Integrity

A friend on Facebook had posted a quote which was labelled as “Life Learned Feelings”. The quote said “Do the right thing, even when no one is looking. It's called integrity.” Under this, it said “Type 'yes' if you agree.”

This frustrated me because there was no acknowledgement about who had said it. I did some research, starting in Google when I asked it to look up who had said that quote.

On the Goodreads quote pages I found a quote which claimed that C S Lewis had said something very close to it. These words were “Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.”

I looked up the C S Lewis website and found a different acknowledgement. They said this was a “paraphrase of a Charles W. Marshall quote in Shattering the Glass Slipper”. Marshall had published the book in 2003, and there was no final proof that he had said that, but the C S Lewis Foundation definitely said it wasn't C S Lewis.

I went to another website, Essential C S Lewis, which examines quotes which were acknowledged to C S Lewis. They'd printed this one, which was C S Lewis, but these actual words didn't appear either in the Life Learned Feelings Facebook page pic, or in the Goodreads quote.

“We might think that, provided you did the right thing, it did not matter how or why you did it—whether you did it willingly or unwillingly, sulkily or cheerfully, through fear of public opinion or for its own sake. But the truth is that right actions done for the wrong reason do not help to build the internal quality or character called a ‘virtue’, and it is this quality or character that really matters.”
from Mere Christianity (Book 3, Chapter 2 – The ‘Cardinal Virtues’).

This does not contain the word “integrity”. According to the two sites, C S Lewis Foundation and Essential C S Lewis, that word wasn't used by Lewis. Essential C S Lewis actually said that the quote printed on various websites or Facebook pages might have been said by Vickie Milazzo. In fact, it's on her own quote-pic on her website, and she comments in her blog about integrity. Maybe we should believe that, even though her quote-pic doesn't mention integrity.

Acknowledging the person who actually said a quote is essential, but don't just name anyone. Do your own research to find out who you should acknowledge, and put their name on your picture.

This might be your own “integrity”.

Good things come to those who believe in this…

This is a longish saying which, it seems, has lived for a long time: "Good things come to those who believe, better things come to those who are patient and the best things comes to those who don't give up." A friend of mine recently shared a post of this saying from Picture Quotes … which didn’t acknowledge anyone.  In Google images I found many others posted with this quote on them. The first one had taken their pic off Wisdom Quotes who didn’t say on their pic who had said the quote.

Neither did VCSU - Lots of quotes, including this one, posted without a speaker. Not good for a university!

Or Live Life Happy or FineDay Quote or Tony Molinaro or any other I looked at on Google.

Even in Australia it was included in A Better Today with no speaker mentioned and no “Unknown” mentioned!

Qtations posted a change of words: “Good things come to those who believe, better things come to those who work hard, and the best things come to those who never give up” but it still sounded pretty much the same.

And no acknowledge of who said any of this.

It was changed by many websites to “good things come to those who wait / believe / work / hustle / go out and earn it” and lots more.

And still no acknowledge of who said any of this!

According to Wikipaedia, “Good things come to those who wait” is an “English phrase extolling the virtue of patience”. Violet Fane was quoted in 1892 with "all things come to those who wait", and and there is a pic available from Alamy of Violet Fane with her signature.

Fane’s quote started a lot of quoters over many years later. I haven’t been able to find who changed that phrase, but too many people today change it and no-one acknowledges who has changed it. “All things come to those who wait” should be posted as a quote from Violet Fane, but every other quotes, with changed words or meanings, should be acknowledged to “Unknown”.

Good things might have waited for you to allow you to feel free to use this new one… Unknown!

Say something!

I found an old quote which, I thought, every person recognised: “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothin’ at all!” This quote was said by Thumper on Bambi, by Disney many years ago. The quote pic I found today (on the left) was done by VintageJennie from etsy.com, very slightly reworded: “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all!” It was done with no acknowledge of who said it. Well, sorry VintageJennie but I know who did say it. Read my pic - on the right!

The second one I found was not as humorous. “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone” was said by Neale Donald Walsch, quoted in goodreads.com, lifeprobabilities.com and values.com, just listing a few. Unfortunately far, far too many quote pics never name him. I found BeInspiring, MotivationMonday and a BudgetTravel photo on Pinterest which did not name Walsch. I also found jessicalawlor.com, aiesecqut.org, iliketoquote.com, geckoandfly.com, challengerbeater.com (same pic as geckoandfly) and wallpaperup.com (same pic as geckoandfly), violetmagazine.com, 123rf.com (sold as a wall poster without the acknowledgement) and so many others!

NO quote-pic should ever be without any acknowlegdement. They should name the original speaker, or say “Anonymous” or “Unknown”. No quote-pic designer can think they’ve just gotten past “go” without naming the original speaker.

Read my quote-pic – and ask yourself who said it! 

In loving memory...

