I have a little desktop calendar: every morning I flip the page and read my new quote. I love this way of starting the productive part of my day. I read the quote, get inspired, and then I begin to write, first a brain dump and then my blog.
Quotes can be wonderful. But only when they are not misquoted.
On Wednesday I wrote about a quote that had recently come up on my calendar. As the quote was a stand alone, I took it literally. There was no context, nor did I search for one. I assumed the publishers of desktop calendar had done due diligence.
Never assume.
It turns out the quote may, or may not have been, from a satire. If indeed it was supposed to be read as a satirical comment, then the thoughts that one would attach to it would be quite different.
Now, it the particular case of Wednesday’s post, we had a rousing discussion. It worked out as a great starting point for talking about personal satisfaction versus personal responsibility. Turns out many of us know a person or three who has chosen satisfaction over responsibility. And we all know people who have clearly chosen responsibility over satisfaction…
But the real point is, be careful what you share online.
Make sure you aren’t just blindly copying and pasting something.
Make sure you’ve thought about what you choose to post to the world.
I know I am going to be a bit more careful before I blindly add another’s thoughts to my posts.
Just because something looks pretty doesn’t mean you Blindly share
Waking up on the Wrong Side of 50 
I agree, LA. It’s definitely good practice to check quotes and other info before taking them at face value. I’ve often been surprised when checking a source and having to change the way I had planned to write something or include something. But I usually learn more along the way.
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It’s all a learning experience. And that’s ok
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Yes, trust but verify!
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Never hurts to check the source
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Exactly 💯%
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It all worked out in the end, but a great reminder always. Bradbury was an academic and had a lot to say about the state of academia as it transitioned in England. I would venture to guess much of his work and satire is based on reality at the time. Given that, the “quote” posted from his character Howard may have a very literal background given the time/setting of that particular novel: early 1970’s.
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Another good point…if it was the 70s, and the whole me generation, it could have been that…
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Whether or not the quote was in context — you had a good blog and it was a great conversation starter.
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In the end, it worked out well as a conversation starter, so yup
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How can any of us be perfect all of the time? We are all human, we all make miscalculations, mistakes and even when we are diligent in doing all the research before publication on our blogs we can miss something.
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Personally, I wrote to invoke discussion which I did. But people continually share some pretty stupid stuff
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Hummmm… sounds about normal.
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😉
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Indeed, and agreed. 👍
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We’ve all copied and pasted and gotten things out of contest. We assume everyone who posts double checks. When the truth is we ALL forget to double check .
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Some people are worse at it than others though
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I figure quotes are food for thought, so this one served its purpose. If you misinterpreted the author that’s too bad, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have used the quote, maybe “Attributed to ….”?
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I’m ok with the quote, Eva use I did want to start a discussion. I would have framed the post differently, but it was still a great conversation
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Good advice!
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That’s one of my pet peeves about social media: how easily it spreads false information and downright lies. We don’t mean to do that when we share a post or meme without doing our “due diligence” but that’s exactly what happens.
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That’s exactly my point. In my case, it was really no harm no foul because we had a great forum on the topic. But I often read things people have shared on Facebook and I wonder if they really understand and have thought aboit what was shared.
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It’s tough. When I was on FB, I was guilty of blindly sharing a misquote or two.
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We all do it…but we really need to be careful
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There’s a quote about writing that I’m writing about which is variously attributed to F Scott Fitzgerald and Somerset Maughan. As far as I can ascertain, it’s the latter, so I’m going with that while being prepared for someone to produce irrefutable proof that I’m wrong 😀
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😉there’s a Eleanor Roosevelt’s quote that people claim wasn’t coined by her…who knows!
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100% Agree 🙂
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