood not due to a lack of clarity but due to the depth and complexity of his thought exacerbated by the fact that very few people have the patience and attention span to fight their way through all the repetition and extreme wordiness of his very typical German style.
All of that said; I agree that he must be one of the most misunderstood and misquoted persons in history. |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by Moral Hazard
That's bull. The clarity part. Zarathustra is pretty clear |
Wha? Really? I think Thus Spake Zarathustra is painfully vague due to his style, full of metaphors and whatnot. Read something by Bertrand Russell, for example, and you'll understand what I mean by "clarity" in this case. |
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| Moral Hazard |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
Wha? Really? I think Thus Spake Zarathustra is painfully vague due to his style, full of metaphors and whatnot. Read something by Bertrand Russell, for example, and you'll understand what I mean by "clarity" in this case. |
You can't read it in isolation. Read his whole body of work and it all comes together but it's all in Zarathustra. As for the metaphors, yes, it's all allagory but they all come together for a fairly percise code of conduct and theory on the human condition. It could be your read a bad translation; I prefer Kaufmann's translations for Nietzsche... of course they are all into English which may not be ideal for you. |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by Moral Hazard
You can't read it in isolation. Read his whole body of work and it all comes together but it's all in Zarathustra. As for the metaphors, yes, it's all allagory but they all come together for a fairly percise code of conduct and theory on the human condition. It could be your read a bad translation; I prefer Kaufmann's translations for Nietzsche... of course they are all into English which may not be ideal for you. |
Actually, I prefer English to Portuguese, and even read this particular book in both languages. I first read it in Portuguese but, because I really disliked his style and I don't usually like to read in Portuguese anyway (the written language is appallingly different from the language I speak), I gave it another shot in English. But, no, it just rubbed me the wrong way.
And I read Thomas Common's translation. I'm going to look for Kaufmann's then... I should really learn German and try reading philosophy in its original language whenever possible though :p |
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| Moral Hazard |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
And I read Thomas Common's translation. I'm going to look for Kaufmann's then... I should really learn German and try reading philosophy in its original language whenever possible though :p |
Do that, Kaufmann's translation is really good and gives a lot of footnotes explaining things that don't translate directly or can be translated differently. I've thought the same before; however, given the time I have available to me I highly doubt I would be able to learn German well enough to even understand Nietzsche let alone do it better then Kaufmann (who has traslated every one of Nietzsche's works and studied him at length). |
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| couch-potato |
Kaufmann's is arguably the best, if I recall correctly.
I found reading Nietzsche to be the most time consuming (compared to Plato, Sartre, or lol-Ayn Rand). While reading Zarathustra I recall having two or three of his other books on the desk for cross-referencing, having to look up every other word in the dictionary, & pausing after every paragraph to ponder if I really understood what the crazy bastard wrote :p.
I also wonder how much of what the author truly intended is correctly duplicated since German sentence structure features little tricks that can't be done in English (which also dampened my reading of Kafka). I am wary of translations since then :nervous:. |
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| woscar |
Another big one is Albert Einstein. Religious people (in the traditional, common use of the word) like to quote him all the time to prove, according to them, that he is one of their own.
I have seen these used countless times. Very often, entirely out of context:
| quote: | | A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man. |
| quote: | | I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know his thoughts. The rest are details. |
| quote: | | When the answer is simple, God is speaking. |
And then, these are conspicuously omitted:
| quote: | | It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. |
| quote: | | I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. |
| quote: | | I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings. |
| quote: | | I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the actions of individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on creatures of his own creation. I cannot do this in spite of the fact that mechanistic causality has, to a certain extent, been placed in doubt by modern science. [He was speaking of Quantum Mechanics and the breaking down of determinism.] My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the highest importance -- but for us, not for God. |
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| Spam |
| Speaking of Einstein, there´s no actual proof that he laid out "his" famous definition of insanity. Yet, he is credited with the quote nearly every time. |
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| Sonic_c |
| Has anyone said ******** yet? people are always fixing his quotes :D |
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| treeboo |
If you've spent any time at an American university, you've probably come across the supposed quote from Benjamin Franklin:
“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”
or something similar. It's a true sentiment but its a modification of an actual Franklin quote.
I'm pretty sure the founding fathers are a good source of misquotations |
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