Arthur Schopenhauer – Quote Investigator®

First They Ignore You, Then They Laugh at You, Then They Attack You, Then You Win

Mohandas Gandhi? Jean Cocteau? Robbie Williams? Julian Beck? Earl B. Morgan? Tony Benn? Peter D. Jones? Louis Agassiz? Arthur Schopenhauer?

Dear Quote Investigator: Mahatma Gandhi famously employed nonviolent strategies during the struggle for Indian independence. A quotation often attributed to him asserts that popular movements pass through four stages:

First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they attack you. Then you win.

I have been unable to find a good citation. Are these really the words of Gandhi?

Quote Investigator: Several researchers have attempted to find these words in Gandhi’s oeuvre without success. The saying was ascribed to him by 1982, but Gandhi died decades earlier in 1948.

The earliest known substantive match occurred in a speech delivered by Nicholas Klein at a convention of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America in 1918. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:^[1]1918, Documentary History of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America: 1916-1918, Proceedings of the Third Biennial Convention of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, (Held in Baltimore, … Continue reading

And my friends, in this story you have a history of this entire movement. First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you.

And that is what is going to happen to the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America.

Typically, a successful social movement is based on a proposition extolled as a truth. For example, the Gandhian movement was based on the assertion that India should be an independent nation. These propositions face opposition and a harsh reception. QI believes that the saying under analysis fits into a large and evolving family of statements about the multi-stage difficulties obstructing new ideas and truths.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Continue reading First They Ignore You, Then They Laugh at You, Then They Attack You, Then You Win

References

References
↑1	1918, Documentary History of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America: 1916-1918, Proceedings of the Third Biennial Convention of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, (Held in Baltimore, Maryland on May 13 to May 18, 1918), Address given in Fourth Session on Wednesday, May 15, 1918, Address of Nicholas Klein, Start Page 51, Quote Page 53, Published by Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. (Special note on dating: The dating on the document was confusing. In some locations the year 1919 was listed. In other locations 1918 was listed. I checked the day of the week for May 15, 1918 and May 15, 1919 and only the earlier date matched the specified weekday of Wednesday) (Google Books Full View) link

Truth Passes Through Three Stages: First, It Is Ridiculed. Second, It Is Violently Opposed. Third, It Is Accepted As Self-Evident

Arthur Schopenhauer? Charles Lyell? Louis Agassiz? J. Marion Sims? Apocryphal?

Dear Quote Investigator: True statements and ideas are often not recognized initially; instead, the process of acceptance is long and circuitous. One popular adage highlights three stages for the recognition of truth:

Ridicule
Violent opposition
Acceptance as self-evident

The prominent German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer is usually credited with an apothegm of this type, but I have been unable to find good supporting evidence. Is this ascription accurate?

Quote Investigator: QI and other researchers have been unable to find a matching adage in Arthur Schopenhauer’s writings. Yet, he did craft a different statement about truth that mentioned three stages. His humorous and melancholic remark appeared in the 1819 book “Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung” (“The World as Will and Representation”). Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:^[1]1819, Title: Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung; 4 Bücher, nebst einem Anhange, der die Kritik der Kantischen Philosophie enthält, Author: Arthur Schopenhauer, Quote Page xvi, Publisher: Brockhaus, … Continue reading

Der Wahrheit zu Theil ward, der nur ein kurzes Siegesfest beschieden ist, zwischen den beiden langen Zeiträumen, wo sie als paradox verdammt und als trivial geringgeschätzt wird.

Here is one possible translation into English:^[2]2012, The World as Will and Representation by Arthur Schopenhauer, Translation from German to English by E. F. J. Payne, Volume 1 of 2, Section: Preface to the first edition, Quote Page xvii, Dover … Continue reading

To truth only a brief celebration of victory is allowed between the two long periods during which it is condemned as paradoxical, or disparaged as trivial.

In the statement above, acceptance occurred during stage two instead of stage three. Also, the other two stages diverged from the adage under examination. Indeed, the earliest citation found by QI ascribing the popular adage to Schopenhauer appeared in 1913. Yet, the famous philosopher died in 1860; hence, the linkage was very weak.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Continue reading Truth Passes Through Three Stages: First, It Is Ridiculed. Second, It Is Violently Opposed. Third, It Is Accepted As Self-Evident

References

References
↑1	1819, Title: Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung; 4 Bücher, nebst einem Anhange, der die Kritik der Kantischen Philosophie enthält, Author: Arthur Schopenhauer, Quote Page xvi, Publisher: Brockhaus, Leipzig. (Google Books Full View) link
↑2	2012, The World as Will and Representation by Arthur Schopenhauer, Translation from German to English by E. F. J. Payne, Volume 1 of 2, Section: Preface to the first edition, Quote Page xvii, Dover Publications, Inc., New York. (Translation originally published in 1958 by The Falcon’s Wing Press, Indian Hills, Colorado)(Google Books Preview; accessed Nov 18, 2016)

Research Is to See What Everybody Else Has Seen and Think What Nobody Has Thought

Arthur Schopenhauer? Albert Szent-Györgyi? Erwin Schrödinger? Anonymous?

Dear Quote Investigator: There is a brilliant remark about scientific, artistic, and intellectual progress. Here are four versions:

Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and think what nobody has thought.

Genius is seeing what everyone else sees and thinking what no one else has thought.

Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.

The task is, not so much to see what no one has seen yet; but to think what nobody has thought yet, about what everybody sees.

This saying has been attributed to the prominent German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Erwin Schrödinger, and the Nobel-Prize-winning physiologist Albert Szent-Györgyi. Would you please explore this topic?

Quote Investigator: In 1851 Arthur Schopenhauer published a two volume work written in German titled “Parerga und Paralipomena” which contained a collection of long essays together with a series of short numbered passages. The piece numbered 76 included the following. Boldface has been added to excerpts:^[1] 1851, Title: Parerga und Paralipomena: Kleine Philosophische Schriften, Author: Arthur Schopenhauer, Volume 2, Section: 76, Quote Page 93, Publisher: A. W. Hayn, Berlin. (Google Books Full View) link

Daher ist die Aufgabe nicht sowohl zu sehen was noch keiner gesehen hat, als bei Dem was Jeder sieht, zu denken was noch Keiner gedacht hat. Darum auch gehört so sehr viel mehr dazu, ein Philosoph als ein Physiker zu seyn.

Here are two possible translations into English:

1) So the problem is not so much to see what nobody has yet seen, as to think what nobody has yet thought concerning that which everybody sees. Also for this reason, it takes so very much more to be a philosopher than a physicist.

2) Therefore the problem is not so much, to see what nobody has yet seen, but rather to think concerning that which everybody sees, what nobody has yet thought. For this reason, it also takes very much more to be a philosopher than a physicist.

Albert Szent-Györgyi printed a concise instance of this saying in his 1957 book “Bioenergetics”; however, he placed the statement between quotation marks which signaled that he had not originated the expression. A detailed citation is given further below. The attribution to Erwin Schrödinger appears to be spurious.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Continue reading Research Is to See What Everybody Else Has Seen and Think What Nobody Has Thought

References

References
↑1	1851, Title: Parerga und Paralipomena: Kleine Philosophische Schriften, Author: Arthur Schopenhauer, Volume 2, Section: 76, Quote Page 93, Publisher: A. W. Hayn, Berlin. (Google Books Full View) link