“I think, therefore I am” — and some variations I think are funny (therefore they are)…

FAMOUS PHILOSOPHER’S QUOTE: “Cogito ergo sum.” (“I think, therefore I am.”)        René Descartes (1596-1650)        French mathematician and philosopher          Famous axiom in his book Principia Philosophiae (Principles of Philosophy, 1644)        Descartes first recorded the axiom in French, as “Je pense, donc je suis,” in his philosophical and mathematical treatise, Le Discours de la Méthode (A Discourse on Method, 1637). However, the Latin version from Principia Philosophiae — “Cogito ergo sum” — is better known.        The French and Latin versions of the quote have traditionally been translated in English as “I think, therefore I am.”        Alternate translations include “I am thinking, therefore I am” and “I am thinking, therefore I exist.”

THE PRESIDENT TRUMP TWEET THEORY VARIATION: “He tweets, therefore he is. Twitter gives him a platform to say whatever he wants completely unfiltered. The media can’t and won’t do that for him.”        John Feehery        Republican political consultant        Quoted in an article media writer James Warren posted on the Vanity Fair website on December 6, 2016        (Cartoon by Kim Warp.)

A FAMOUS HUNTER’S VARIATION: “We eat, therefore we hunt.”        Sarah Palin        Conservative American politician, celebrity and avid hunter         This comes from the rambling speech Palin gave on July 26, 2009, announcing her resignation as Governor of Alaska. The full quote is: “Stand strong, and remind them patriots will protect our guaranteed, individual right to bear arms, and by the way, Hollywood needs to know, we eat, therefore we hunt.”

AN AVANT-GARDE PAINTER’S VARIATION: “I Suck Therefore I Am”         Agus Suwage          Indonesian artist        This is the title of the 2004 painting by Suwage shown at left. At the time, it was estimated to be worth up to 207,000 Malaysian Ringgits (over $61,975 in U.S. currency). Other works by Suwage have sold for even more, so I guess some people don’t think he sucks.

THE SHOPAHOLIC VARIATION: “I Shop Therefore I Am”        Barbara Kruger        American multimedia artist          These words on the artwork by Kruger shown at left are seemingly a send-up of consumerism. But ironically, the image was later used on tote bags and t-shirts sold by Bloomingdale’s.

THE ALCOHOLIC TEACHER VARIATION: “I Teach Therefore I Drink”          A slogan on t-shirts sold on Amazon and other sites. They seem to be quite popular. I’m not sure what that says about the teaching profession.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Comments? Questions? Corrections? Post them on my Famous Quotations Facebook group.

Some books with a title or subtitle based on Descartes’ quote (there are even more)…

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)

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Comments? Corrections? Post them on the Famous Quotations Facebook page.

Related reading…

“Nothing is certain except death and taxes.” (Or, as Franklin actually said: “Il n’y a rien d’assure que la mort et les impôts.”

THE FAMOUS WORDS FRANKLIN DIDN’T SAY (IN ENGLISH): “Nothing is certain except death and taxes.”        Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)         American “founding father,” publisher, diplomat and scientist         This is the usual English translation of a comment Franklin made in a letter he wrote to French scientist Jean-Baptiste Leroy, dated November 13, 1789.        Franklin wrote his letter to Leroy in French. His “death and taxes” remark was related to the Constitution of the United States of America, which had been adopted two years earlier. What he actually wrote was:        “Notre constitution nouvelle est actuellement établie, tout paraît nous promettre qu’elle sera durable; mais, dans ce monde, il n’y a rien d’assure que la mort et les impôts.”        The common English translation of this sentence is: “Our new Constitution is now established, everything seems to promise it will be durable; but, in this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.”  (Sometimes the last part is translated as “Nothing is certain but death and taxes.”)        As noted by the invaluable Phrase Finder site and other reference sources, similar quotations about death and taxes pre-date Franklin’s letter. But the English translation of Franklin’s version is certainly the most famous. (For more background see this post on my ThisDayinQuotes.com blog.)

