Comment by gruseom | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gruseom | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Napoleon never said that. It comes, in fact, from this lowly place:

http://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Book-Two-Reasons/dp/B00123...

... and its author is a guy who won a contest to come up with successors to Murphy's Law. Backstory here:

http://www.statusq.org/archives/2001/11/26/ http://www.statusq.org/archives/2001/12/04/

A very similar line occurs in a Robert Heinlein story.

Edit: Googling around, I ran across the following quote from a German general which was cited as an antecedent to the above. While it only vaguely resembles that idea, it is a marvelous specimen of that distinct microgenre, witty aphorisms by dudes from European military history:

I divide my officers into four classes; the clever, the lazy, the industrious, and the stupid. Each officer possesses at least two of these qualities. Those who are clever and industrious are fitted for the highest staff appointments. Use can be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy however is for the very highest command; he has the temperament and nerves to deal with all situations. But whoever is stupid and industrious is a menace and must be removed immediately!

Isn't that great?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlons_razor

Wikiquote (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_J._Hanlon) states that it's been widely attributed to Bonaparte as well. I wasn't under the impression that that means it's a mistaken attribution, but I could be wrong about that, and if it isn't supposed to be read as I did, could you clarify?

The internet is full of cuckoo quotes being wrongly attributed to famous people. It's an easy way for memes to propagate. For example, ever hear the quote from Gandhi along the lines of "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."? Cool line, which has made it onto T-shirts with Gandhi's photo, but Gandhi never said it. It's been traced back to a speech by a garment workers' union official in the early 20th century. Anyway, there are zillions of examples, many being propagated by spam websites supposedly specializing in quotes. Because of this, online references that say "attributed to Bonaparte" (or whomever) are worth nothing. In fact, they're evidence to the contrary, because if Bonaparte really said it, it wouldn't be "attributed", it would be sourced.

The rule of thumb is: if a famous person said it, it will be easy to find a precise textual citation on Google. So if you can't find the precise text, it's likely inauthentic.

Wikiquote is pretty good at distinguishing between sourced and unsourced quotes and providing precise references for the former. Take a look at their page on Napoleon (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Napoleon_I_of_France) and see how many of them are traced to his letters. (By the way, the "never attribute to malice..." one is listed under misattributions on that same page.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com