#MemePolice
A reminder thread of things #Aristotle did NOT say
1. “It is the mark of an educated mind to entertain a thought without accepting it”
nope.
sententiaeantiquae.com/2018/09/23/mem…
2. “A Whole is greater than the sum of its parts”
This really popular misattribution may be a poor translation of the Metaphysics
3. “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” [and many variations thereof]
This one has absolutely no basis. Aristotle says many things about education, this just ain’t one of them.
sententiaeantiquae.com/2018/09/23/mem…
4. “We are What we repeatedly do. Excellence is an act, not a habit.”
sententiaeantiquae.com/2018/09/23/mem…
5. “Knowing Yourself is the Beginning of all Wisdom”
sententiaeantiquae.com/2018/09/23/mem…
6. “Whosoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god.”
This is almost Aristotle. It is mostly Francis Bacon
sententiaeantiquae.com/2018/09/23/mem…
7. “Where the needs of the world and your talents cross, there lies your vocation.”
This is totally super-capitalist, corporate double-speak nonsense
sententiaeantiquae.com/2018/09/23/mem…
8. “Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.”
This one is likely a mistranslation or an attribution of a lost saying by Seneca in On Tranquility of mind.
sententiaeantiquae.com/2018/09/23/mem…
“Well-begun is half done”
This is not really Aristotle. The idea is proverbial even when it is kind of quoted by Aristotle. But these words belong to someone else.
sententiaeantiquae.com/2018/09/23/mem…
10. “The more you know the more you know you don’t know”
This is clearly a retread of Plato’s Apology 21d:
sententiaeantiquae.com/2018/09/23/mem…
11. “To write well, express yourself like common people, but think like a wise man. Or, think as wise men do, but speak as the common people do.”
sententiaeantiquae.com/2018/09/23/mem…
12. “No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness”
This is another indirect attribution that probably comes from Seneca De Tranquilitate Animi 10
sententiaeantiquae.com/2018/09/23/mem…
13. "Memory is the scribe of the soul”
Ugh. “scribe”? Soul? This one sounds like it a misunderstanding or a fabrication made to sound old-fashioned.
sententiaeantiquae.com/2018/09/23/mem…
14. “It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.”
sententiaeantiquae.com/2018/09/23/mem…
15. “Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society”
The character of this quotation is alien to Aristotle and ancient Greek ideas including using “tolerance” in this way and “dying society”
sententiaeantiquae.com/2018/09/23/mem…
16. “There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.”
sententiaeantiquae.com/2018/09/23/mem…
“The end of labor is to gain leisure.”
This shows up in Tyron Edwards’ A Dictionary of Thoughts in 1909, Century Illustrated Magazine, also from 1909. And then it just keeps on keeping on.
sententiaeantiquae.com/2018/09/23/mem…
19. “To appreciate the beauty of a snowflake it is necessary to stand out in the cold.”
sententiaeantiquae.com/2018/09/23/mem…
20. “I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self“
sententiaeantiquae.com/2018/09/23/mem…
21. “The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal”
sententiaeantiquae.com/2018/09/23/mem…
22. “Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim of human existence.”
I mean, this is kind of the whole aim and purpose of the Nicomachean Ethics, but this is not a quotation of a translation of it.
sententiaeantiquae.com/2018/09/23/mem…
“Those that know do, those that understand, teach.”
This variation on the put down “those who can, do, those who can’t, teach” does not seem to appear before the last decade or so.
sententiaeantiquae.com/2018/09/23/mem…
“The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend.“
So, this sounds nice, but would you really want to go against 50 people with one ally? This is motivational poster fake.
sententiaeantiquae.com/2018/09/23/mem…
25. “Character is made by many acts: it may be lost by a single one“
This is a misattribution made only rather recently online from a Methodist Minister’s writings in the 1800s. It is a very Christian and rather un-Aristotelian notion.
sententiaeantiquae.com/2018/09/23/mem…
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