There’s nothing like ending a hard fought intellectual battle with a pithy uplifting quote by a famous historical figure. Writers and speakers do it all the time. It’s a way of validating their thoughts as though they were Gospel. Unfortunately, far too many of the quotes that have entered the common vernacular were actually never said by the person to whom they are attributed.
In a recent op-ed for the New York Times, Brian Morton, director of the graduate program in fiction at Sarah Lawrence College, righted a few wrong famous quotations by such nonviolent luminaries as Gandhi, Thoreau, and Mandela. In the case of the former, Morton wrote:
Gandhi’s words have been tweaked a little too in recent years. Perhaps you’ve noticed a bumper sticker that purports to quote him: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” When you first come across it, this does sound like something Gandhi would have said. But when you think about it a little, it starts to sound more like … a bumper sticker. Displayed brightly on the back of a Prius, it suggests that your responsibilities begin and end with your own behavior. It’s apolitical, and a little smug.
Sure enough, it turns out there is no reliable documentary evidence for the quotation. The closest verifiable remark we have from Gandhi is this: “If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. … We need not wait to see what others do.”
Here, Gandhi is telling us that personal and social transformation go hand in hand, but there is no suggestion in his words that personal transformation is enough. In fact, for Gandhi, the struggle to bring about a better world involved not only stringent self-denial and rigorous adherence to the philosophy of nonviolence; it also involved a steady awareness that one person, alone, can’t change anything, an awareness that unjust authority can be overturned only by great numbers of people working together with discipline and persistence.
It may seem disappointing at first that Gandhi never said something as wonderfully trite as “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” But upon further reflection, as Morton notes, it’s actually for the best that we look to the real words of our heroes.
Thoreau, Gandhi, Mandela — it’s easy to see why their words and ideas have been massaged into gauzy slogans. They were inspirational figures, dreamers of beautiful dreams. But what goes missing in the slogans is that they were also sober, steely men. Each of them knew that thoroughgoing change, whether personal or social, involves humility and sacrifice, and that the effort to change oneself or the world always exacts a price.
As Albert Einstein once said (or most likely didn’t), “If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.”
Right on.
Another interesting point is that so often on those bumper stickers, we see Gandhi misspelled as Ghandi. In the words of Tom Hastings, “Gandhi, not Ghana.” Maybe I misquote Tom…
Hah, that is a good quote!
Funny, I don’t see the “Be the change” quote as apolitical at all. I see it as a call to arms: you can’t wait for someone else to make change happen, you have to do it yourself. That and it conveys the integration of ends and means that Gandhi was so focussed on.
I agree with Justin. The quote, whether said by Gandhi or paraphrased from longer remarks, does not imply that personal transformation is all that is required, but rather that change begins with self-transformation. And self-transformation is neither simple or apolitical. Nor is it smug to assert this political reality, as both Mr. Farrell and Mr. Morton suggest. In fact, I find their dismissal of the concept that self-transformation is a necessary part of social transformation on the grounds that it is short, and therefore quotable and printable on a bumpersticker quite a bit more available to the criticism of smuggness!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. For the record, I own one of said bumper stickers and I’m not ashamed to display it. My point with this post was to merely highlight an interesting fact: that some of these famous quotations are not accurate. I also think Morton has an important point about the seriousness that is lost in the transformation of a quote to a slogan.
Another example of this oversight just occurred with the new King memorial. There’s an inscription that quotes King as saying “I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness” when, in fact, the real quote is: “If you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness.” Maya Angelou, who was a consultant on the memorial, was upset by this truncated inscription, arguing that it diminishes King’s words and makes him seem arrogant and egotistical.
It may seem like a small concern, but King’s words have been censored and sanitized enough. On one level it is great to get these messages out to the masses, but we should be wary of sacrificing context for quotability.
Most readers of this site won’t have a problem understanding or seeking out the deeper meanings behind such quotes, but for the average person, these quotes are all they know. So it’s our job to remind of the greater substance behind them.
Very good. I agree – to make a quotable aphorism from a thoughtful complex remark, may leave behind the details ( where the devil resides) but does offer a common starting point. My own personal transformation is to gain awareness that arguments and disagreements occur with friends and family because i have failed to take into account their perspective. The personal IS political, guys.
Gandhi is the best behaviorist. Orderly and non-expensive, and most likely to fit with Elizabeth Warren’s plans? Could we list the numbers of those who would be in this camp? This would really be effective!