This morning I looked through Google to see if I could find a picture or a quote which represented me in how I felt about “losing” my daughter. No, she didn’t die, but she walked away from me. She had her own reason, and I don’t know why.

Yes, I know I have frustrated her in the past couple of years, as I came out of hospital with my stroke keeping me down. I have “sort of” recovered in the past two years, but I know that my language is nowhere as good as it used to be. I can only talk now about something that winds me up, not my emotions.

But I can write. I have a lot of quote-pics on Reibus, which I hope that you have looked at. (If you have any quote that stirs you, let me know and I can picture it!) I have my own poetry. I have a second blog - not posted very much, I know, but I do it when a quote I found which is not attributed to the author really makes me indignant – especially if the quote means a lot to me.

And, of course, I have my first book which was published late last year and I did a presentation at the local library yesterday. My second book will shortly be published.

My writing can wind up my emotions, but only to the extent that when I write I can resolve. I resolve for me, not for anyone else. The presentation at the library yesterday proved that. I believe that any author, whether really successful or not, writes for themselves. They follow their own emotions. The group at the presentation were there with memories, which they shared with us based on what my book is about. Well done to this audience.

So, like I said further up, I went onto Google to look for a picture, and I found this quote:

            Those we love don’t go away

            They walk beside us every day

            Unseen, unheard, but always near

            So loved, so missed, so very dear

I had found “Anonymous” or “Unknown” on only a couple of pics, but most pics quoted the quote page where only their picture came from – such as all-greatquotes quoted in Quotes Gram, Gambar Club quoting a pic from Daveswordsofwisdom.com and too many on Pininterest. I also found the Comfort Company with this wording, unnamed, on a stepping sympathy stone which they have been selling. I have no idea if they can do that legally! 

Many of the companies using this wording are obituaries, bereavements, in memory and similar grief, but there is nowhere I can find which says who originally said these words and why they were said.

My grief is not for death. It is for losing reality. I haven’t seen any explanation about this quote, but, for me, it’s very real about how I am now living. 

And correctly acknowledged with “Anonymous”.

Funny... or not

This morning I was Googling for a quote and found these - said, apparently, (as "quoted") by Abraham Lincoln. I laughed! I copied a few of these to put them on here. And then I stopped laughing.

Yes, I found them humorous - but I know that these were made up by quite a few people as a joke. Anyone who knows anything about Lincoln knows that the internet wasn't around him any time when he was alive. Do you know this? Oh, and he never had a mobile phone!

The trouble is, far too many people probably know nothing about this. Is Lincoln included in your history class at school? Have you read anything - true history - about him - at all? Abraham Lincoln has a lot of real quotes, which have been provided on the internet by real people who know this. I wondered, after I'd been laughing at these joke pics, how many quotes like this have been spread around by far too many people who will copy them - but will not ever realise that Lincoln (or many others) have never said the quote they've seen.

History is changing from reality to falsity, mendacity and duplicity far too quickly. People may believe what they've read, and unfortunately far too many people will never research that and find out the truth about it. I've read too many bullshit quotes from bullshit webpages and articles. I've seen (and occasionally started to read) bullshit books, FFS!

If you are a real person, don't just believe in what you see. There are a couple of good webpages - Snopes, Quote Investigator - who research. Check out what you're reading - and find out if it is real!

Thanks, Abraham Lincoln, for this very good quote. Now everyone who reads it should laugh, and understand that... I said it!

Plain fact

Dalai Lama is a monk for Tibetan Buddhism. The 14th Dalai Lama is Tenzin Gyatso. Born in the Republic of China in 1935, he was made the 14th Dalai Lama in 1939, was enthroned in 1940, and took political power over Tibet in 1950 - he was only 15. He left Tibet in 1959 during a political uprising and lives in India, but he travels the whole world. He is very well known in Australia.

I found a quote which was printed in his name, and I thought I'd do my own pic with this same quote on it, until I saw on his other Wikiquote report that this particular quote was misattributed to him. I found, then, a  website note, on 17 January 2014, by a blogger called Alex Knapp who said that this quote was not Dalai Lama. It was David W Orr. 

Orr is an environmentalist. The book this quote was taken from was Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect, originally published in 1994 and re-published in 2004. According to Wikipaedia, Orr is a "Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics at Oberlin College and a James Marsh Professor at the University of Vermont". The quote, now in his name below, certainly means what Orr has learned and is passing on to schools.

On the Google write-up about the book, they said "...much of what has gone wrong with the world... is the result of inadequate and misdirected education that... alienates us from life in the name of human domination..." This is very much what I agree with. The 'inadequate and misdirected education' on quotes has lead to far too many people accrediting a decent quote to anyone, regardless of whether or not they actually did say it. Every quote should be recorded in a video or written on paper, on the website or kept on a USB to make real history. Too many people who do their 'quotes' wrong. 

Will that ever change?

 

"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!