Sunday, September 11, 2016

There Needs To Be A Website Dedicated To Investigating The Authenticity Of Einstein Quotes

I need to to stop investigating the Einstein quotes myself before it literally drives me insane. The problem of fake Einstein quotes is huge. Much too big for me. The breaking point came this evening when I saw a post on Facebook from a FB group claiming to be pro-science, and claiming that Einstein said, "Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them."

None of the sources I've found attributing this to Einstein seem to have heard of attribution. None of the sites I've found with a page which sorts out false Einstein quotes deals with this one. Which doesn't mean that I should accept it as genuine, because of the volume of false Einstein quotes.

By the way, I must apologize, because I've told sold people that "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results" is from Einstein. I still think it's a fairly good saying, but apparently someone else came up with it.

I repeat: the problem of fake Einstein quotes is much too big for me to tackle. It may be too big for any one person to handle, even the sharpest, most dedicated Einstein biographer. An entire website may not be enough. An entire institute may be needed. I can't solve the problem: all I can do is point at it and scream, "Help!"

No, actually, there's one more thing I can do while I'm here. I can explain a term I used above in this post: attribution. That's simply saying where you got a quote.

Strictly speaking, in the row of words:

"Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them." -- Albert Einstein,

Albert Einstein is an attribution. If I wanted to give the most exact attribution I could, I would write:

"Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them." -- Albert Einstein, according to some Internet sources about whose reliability I know nothing.

What I was looking for was something like the title of a book from which the quote was taken, or, even better, the title of a book and a page number. Or the name of a magazine which interviewed Einstein, or a radio station which aired remarks by Einstein, and the date when they did so. This wouldn't completely solve the issue of the authenticity of the quote, but it would be a big help.

Let's take the example of a famous quote which I believe to genuine:

"Without music, life would be a mistake." -- Friedrich Nietzsche.

That's a translation of

"Ohne Musik waere das Leben ein Irrtum" -- Freidrich Nietzsche.

A more detailed attribution would be

"Ohne Musik waere das Leben ein Irrtum" -- Freidrich Nietzsche, Goetzen-Daemmerung.

("Goetzen-Daemmering" is the title of Nietzsche's book which is usually translated into English as Twilight of the Idols.)

Or, if I wanted to be as helpful as I possibly could be to someone who might be wondering whether that really is a genuine quote from Nietzsche, I could give them everything I have, in the same manner in which you may have been taught in school to write footnotes:

"Ohne Musik waere das Leben ein Irrtum" -- Freidrich Nietzsche, Goetzen-Daemmerung, "Sprueche und Pfeile, 33. Frankfurt aM and Leipzig: insel taschenbuch, 2000, p 15.

If the person who wonders whether "Without music, life would be a mistake" is from Nietzsche doesn't trust me, he can get a copy of the book I've cited and look for aphorism 33 on page 15. If he doesn't trust the publisher of the book, Insel Verlag, to have gotten it right (Insel have a fairly good reputation), he can investigate the Nietzsche's publishing history and manuscripts. As the agnostics are constantly and uselessly telling us, nothing can ever be absolutely proven. But

"Ohne Musik waere das Leben ein Irrtum" -- Freidrich Nietzsche, Goetzen-Daemmerung, "Sprueche und Pfeile, 33. Frankfurt aM and Leipzig: insel taschenbuch, 2000, p 15.

is somewhat better in this regard than

"Without music, life would be a mistake." -- Friedrich Nietzsche.

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