“Misquoting” Great Leaders
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Trusted Clothes
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2016/06/08
I would like to explore something about misquotations, as well as two very interesting fellows. I want to start with a picture I came across with a particular quotation about ‘The’ Albert Einstein. It got me thinking quite a bit, it bothered me enough to want to write something about it. But I had to tie this into textiles or sustainability, one thing about Einstein is that he advocated for vegetarianism. How does that tie in with this global warming era and its consequences?
I know that Einstein was a claimant at one point in time, to saying that people should be vegetarians, or that he was, and so might have not explicitly advocated for others, but described himself: “I have always eaten animal flesh with a somewhat guilty conscience.” That picture-meme quote is more descriptive of an ideal rather than prescriptive based on an ideal. And vegetarianism is in the same line as sustainable fibers and a more sustainable lifestyle. Close enough. In that, it is not simply a fashionable thing to do, but rather, it is something that is low in terms of its carbon footprint and possibly even a negative carbon footprint.
And I came across another quotation by a well-known guru, spiritualist, medical doctor, endocrinologist, and popular author.
His name is Deepak Chopra:
If you look at the actual quotations of Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking, two of the most prominent physicist/cosmologists of the 20th century – and one into the early 21st century, you can find quotations that refute any notion of them believing in either a “God” in the case of Stephen Hawking or a “personal God” in the case of Albert Einstein. Neither seems to indicate that perspective very much implied by Deepak Chopra. In other words, he misquoted them. Simple. So, let’s compare this with two quotations from Albert Einstein:
The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can change this.
And this one:
It was of course a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this, but expressed it clearly. If something is in me that can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
He is more noted for the structure and mathematical precision of the universe with the and you can now look at a quotation from Professor Stephen Hawking:
Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.
This is a problem. It is a problem in accurate presentation, and it seems to be a common either as a conscious tactic, or unconscious oversight or mistake in automaticity of quotation – or even quoting Chopra in conversation. These things happen, but this seems like a long thought, as a quote. So, that’s something to keep an eye out for not only in the more popular among groups, spiritualists, and like, but also in the world of fashion and claims about the efficacy of certain things. I’ll leave some of the last words to Chopra:
Imagine that you’re looking at an ocean and you see lots of waves today. And tomorrow you see a fewer number of waves. It’s not so turbulent. What you call a person actually is a pattern of behavior of a universal consciousness. There is no such thing as Jeff, because what we call Jeff is a constantly transforming consciousness that appears as a certain personality, a certain mind, a certain ego, a certain body. But, you know, we had a different Jeff when you were a teenager. We had a different Jeff when you were a baby. Which one of you is the real Jeff?
Like. Wow. You know?
As with everything written, I could be wrong, incredibly wrong – think for yourself and come to your own conclusions. I have biases, fallibilities, and quirks – even some funny ones. My words aren’t gold, nor are they a calf. And no bull! Although, I will milk it, if it’s prize goat (or alpaca, or camel, and no can do for cottonmandu). And if gold, I might fleece it, if a winged ram (more the same, more the same).
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