My iGoogle home page has a "Quotes of the Day" section. Below is one of the three:
"A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward." -Franklin D. Roosevelt
Being a librarian and understanding how words, much like numbers, can easily be manipulated, I headed over to the reference section to verify the quote. According to The Harper Book of American Quotations the quote was accurate. However, it is an excerpt from a longer statement from FDR. The full quote is below.
"A radical is a man with both feet firmly planted--in the air. A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs, who, however, has never learned to walk forward. A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backward. But a liberal is a man who uses his legs and his hands at the behest --at the command--of his head." - Franklin D. Roosevelt, in a radio speech, October 26, 1939
Now that you have read the full quote, does it change your perception of what the quote means? It did for me not a lot but enough to give me a better perspective. Of course I wanted to read the whole speech as I could not figure out why this would pop up during a radio address. Here is the link if you are curious as well. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=15828#axzz1ZqGo3JBH
Another quote from years ago that motivated me enough to attempt to track it down was the the quote by Matt Damon in the movie The Departed where he stated "what Freud said about the Irish is we're the only people impervious to psychoanalysis." Well, Freud never said that. I tried to find it when I was working as a Reference Intern at Northwestern University and could not find a thing. I even asked the real Reference Librarian if she could find anything regarding the quote as I as a student may have missed. She checked his concordance and found absolutely nothing. He NEVER said anything about the Irish anywhere that has been recorded in print. The Freud Museum in London has it in their FAQ section http://www.freud.org.uk/about/faq/
Why am I going on about this? Simply because I think it is important for people to question what they hear and see. Be a thoughtful person, embrace knowledge. Remember if you can't find the answer call/email/facebook/text/IM your local library;)
