“None so blind as those that will not see.”

THE BIBLE-RELATED QUOTE THAT’S NOT IN THE BIBLE: “None so blind as those that will not see.”        Matthew Henry (1662-1714)        English Presbyterian minister and writer        A saying popularized by Henry’s use in his Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708)        Contrary to common belief, this is not a quote from the Bible. It’s a proverbial English saying with no clear origin. Matthew Henry helped popularize it by using it several times in his widely-read book of explanatory comments about the Bible. The saying was probably inspired by Bible verses, possibly Matthew 13:13 (“Therefore I speak to them in parables: because they seeing see not…”) or Jeremiah 5:21 (“Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not…”).

THE LAME EXCUSE VARIATION: “There are none so lame as those who will not walk.”        Sir James Marchant (1867-1956)        British philanthropist and author        In the book If I Had Only One Sermon to Preach (1928)

THE TRUE BELIEVER PRINCIPLE: “There are none so positive as those who are but half right.”        William McDonnell (1814-1900)        Canadian writer        In his novel Family Creeds (1879)

SPURGEON’S VERSION:        “There are none so tender as those who have been skinned themselves.”         Rev. Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)        British Baptist preacher        From a sermon included in his book Sermons: Volume 6 (1859)

THE UNWORTHY WISH LIST VERSION: “There are none so bitterly disappointed as those who have got what they wanted, because human nature is so sadly prone to want such things as are unworthy.”        Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler (1860-1929)        British poet and novelist        In her novel Place and Power (1903)

THE IRRITATING BLOWHARDS PRINCIPLE: “None so empty as those who are full of themselves.”        Benjamin Whichcote (1609–1683)        British Puritan divine and scholar        Quoted in the book Moral and Religious Aphorisms Collected from the Manuscript Papers of the Reverend and Learned Doctor Whichcote (1753)

THE IRRITATING CRITICS PRINCIPLE: “There’s none so bland as can’t see.”        Editorial comment in a 1994 issue of the Theatre Record        Regarding a critic’s negative review of an avant-garde adaptation of Shakespeare’s Richard III

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God’s mysterious ways...

THE USUALLY MISQUOTED ORIGIN: “God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm.”         William Cowper (1731-1800)         British poet and hymn writer         From his Hymn No. 35, “Light Shining Out of Darkness”         These are the opening lyrics of the hymn, which was first published in Olney Hymns (1779). The first two lines are usually misquoted as “God moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform” and often wrongly assumed to be a Bible quote.

THE INSURANCE COMPANY ANALOGY “Insurance companies move in mysterious ways. Much like God...only far less generous.”         The character Standish, played by actor Dan Duryea         In the 1965 movie The Flight of the Phoenix

T.S. ELIOT’S HIPPO ANALOGY “The hippopotamus’s day Is passed in sleep; at night he hunts; God works in a mysterious way The Church can feed and sleep at once.”         T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)         American-born British poet and playwright         In his poem “The Hippopotamus” (1919)

MURPHY’S REVELATION: “Life is mysterious to some, but God does not work in mysterious ways. The things which some consider as mysteries, others consider as revelations.”         Zuriel Ann Murphy         Nigerian-born UK inspirational author and speaker         In her book The Spoken Word (2013)

RACHEL’S REVELATION: “God doesn’t work in mysterious ways. He doesn’t give a shit. Everything doesn’t happen for a reason. Shit happens. Having faith doesn't make any difference. It’s just something to do while you go from point A to point B.”         John Rachel         American novelist and non-fiction book author         The inner thoughts of a character in his novel The Man Who Loved Too Much, Book 1: Archipelago (2015)

ALTERNATIVES TO THE PLATITUDE: “When people are in the middle of the darkest storm imaginable, the last thing they want to be told is that God is working everything together for good, and to trust in God's mysterious ways. It is not helpful. It is not comforting. It does not bring healing...The implication that God has predestined pain and suffering is unloving and can drive people away from the church. Making them a sandwich would be a better plan. Or cleaning their house. Or taking their children for an afternoon. Or just listening to them or sitting with them in silence.”         Natalie Toon Patton         American essayist, blogger and author         In her essay “8 Sayings Christians Use to Let Ourselves off the Hook”         Posted on the Sojo.net “faith in action” website, August 29, 2017

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“Knowledge is power” – and everything most people know about that quote is wrong!