THE DONALD TRUMP UPDATE: “With Donald Trump as President almost nothing is certain except uncertainty itself.”        David C. Kibbe        President and CEO of the non-profit healthcare information technology organization DirectTrust         A remark quoted in a January 9, 2017 press release discussing health industry IT trends that seems applicable to more than health industry IT trends.        (Cartoon by Dan Wasserman.)

THE UNCERTAIN WILL ROGERS QUOTE:   “The difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.”        Attrib. to Will Rogers (1879-1935)        American humorist        A quip widely attributed to Rogers, but without any specific source        There’s no contemporary record of Rogers uttering or writing this old joke. However, quote maven Barry Popik has noted that a similar line was used by another humorist Rogers had a connection with, the witty newspaper columnist Robert Quillen (1887-1948).        In several of the humorous columns Quillen wrote in the early 1930s, he said the “difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time the legislature meets.” In a 1934 column, Quillen added Congress, saying: “The main difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get any worse every time congress or the state legislature meets.” That same year, movie producer George Marshall and screenwriter Lamar Trotti visited Quillen and purportedly used him as the model for the newspaper editor Will Rogers played in the film Life Begins at Forty. The film’s credits credit Quillen for “contributing dialogue.” My guess is that, if Rogers ever did use the line about Congress, he may have borrowed it from Quillen.

SCARLET O’HARA’S BABY BIRTHIN’ VERSION: “Death and taxes and childbirth! There's never any convenient time for any of them!”        Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949)        American novelist, journalist and philanthropist          This is what the character Scarlett O’Hara says about the “untimeliness” of her pregnancy, in Chapter 38 of Mitchell’s 1936 novel Gone with the Wind.         The line was not used in the classic 1939 movie adaptation, in which actress Vivien Leigh played Scarlet. But if it had been, I imagine her adding one of her favorite sayings: “Fiddle-dee-dee!”

SOMETHING YOU DON’T WANT YOUR DOCTOR TO SAY: “In life only one thing is certain, besides death and taxes...No matter how hard we try, No matter how good our intentions, we are going to make mistakes.”        Dr. Meredith Grey (played by Ellen Pompeo)        In the “Heart of the Matter” episode of the TV show Grey’s Anatomy (Season 4, Episode 4, first aired Oct. 18, 2007)

A GOLF ADDICT’S COUNTERQUOTE: “Ben Franklin was wrong. There is more certainty in life than just death and taxes. There is also the very reliable need for ‘just one more’ piece of golf equipment.”        Dorothy Langley        American author and golfer        In her book A View from the Red Tees: The Truth About Women and Golf (1997)

THE 20TH CENTURY OUTLOOK: “To the typical American on the eve of the twentieth century it appeared a unique country, a land of promise where one person's gain was another person’s opportunity, and the inevitable was not just death and taxes but improvement and growth.”        Richard M. Abrams        Historian and Professor Emeritus, University of California at Berkeley        An observation in his book The Burdens of Progress, 1900-1929 (1978)

THE 21ST CENTURY OUTLOOK: “Besides death and  taxes, this too is certain: The American economy will never return to its  maximum prosperity until it completes a very broad-based tax reform.”         Economists Glenn Hubbard and Peter Navarro        In their book Seeds of Destruction: Why the Path to Economic Ruin Runs Through Washington, and How to Reclaim American Prosperity (2010)

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Comments? Corrections? Post them on the Famous Quotations Facebook page.

Related reading…

“Ring out the old, ring in the new” … Happy New Year from QuoteCounterquote.com!

THE FAMILIAR NEW YEAR’S SAYING: “Ring out the old, ring in the new.”        Alfred Tennyson (a.k.a. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson; 1809-1892)        English poet         Famous line from Tennyson’s In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850)        Many websites and books say these familiar words linked to New Year’s Eve are from a Tennyson poem titled “Ring Out, Wild Bells.” Technically, that’s incorrect.         The verses that go by that name come from Tennyson’s epic work, In Memoriam A.H.H., his elegiac musings on the death his friend Arthur Henry Hallam (the “A.H.H.” in the title). In Memoriam A.H.H. is essentially a very long poem comprised of 131 short ones that are referred to as cantos. These cantos were not given individual names by Tennyson. The popular title “Ring Out, Wild Bells” are the first four words of the canto that includes the line “Ring out the old, ring in the new.” (Canto CVI, or 106 in Roman numerals). Here’s the part where the famous lines first appear…               Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,                  The flying cloud, the frosty light:                  The year is dying in the night;               Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.                Ring out the old, ring in the new,                  Ring, happy bells, across the snow:                  The year is going, let him go;               Ring out the false, ring in the true.        The tradition of tolling bells to “ring out” the year that is ending and “ring in” the new one predates Tennyson. It’s actually an old custom in England and many countries around the world. However, Tennyson is generally credited for cementing “Ring out the old, ring in the new” into the English language and making it a linguistic tradition associated with New Year’s celebrations.

