“The evil that men do…”

FAMOUS FUNERAL ORATION QUOTE: “The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.”        William Shakespeare (1564-1616)         Lines said by Mark Antony in Act 3, Scene 2 of Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar        This is one of several well-known quotes in the funeral oration Mark Antony gives for Julius Caesar after Caesar is assassinated. It follows the famous opening words: “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.” The oration in the play is loosely based on a real speech Antony gave at Caesar’s funeral, a few days after Caesar was stabbed to death by his political enemies on March 15, 44 B.C. (the “Ides of March”). An account of what Antony said was recorded by the Greek-born Roman historian Appian in his history of Rome’s civil wars. It does not include any of the famous lines in Shakespeare’s play. According to Appian, the Roman masses became so angry after hearing Antony’s subtly inflammatory speech that they burnt down the Senate building where Caesar was killed and went hunting for his murderers, who were forced to flee Rome.

THE GOD CONUNDRUM: “If, as the theologians say, ‘the very act of free choice is traced to God as to a cause’...if ‘everything happening from the exercise of free choice must be subject to divine providence,’ must not the evil that men do be attributed to God as cause?”        From a commentary on the philosophical debate over free will in The Great Ideas volume of Encyclopedia Britannica’s multi-volume series about the great books and ideas of the Western World, which was edited by Mortimer J. Adler and first published in 1952.

AN EARLY LABOR ACTIVIST’S VIEWPOINT: “It is sins of omission, not commission, that are most fruitful of harm; not the evil that men do, but the good they did not do, that lives after them.”        Editorial comment in an 1889 issue of The Railway Conductor’s Monthly        Included in The Conductor and Brakeman Vol. 6, compiled by The Order of Railway Conductors and Brakemen

A MODERN ACTIVIST’S VIEWPOINT: “It’s not the evil that men do that outlives them; it’s the mischief that computers and genetic research can get us into when they are spliced together that we need to worry about.”         From the book Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Business Ethics and Society (2006), written by Lisa Newton, Elaine Englehardt and Michael Pritchard         Paraphrasing of the views of technology critics like Jeremy Rifkin

THE SEXIST PARSON’S OPINION: “Parson Fawcett said: the evil that men do lives after them; but the evil that women do goes on for countless generations through their breeding.”        Catherine Cookson (1906-1998)        British novelist        In her period romance novel The Love Child (1990)

See more takeoffs and variations on “The evil that men do...”

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Related reading…

“Where the West begins” – and the East peters out…

THE FAMOUS COWBOY POEM: “Out where the handclasp’s a little stronger, Out where the smile dwells a little longer,             That’s where the West begins; Out where the sun is a little brighter, Where the snows that fall are a trifle whiter; Where the bonds of home are a wee bit tighter;             That’s where the West begins.”       Arthur Chapman (1873-1935)        American journalist, poet and editor        His poem “Out Where the West Begins,” first printed in the Denver Republican, December 3, 1911.

WILL ROGERS’ QUIP: “Fort Worth is where the West begins and Dallas is where the East peters out.”        Will Rogers (1879-1935)        American humorist        A famous quip generally attributed to Rogers.         The city of Forth Worth has long used the official slogan “Where the West Begins.” An old nickname of Dallas is “where the East ends.”

A JOURNALIST’S VIEW OF FORT WORTH’S MOTTO: “As Fort Worth has grown into a very big city, the cultural identity of our fair burg is changing. City leaders like to trot out ‘Cowtown’ and ‘Where the West Begins’ as cultural touchstones, but neither has been true for some time. We don’t slaughter cattle for beef anymore, and I don’t know where the West begins now, but it certainly isn’t here.”        Dan McGraw        Texas journalist and author         In his column in the Fort Worth Weekly, March 28, 2007

THE FAMED CUBAN BAR’S MOTTO: “First port of call, out where the wet begins.”        Prohibition-era marketing slogan for Sloppy Joe’s Bar in Havana, Cuba         Noted in the excellent book Havana Before Castro by Peter Moruzzi

THE HAWAIIAN VARIATION: “Out where the zest begins, in the Hawaiian islands, grow these royal pineapples...brought to you by Dole.”        From an ad for Dole Pineapples in LIFE magazine, May 8, 1939

RINTY’S VARIATION: “Where the North Begins”        Title of the first film starring the first Rin-Tin-Tin, released in 1923. (A silent film set in the “Great White North” – the north woods of Canada.)

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Related reading and listening: classic examples of Cowboy – and Cowgirl – poetry…

“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” (And maybe 90% mental?)

THE FAMOUS EDISON QUOTE (THAT HE PROBABLY NEVER SAID): “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”        Attributed to Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931)        American inventor and businessman         This oft-cited line is traditionally credited to Edison and he did say some things like it. However, the familiar version of the quote is not included in his writings or in his recorded speeches or interviews. The first mention of a definition of genius by Edison is in an article about him in the April 1898 issue of the Ladies Home Journal. A paragraph in that article says:        “Once, when asked to give his definition of genius, Mr. Edison replied: ‘Two per cent is genius and ninety-eight per cent is hard work.’ At another time, when the argument that genius was inspiration was brought before him, he said: ‘Bah! Genius is not inspired. Inspiration is perspiration.’”         An article in a 1902 issue of Scientific American claimed that Edison once remarked: “Genius is 2 percent inspiration and 98 percent perspiration,” but it gave no source for the quote. That 2%/98% definition was also mentioned in a 1908 biography of Edison and a 1911 article in Chamber’s Journal — without providing any information on when Edison supposedly said it. Then in 1932, a year after Edison died, an article Harper's Monthly Magazine noted that sometime around 1902 or 1903 Edison said: “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.” No source for the quote was given by Harper’s. However, this version became legendary and is cited by many books and websites (often giving Harper’s Monthly Magazine as the source).

YOGI BERRA’S ADAPTABLE ADAPTATION: “Baseball is ninety percent mental. The other half is physical.”        Yogi Berra        US baseball catcher, manager and coach known for his funny, linguistically unique sayings        This is one of the famous “Yogisms” that Yogi is generally believed to have actually said, though various versions have been cited and he used somewhat different wording at various times. In The Yogi Book: I Really Didn't Say Everything I Said! (1998), he quotes himself as saying: “90% of the game is half mental.” In What Time Is It? You Mean Now? (2010) he cites it as “Ninety percent of this game is half-mental.” In a commencement speech at Montclair State University (New Jersey) in 1996, Yogi gave the line a twist, telling the graduating students: “Remember that whatever you do in life, 90 percent of it is half mental.” In Baseball's Greatest Quotations, quotation maven Paul Dickson notes that baseball outfielder Jim Wolford may have used a version of the line before Yogi made it his own.

A T-SHIRT FOR “GENIOUSES”: “Genious is one per cent inspiration and ninety nine per cent perspiration.”        A version on the Edison saying printed on a t-shirt with the word genius misspelled, offered for sale by the upscale European fashion store chain H & M.        (Spotted and mocked by the Metro.co.uk.com site in April 2015.)

A TIP FOR WASHINGTON SPEECHWRITERS: “Successful Washington speechwriting is one percent literary talent and ninety-nine percent political infighting.”         Attributed to Will Sparks        Former speechwriter for President Johnson        Quoted by Bradley H. Patterson Jr. in his book The Ring of Power: the White House Staff and Its Expanding Role in Government

THE POLICE WORK ADAPTATION: “Real police work is ninety-nine percent facts, one percent inspiration.”        Glover Wright        British author and former rock ‘n’ roll guitarist         Line said by a character in his novel The Torch (1980)

For more variations of Edison’s famed quote, see this previous Quote/Counterquote post.

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