THE FLAWED TRADITIONAL ATTRIBUTION: “Knowledge itself is power.” (“...ipsa scientia potestas est”)        Francis Bacon (1561-1626)        English philosopher and essayist        Meditationes Sacrae, De Haeresibus (1597)        Thousands of books and websites claim that Sir Francis Bacon coined or first recorded the saying “Knowledge is power.” In fact, that concept existed long before Bacon’s time and the Latin phrase “scientia potestas est,” which means “Knowledge is power,” probably did as well. Bacon used a version of it in his essay De Haeresibus (“Of Heresies”), one of ten essays in his book Meditationes Sacrae (“Religious Meditations”), which he wrote in Latin.         In one of Bacon’s typically long, run-on sentences, full of much religious and philosophical blah-blah-blah, the Latin words scientia (knowledge, science), est (is) and potestas (power, strength) are embedded in a longer phrase. The full phrase is “nam et ipsa scientia potestas est.” This is generally translated as “for knowledge itself is power.” That’s not quite as pithy as “Knowledge is power.” Moreover, in the context of the sentence and Bacon’s points in the essay, it doesn’t actually have the literal meaning that has become a cliché. In the essay, Bacon was making an obtuse argument about atheists and other people who deny the will and power of God, including those who give more weight to God’s knowledge than His power. Bacon argued that God’s knowledge is itself power.

COOLIO’S COUNTERQUOTE: “If knowledge is power and power is knowledge, then   how so many idiots be graduating from colleges?”         Coolio        American rap musician, record producer and actor         A line in the lyrics of his song “The Winner” (on the Space Jam movie soundtrack)

CERSEI’S COUNTERQUOTE: “Power is power!”        Cersei Lannister (played by actress Lena Headey)         A point she makes, menacingly, to Lord Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish (actor Aidan Gillen), in the first episode of Season Two of HBO’s series Game of Thrones.        In this intense scene, Baelish hints to Cersei that he knows she has an incestuous relationship with her brother and might use that knowledge to his advantage. “Prominent families often forget a simple truth,” he says. “Knowledge is power.”        Cersei responds by telling her guards: “Seize him. Cut his throat.” The guards grab Baelish and prepare to carry out her order. As Baelish begins to panic, Cersei says almost flippantly: “Stop. Oh, wait. I’ve changed my mind. Let him go.” After they do, she glares at Baelish and tells him an even higher truth that applies in the world of Game of Thrones: “Power is power!”

THE KICK-BUTT COUNTERQUOTE: “Knowledge is not power. It’s the implementation of knowledge that is power. It’s not what you know that matters, it’s what you do with what you know that matters.”        Larry Winget        American author and motivational speaker        In his book Shut Up, Stop Whining, and Get a Life: A Kick-Butt Approach to a Better Life  (2011)

A VERSION APPLICABLE TO FERGUSON? “Knowledge may be power under some circumstances, but, in others, power rests on denial and studied displacement. This image of a smoothly functioning social order lends itself to the creation of the capacity for fascist self-delusion.”        An observation in the book Ethnography in Unstable Places: Everyday Lives in Contexts of Dramatic Political Change        Edited by Carol J. Greenhouse, Elizabeth Mertz, Kay B. B. Warren        (Cartoon by Kevin Siers)

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“Know thyself.” (And thy enemy.)

  

FAMOUS MAXIM OF THE GREEK SAGES: “Know thyself.” (“Gnothi seauton.”)        A saying inscribed at the Greek Temple of Apollo at Delphi (4th century BC)                     This oft-quoted advice is generally attributed to “The Seven Sages of Greece,” a group of famous Greek philosophers, statesmen and politicians. It’s one of 147 pithy sayings inscribed at Delphi.                     Some of those sayings have been attributed to specific sages. For example, “Know thyself” has been credited to the philosopher Thales, the Greek statesman Solon, and several other Greek wise men.        However, it’s likely that it and many other maxims inscribed at the Temple of Delphi are proverbial sayings that predate the Seven Sages.

THE CHINESE SAGE’S VERSION: “He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.”                     One of the most-cited quotes from the Tao Te Ching (a.k.a. the  Daodejing or Dao De Jing), a fundamental text of Taoism dating back to the 6th Century BC        This quote is traditionally attributed to Lao-Tzu (a.k.a.  Lao-Tze or Laozi), the legendary, possibly mythical founder of Taoism who is generally credited with authorship of the Tao Te Ching.          Modern scholars tend to believe that text is probably a compilation of ancient Chinese wisdom, rather than the creation of one man.

THE CHINESE GENERAL’S VERSION: “Know your enemy and know yourself, find naught in fear for 100 battles. Know yourself but not your enemy, find level of loss and victory. Know thy enemy but not yourself, wallow in defeat every time.”         Sun-Tzu (c. 544 BC-496 BC)         Chinese general, military strategist, and philosopher                      This is one of the most popular pieces of wisdom in his famed work The Art of War (5th century BC).         Although “Know thy enemy” and the variation “Know thine enemy” sound like and are sometimes assumed to be Biblical in origin, there is no such quote in the Bible. (Check it yourself if you don’t believe me.)

“POOR RICHARD’S” OBSERVATION: “There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.”        Benjamin Franklin (1705-1790)        American author, inventor, writer, publisher and statesman        A saying recorded the 1750 edition of Poor Richard’s Almanack, a yearly almanac published by Franklin under the pseudonym of “Poor Richard” Saunders.