A POST-2016 ELECTION TIP FOR GLOOMY DEMS:       “Gloom is a terrible way to ring out the old, and despair is of no help in trying to imagine the new.        So let us consider what good might come from the political situation in which we will find ourselves in 2017.  Doing this does not require denying the dangers posed by a Donald Trump presidency or the demolition of progressive achievements he could oversee. It does mean remembering an important distinction President Obama has made ever since he entered public life: that ‘hope is not blind optimism.’       ‘Hope,’ he argued, ‘is that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it, and to work for it, and to fight for it.’”        E.J. Dionne Jr.        American political commentator and professor at Georgetown University              In his December 28, 2016 column in the Washington Post        (Cartoon by Phil Hands for the Wisconsin State Journal)

A PERFECTLY HEARTWARMING MUSICAL VARIATION: “Bring out the old, bring in the new A midnight wish to share with you Your lips are warm, my head is light Were we alive before tonight? I don't need a crowded ballroom Everything I want is here If you're with me, next year will be The perfect year.”        Don Black        English lyricist        Lyrics from “The Perfect Year,” one of the songs in the musical Sunset Boulevard, with lyrics by Black and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. (First performed in London in 1993.)

GEORGE’S MUSICAL VARIATION: “Yesterday, today was tomorrow And tomorrow, today will be yesterday So, ring out the old, ring in the new Ring out the old, ring in the new Ring out the false, ring in the true.”        George Harrison (1943-2001)        English rock musician        From the lyrics of his 1974 song “Ding Dong, Ding Dong” (included on the Dark Horse album)

THE JAMES JOYCE VARIATION (WITH EXPLANATION): “Wring out the clothes! Wring in the dew! Godavari, vert the showers! And grant thaya grace! Aman.”        James Joyce (1882-1941)        Irish novelist and poet         Lines from his novel Finnegans Wake (1939)        What's Joyce’s version mean? Well, in his book Verbal Behavior (1957), American psychologist B.F. Skinner offered this, er, helpful explanation: “Joyce’s line ‘Wring out the clothes, wring in the dew’ borrows strength from the latent intraverbal sequence ‘Ring out the old, ring in the new,’ as well as from a current theme of women washing clothes in the open air. The line may not be musical, it may or may not evoke emotional or practical responses, but it clearly manipulates verbal strength. It is this verbal play which is reinforcing to the reader and hence indirectly to the writer.” ... Got it?

A POST NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY CLEANING TIP: “Wring out the Old; Bring in the New... The Old: Sponges can be sanitized in the microwave. The True: Using the microwave can be risky...there is the possibility of starting a fire.”        The American Cleaning Institute (formerly the Soap and Detergent Association)        In the January/February 2009 edition of the organization’s newsletter, "Cleaning Matters"

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Comments? Corrections? Post them on the Famous Quotations Facebook group.

Related reading…

Facts are stubborn things – but not half so stubborn as fallacies...

