"Well behaved women rarely make history" - Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, 1976

This was almost funny… today I decided to look up an old badge I’d found, with words and no quoter’s name on it. Typically. The first quote was acknowledged from Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, but then it got flicked to Marilyn Monroe, and passed onto Eleanor Roosevelt! 

Quotes Valley said that Eleanor Roosevelt had said it. The second one I found was some page called Law of Modern Women which had entered the quote allegedly from Eleanor Roosevelt to Quotesgram’s page. No evidence, but LMW had included a Wikipaedia page link, which didn’t tell anyone that Eleanor Roosevelt had said this. 

The first one about Marilyn Monroe showed up in Amazon.com, where they were selling a poster they had made which said that Marilyn Monroe had said this. No evidence from them, just the advertisement. Aliexpress had advertised this in their ‘wellness quotes’ site. No evidence. Buzz Quotes had shown both Eleanor Roosevelt and Marilyn Monroe, apparently both having said it! 

Sadly, Almighty Girl didn’t quote anyone and yet they are selling the un-named vinyl wall art! 

I found it definitely for Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, a Pulitzer Prize winning historian, in a blog written by a woman who seemed to feel the same as I did about these incorrect quotes. Ulrich had written a book in 2007 after she’d seen her words on car bumper stickers, coffee clubs, wall hangings and t-shirts – and most of them with some other name… not hers. 

These words had come out of her mouth in 1976, in an article about Puritan funeral services. “Did you ever read it?” asked Kim Z Dale in her blog. No? 

Perhaps you’re just… too young. Common words. I used them.

This type of mistake, which seems to be too often made by companies simply making money selling the words, is not a real “mistake”. Any company, which makes whatever they want to for printing whatever they think is okay, might, maybe one day in the near future, get sued by the real speaker who is still here. Alive. Knowing it. 

Laurel, you’ve made history! 

 

"Your illness does not define you...

...Your strength and courage does." I liked this quote; for me, it sounded like a description of me, how I felt. Unfortunately, too many of the pics I found had not included the actual speaker's name or had simply appended their own website.

I found:

• Speccy commented on a blog on 20 Feb 2012 using only the words from the first sentence. She said “Your disease is not who you are. Your illness does not define you. You're the one and only. Fabulous.” This entire comment wasn't shown in a pic.
• Wolfshowl on 8 August 2012 wrote a review of a book by Michael Scholfield and acknowledged the first sentence of this quote “Your illness does not define you” as a quote, but didn’t say who said it.
• Meegan Elizabeth, talking about fibromyalgia, copied from The Migraine Chef blogspot dated 2 September 2013.
• Lisa as clinical social worker wrote on 4 October 2013, quoted “Anonymous”.
• SoBadAss posted 5 February 2014, no name.
• BPD Healing and Hope posted on 2 April 2014, no name.
• 10 Minute Wellness posted on 10 April 2015, no name.
• Lymies Be Like posted on Twitter on 20 May 15 about Lymes disease, no name.
• Painted Teacup posted it as “Unknown” on 8 October 2015.
• Healthy Place, which is about mental illness, posted on 23 October 2015, no name. 
• Wrens Den on 17 November 15 quoted and copied a pic with link back to Healthy Place FB, which posted a similar pic on 30 December 2015, no name.
• Holistic Healthily, which is about pretty much any illness, posted on 9 December 2015, no name.
• Pro Health talks about Lymes, Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and ME. Their website provided information about Rich Carson, who is the founder and CEO of this website because he has ME/CFS (diagnosed in 1981). Carson said "My personal philosophy about healthcare is that our illness doesn't define us, we define it." What Carson said was not exactly word-same as the quote on the heading of my blog, and didn't include the point about strength and courage. No date on this page but it’s under their “Our Story”.  Their page had the daisy in the blue sky pic, with no name on it but with the whole quote which appears at the start of my page. If it was definitely Carson, then they should acknowledge him on this picture – and ask for every person who has reprinted (and mostly referred back to Healthy Place, not Pro Health) to do so.

When someone says something which other people think is great, why shouldn't they - the original speaker - get global recognition? Who makes money on quotes from someone else, when they haven't acknowledged the person who said it? Have they ever offered payment to the speaker for whatever they said? For me, every quote which I find should be named, whether on internet pics or on cups or t-shirts or anything that can be sold.   

I know that many quotes can't be acknowledged unless there is evidence back to the person who said it, but every quote pic, or any product with a quote on it, must either have the name on it or, simply, "Anonymous" or "Unknown"! I appreciated Painted Teacup who posted it as “Unknown” and Wise Women Canada who posted their pic this time as “Anonymous”.

That is who it has to be for now.