Quotes of the day 21st March 2020
"When I hear the word Culture, I reach for my revolver"
(Famously misattributed to Herman Goering. The actual quote is "Wenn ich Kultur höre ... entsichere ich meinen Browning!" This translates as:
"When I hear the word 'culture' ... I remove the safety catch from my Browning!"
a line uttered by the character Thiemann in the play Schlageter, written by Hanns Johst. The association with Nazism is appropriate, as the play was first performed in April 1933, in honor of Hitler's birthday.)
"When anyone quotes Edmund Burke, reach for your revolver."
(Matthew Parris, article in the Times published 29th February 2020)
POSTSCRIPT:
I thought the above quote by Burke was one everyone knew to be accurate, but apparently this is another one that everyone thinks they know but which it hasn't been proved that the person to whom it is attributed ever said - though it certainly does reflect Burke's opinions. It is probably a succinct paraphrase of a remark known to have been made by the Utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill, in an address at the University of St. Andrew (1 February 1867)
"Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing."
However, it is similar in meaning to the following quote which Burke really did write in his "Thoughts on the Cause of Present Discontents":
"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."
(Famously misattributed to Herman Goering. The actual quote is "Wenn ich Kultur höre ... entsichere ich meinen Browning!" This translates as:
"When I hear the word 'culture' ... I remove the safety catch from my Browning!"
a line uttered by the character Thiemann in the play Schlageter, written by Hanns Johst. The association with Nazism is appropriate, as the play was first performed in April 1933, in honor of Hitler's birthday.)
"When anyone quotes Edmund Burke, reach for your revolver."
(Matthew Parris, article in the Times published 29th February 2020)
POSTSCRIPT:
I thought the above quote by Burke was one everyone knew to be accurate, but apparently this is another one that everyone thinks they know but which it hasn't been proved that the person to whom it is attributed ever said - though it certainly does reflect Burke's opinions. It is probably a succinct paraphrase of a remark known to have been made by the Utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill, in an address at the University of St. Andrew (1 February 1867)
"Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing."
However, it is similar in meaning to the following quote which Burke really did write in his "Thoughts on the Cause of Present Discontents":
"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."
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