JOHN ADAMS’ FAMOUS USE: “Facts are stubborn things.”        John Adams (1735-1826)        American lawyer and Founding Father who became the second President of the United States        Adams famously used this saying on December 4, 1770, during his defense of the British soldiers on trial for the March 5, 1770 incident popularly called the “Boston Massacre.”        That incident started when a Boston man got into an argument with a British soldier. Eight other soldiers who came to protect their comrade were soon surrounded by a large crowd of hostile Americans, who pelted them with snowballs and ice chunks. The soldiers panicked and shot into the crowd, killing five men. When the soldiers were arrested and put on trial for murder a Tory merchant asked John Adams to defend them. He accepted the case.         Many irate Bostonians wanted the soldiers executed for murder. Adams argued they’d been provoked and were not cold-blooded killers. During his summation he said: “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence...This was a provocation, for which the law reduces the offence of killing down to manslaughter.” The jury agreed. Six of the soldiers were acquitted. Two were found guilty of manslaughter and punished by having their thumbs branded.         “Facts are stubborn things” became one of Adams’ best-known quotations. Some people think he coined it. In fact, it was already a proverbial saying. (For more background see the post on my ThisDayinQuotes.com site at this link.)

THE RUSSIAN HACKING APPLICATION: “I don’t know what to make of it because it’s clear the Russians interfered. Whether they intended to interfere to the degree that they were trying to elect a certain candidate, I think that’s a subject of investigation, but the facts are stubborn things.”        John McCain        American Republican politician who has long served as US Senator for Arizona         Comment in an interview on the CBS news show “Face the Nation,” December 11, 2016        This was McCain’s response when asked about Donald Trump’s recent dismissal of reports by US intelligence agencies that Russia was behind the hacking of emails on servers of the Democratic National Committee, with the apparent intent of hurting Hillary Clinton’s campaign and helping Trump win the November 2016 presidential election. Earlier that day, Trump told Fox News he didn’t believe it.

THE FAKE NEWS ERA APPLICATION: “Zombie claims are stubborn things. No matter how many times you debunk them, they keep rising from the dead.”        Michelle Ye Hee Lee        Washington D.C.- based reporter for the Washington Post        In her May 8, 2016 column in the Post        Lee was commenting on the type of claims that seem increasingly common in the realm of politics nowadays; claims that continue to be spread and believed by many people even after they have been proven false.

A FAKE NEWS ERA PRECURSOR: “Facts are stubborn things, but as someone has wisely said, not half so stubborn as fallacies.”        Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942)        Canadian author best known for a series of novels beginning in 1908 with Anne of Green Gables, written under her pen name L.M. Montgomery         This line, from Montgomery’s book Anne of the Island (1915), is in a letter written by the character Stella Maynard.

A FAKE MARK TWAIN QUOTE: “Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.”        Attributed (wrongly) to Mark Twain (1835-1910)        This quip is credited to Twain by thousands of internet posts and many books.         One problem: the facts don't support that claim. As noted by language maven Barry Popik in his post about the quote on his Big Apple site, there’s no evidence Twain ever said it. It appears to be one of the many fake Mark Twain quotes that float around.

REAGAN’S (IN)FAMOUS SLIP OF THE TONGUE: “Facts are stupid things.”        Ronald Reagan (1911-2004)        American actor-turned-politician; 40th President of the United States        In his speech at the August 15, 1988 Republican National Convention        Reagan made this unfairly-mocked slip in the part of his speech that focused on the economic problems he blamed on his Democratic predecessor, President Jimmy Carter. “Before we came to Washington,” Reagan said, “Americans had just suffered the two worst back-to-back years of inflation in 60 years...Fuel costs jumped through the atmosphere, more than doubling. Then people waited in gas lines as well as unemployment lines. Facts are stupid things.”        Reagan immediately corrected himself, adding: “Stubborn things, I should say.” But once the word stupid came out of his mouth, that’s the version that was picked up and satirized by his critics.

THE NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION REVELATION: “January is the month of broken resolutions. The gyms are packed for a week, Jenny Craig is full of new recruits and houses are cleaned for the first time in ages. We pledge to finally become the person we want to be: svelte, neat and punctual. Alas, it doesn’t take long before the stairmasters are once again sitting empty and those same dirty T-shirts are piling up at the back of the closet… Human habits, in other words, are stubborn things, which helps explain why 88 percent of all resolutions end in failure, according to a 2007 survey of over 3,000 people conducted by the British psychologist Richard Wiseman.”        Jonah Lehrer        American writer and speaker         In an article he wrote for Wired.com in January 2012

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *    

Comments? Questions? Corrections? Post them on my quotations Facebook group.

Related reading…