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- author, Edison Vega
- stock, BBC News, Brazil
One day, while at work, this journalist followed a session at the former Academia Paulista de Letras in Largo do Arruchy, in the center of São Paulo.
It was early March and a gathering of scholars on International Women’s Day led to stories featuring women writers.
At one point, Ligia Facundus Telles (1918-2022) spoke up and gave an emotional speech. His intervention was against the “Internet”. Not by any singularity, but many in the network attribute the creation of “beautiful phrases” to his best friend Clarice Lispector (1920-1977).
And Clarice is not one to write ‘corny’ sentences,” said Ms. Telles, who praised the literary depth of her colleague, whose signature is associated with thousands of questionable posts on social networks.
Although Facebook and its affiliates have helped spread misquotes of personalities, this type of misrepresentation is not new and can even be found in ancient history books.
Below, BBC News Brazil lists seven quotes from seven characters who are most famous, but can’t be considered true.
1. What they accuse Voltaire of
“I don’t agree with what he says, but I will defend to the death his right to say it.”
Yes, this sentence might well reflect the opinion of the French Enlightenment philosopher François-Marie Aroud, also known as Voltaire (1694-1778). Too bad it wasn’t spelled out by him.
Historians Paul F. Boller Jr. And as John H. George points out in “They Never Said It. George” in “They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes and Misleading Attributions,” the phrase has become extreme. The right to freedom of expression was coined by the English writer Evelyn Beatrice Hall (1868–1956) in her 1906 book The Friends of Voltaire, a biography of the philosopher.
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French philosopher Voltaire never uttered a phrase that has become a catchphrase for free speech advocates.
In 1935, Hall himself addressed the issue.
“I never said that Voltaire used these words correctly, and I would be very surprised to find this phrase in one of his works,” replied the biographer.
2. Due to interference
“One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”.
Here, the fault lies in technology. Astronaut Neil Armstrong (1930-2012) himself explained in interviews, but the error was already so widespread that there was no way to avoid it: the first announcement that man set foot on the moon went like this. Down in history.
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Astronaut Neil Armstrong’s famous speech when he touched down on the moon has come down to us in a garbled form due to a communication breakdown.
The thing is, the meaning of the phrase, as it entered the story, undermines the idea of diversity intended by its author, Armstrong. He contrasted collective humanity with individual human achievement.
He would have said “one small step for a man” (emphasizing the meaning of the individual individual) and not for “man”, which seems to have a sense of humanity in this sense.
As the astronaut would later say, misunderstandings were the constant cause of the exchange.
3. Even Christ was not saved
“Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s”.
It is found in the Bible in three of the four Gospels: Mark, considered the oldest of them, Matthew and Luke.
The phrase is said to be Jesus’ response to a question about whether it was legal to pay taxes to the Roman rulers. Even today, this is interpreted by Christians as justifying the need to respect earthly laws and authorities.
However, according to historian Andre Leonardo Chevitarese, professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and author of the book “Jesus of Nazareth: what his history says about him,” this expression used by Jesus is not correct.
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Experts also question some of the revelations attributed to Jesus of Nazareth in the Gospels.
In fact, similar quotations are found in apocryphal gospels such as those of Thomas and Egerton, leading scholars to believe that it is a later creation.
“In Egerton, the phrase is spread separately, in another context, which suggests that the story in Mark is not original, but a creation of the evangelist,” Ms Cevitares told BBC News Brazil.
In any case, however different the story may appear, the message remains true.
“The central theme of the story appears to be entirely genuine, namely the advice to the officials about whether or not to pay taxes,” the historian said.
4. What the last emperor of Brazil did not say
“If I were not emperor, I would prefer to be a schoolmaster. I know nothing nobler than to guide young minds, to prepare men for the future.”
The phrase is attributed to the last emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro II (1825-1891). It generally appears to recognize the king’s human virtues. So far so good. The problem is that, contrary to what has been claimed, this sentence is not in any line of his diary.
“Everyone says he wrote this sentence in his diary, but it’s nowhere,” Paulo Ressuti, a biographer, researcher and author of many figures in the Brazilian monarchy, told BBC News Brazil’s Emperors.
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The last emperor of Brazil is said to have preferred to be a schoolteacher rather than wear the crown, something scholars have found missing in his writings.
According to Ressuti, the closest he comes to it is the reference in which he says that he was “born to devote himself to letters and science rather than to exercise political office.”
“If he had to choose something, he would be president or minister rather than emperor, because, according to him, he would have more time to study and devote himself to what he really wanted,” he would have declared. the king
“He is said to have been a teacher in France, and to have spoken of the Baron de Rio Franco [le diplomate José Maria da Silva Paranhos Júnior (1845-1912)] wrote it”, the researcher adds. “But Don Pedro did not record it anywhere”.
5. Create a black callout
“If they don’t have roti let them eat biryani”.
According to the most popular version, Queen Marie-Antoinette (1755-1793), when the French people were starving and had no bread, uttered this sentimental sentence.
But everything suggests that this was an invention, created to strengthen the bad reputation of the king with the people of the time. Historian Jacques Barzun (1907-2012) once said that this story – or variations of it – circulated in Europe like an old joke long before Marie-Antoinette was born.
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Enemies of Queen Marie Antoinette are said to have convinced the French that their sovereign was insensitive to their difficulties.
This sentence was immortalized by the book “Les Confessions” by the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778).
In the sixth volume of the autobiographical work, Rousseau says that he once liked bread with wine.
“Finally, I remembered the story of a great princess who was told that the peasants had no bread, and replied, ‘Let them eat brioche.’
He did not mention the name of this noble lady.
But it may not be about Antoinette, because if “Les Confessions” was not published until 1782 (after the author’s death), the texts were written in the 1760s, so that the future queen of France was still a child.
6. Improved version
“If I have seen more, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants”.
Isaac Newton (1641-1727), right? It is true that the great English physicist who goes down in history as the founder of the law of gravitation wrote this modest phrase, but it was not his original idea.
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English scientist Isaac Newton is said to have perfected a phrase uttered by one of his colleagues many years earlier.
As historians Bohler and George point out, Newton used the expression in a letter to his colleague Robert Hooke (1635–1703).
English scientist Robert Burton (1577-1640) had a similar idea in his book “The Anatomy of Melancholy” published before Newton’s birth. He was also familiar with the work of Burton, the father of the theory of gravity.
The original sentence was “Pygmies who lean on the shoulders of giants see more than giants.”
She is also not original. According to Boller and George, similar constructions are found in 12th-century works and 6th-century texts. In other words, as the phrase suggests, there have been waves of writers inspired by previous waves of giants.
7. Another case of bad publicity
The young Louis XIV (1638-1715), then at the height of his absolutism, is said to have uttered this sentence.
Boller and George, in their book, note that this happened when he entered the Parlement of Paris, interrupting a debate that was going on there.
However, although this phrase helps high school students memorize French absolute principles, there is no evidence that it actually happened.
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The so-called ‘Sun King’ is credited with the self-proclaimed French government that stands today as a symbol of total despotism, but experts believe he didn’t mean it.
“There is no evidence that he did, but he certainly believed the words he was told,” say historians Boller and George.
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