A BRIT WIT’S COUNTERQUOTE: “Only the shallow know themselves.”        Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)        Irish poet and playwright        From his collection of aphorisms “Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young,” first published in December 1894 in the one and only issue of the Oxford student magazine The Chameleon.

A FRENCH WRITER’S COUNTERQUTE: “‘Know Thyself’ – a maxim as pernicious as it is odious. A person observing himself would arrest his own development. Any caterpillar who tried to ‘know himself’ would never become a butterfly.”        André Gide (1869-1951)        French writer and left-leaning political activist        A comment in his 1935 book Les Nouvelles Nourritures, meaning “The New Foods” in English. That rambling, part-philosophical, part-poetic, part-political work is a followup to Gide’s Les Nourritures Terrestres, or “Foods of the Earth,” (1897).

HENRY MILLER’S DARK VIEW: “The study of crime begins with the knowledge of oneself.”        Henry Miller (1891-1980)        American writer best known for his boundary-pushing, semi-autobiographical novels                     A line from his memoir The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (1945), an account of a year-long trip he took across the United States in 1939 after living in Paris for nearly a decade.         After the quote above, Miller goes on to say: “All that you despise, all that you loathe, all that you reject, all that you condemn and seek to convert by punishment springs from you. The source of it is God whom you place outside, above and beyond. Crime is identification, first with God, then with your own image.” For fun, also see the video riff on “Know thyself” that I posted on YouTube.

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What’s the beginning of wisdom?

BIBLICAL BEGINNINGS: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.”          Psalms 111:10            The full verse in Psalms 111:10 says: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever.”        There’s a similar verse in The Book of Proverbs (Proverbs 1:7): “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.”        Job 28:28 offers this variation: “And unto man he [God] said, Behold, the fear of the LORD, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.”

CLARENCE DARROW’S COUNTERQUOTE: “The fear of God is not the beginning of wisdom. The fear of God is the death of wisdom. Skepticism and doubt lead to study and investigation, and investigation is the beginning of wisdom. The modern world is the child of doubt and inquiry, as the ancient world was the child of fear and faith.”        Clarence Darrow (1857-1938)        American lawyer, agnostic and free speech advocate        In his essay “Why I am an agnostic” (1896)

BERTRAND RUSSELL’S COUNTERQUOTE: “Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty.  To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom, in the pursuit of truth as in the endeavour after a worthy manner of life.”         Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)        British philosopher, mathematician, atheist and social critic         From his essay “An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish”, included in the book Unpopular Essays (1950)

A DEEP THOUGHT FROM THOMAS AQUINAS: “The beginning of a thing is a part of it. But fear is not a part of wisdom, since fear is in the appetitive power, whereas wisdom is in the intellectual power. Hence it seems that fear is not the beginning of wisdom.”        Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)        Italian Catholic priest, philosopher and saint         In his Summa Theologica (“Summary of Theology”), written 1265-1274 A.D.

AN OLD GERMAN VARATION: “To question a wise man is the beginning of wisdom.”         German proverb        Quoted in The Multicultural Dictionary of Proverbs (2005)

THE MOST OBVIOUS OBSERVATION: “If the fear of God is not the beginning of wisdom, it is at least the beginning of religion.”        George William Foote (1850-1915)        British writer and social critic        “Letters to the Clergy,” published in The Freethinker, Volume 10 (1890)

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About God’s mysterious way(s)…

THE OFTEN MISQUOTED ORIGIN: “God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm.”        William Cowper (1731-1800)        British poet and hymn writer        From his Hymn No. 35, “Light Shining Out of Darkness”         These are the opening lyrics of the hymn, which was first published in Olney Hymns (1779). The first two lines are usually misquoted as “God moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform” and often wrongly assumed to be a Bible quote.

BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS COUNTERQUOTE: “God does not work in mysterious ways — it’s blindingly obvious when he’s dropping you a big hint.”        A comment I read in 2010 on a now-vanished blog         At the time, it stuck me as something that could be applied to the Gulf Oil Spill, which had recently occurred (and which still may be doing mysterious things to the ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico).

COLBERT’S VERSION:  “God works in mysterious ways. But at least he works. He’s never on welfare in mysterious ways.”        Stephen Colbert        One of his straight-faced faux Conservative quips on the June 23, 2010 episode of The Colbert Report

ATHEIST VARIATION #1: “There are no atheists in a foxhole, and there are, apparently, no atheists in the Ku Klux Klan. God sometimes moves in mysterious ways, His lip service to exact.”          Attributed to Mignon McLaughlin (1913-1983)        American author and journalist

ATHEIST VARIATION #2: “I have yet to see a good answer for why God is all-powerful and all-knowing and all-good – or even anything close to all-powerful and all-knowing and all-good – and still isn’t perceived by everybody. Does anybody have one? (And if you say ‘Mysterious ways,’ I’m going to scream.)”          Greta Christina         Atheist blogger and author        In a post she wrote for AlterNet

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