Category: Paul Eldridge

Man Is Ready To Die for an Idea, Provided That Idea Is Not Quite Clear To Him

Paul Eldridge? Apocryphal?

Dear Quote Investigator: The willingness to become a martyr in the service of a noble cause is often celebrated, but the U.S. novelist Paul Eldridge voiced a sardonic viewpoint. He suggested that an individual is willing to die for an elevated idea primarily because the idea is unclear. Would you please help me to find a citation.

Quote Investigator: Paul Eldridge published three slightly different versions of this adage:

  • 1925: Man is willing to die for any idea, provided that idea is not quite clear to him.
  • 1943: Man is ready to die for an idea, provided that idea is not quite clear to him.
  • 1965: Man is ready to die for an idea, provided the idea is not clear to him.

As the statement evolved over time the phrase “any idea” was changed to “an idea”. Also, the phrase “willing to” was changed to “ready to”. Further, the word “quite” was deleted.

The first instance appeared in a piece titled “Cornucopiae” in the journal “This Quarter” in 1925. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:[1]1925, This Quarter, Volume 1, Issue 1, Editor: Edward W. Titus et al, Published in Milan, Italy; moved to Paris, France, Article: Cornucopiae by Paul Eldridge, Start Page 176, Quote Page 180, Volume … Continue reading

Man is willing to die for any idea, provided that idea is not quite clear to him.

If we condemn and torture ourselves, rest assured that torture and condemnation please us, at least, for the time being. We are incapable of really hurting ourselves.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Continue reading Man Is Ready To Die for an Idea, Provided That Idea Is Not Quite Clear To Him

References

References
↑1 1925, This Quarter, Volume 1, Issue 1, Editor: Edward W. Titus et al, Published in Milan, Italy; moved to Paris, France, Article: Cornucopiae by Paul Eldridge, Start Page 176, Quote Page 180, Volume 1 originally published in Milan, Italy, Reprinted: 1967, Kraus Reprint Corporation, New York. (Verified with scans at HathiTrust)

Character Is Most Evident by How One Treats Those Who Can Neither Retaliate nor Reciprocate

Paul Eldridge? Anonymous?

Dear Quote Investigator: I noticed that the QI website has an entry for the following expression:

You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.

I believe a similar statement containing the phrase “to retaliate or to reciprocate” was printed in a 1965 book called “Maxims for a Modern Man” by the novelist Paul Eldridge.

Quote Investigator: Thanks for your valuable note. In August 1948 Paul Eldridge published an article titled “Lanterns in the Night” which listed dozens of maxims. Here are three [PEJF]:

40. Evil flows backward swelling its source.

41. A man’s character is most evident by how he treats those who are not in a position either to retaliate or reciprocate.

42. Avarice is fear sheathed in gold.

In 1965 a version of this saying with a slightly different phrasing was printed in “Maxims for a Modern Man” by Paul Eldridge [PEMM]:

A man is most accurately judged by how he treats those who are not in a position either to retaliate or to reciprocate.

In 2000 the reference work “Random House Webster’s Quotationary” reprinted the adage and credited Eldridge with the following acknowledgement [RHWQ]:

PAUL ELDRIDGE (1888-1982).  Maxims for a Modern Man, 1198, 1965.

This post continues with a comment and conclusion.

Continue reading Character Is Most Evident by How One Treats Those Who Can Neither Retaliate nor Reciprocate

You Can Easily Judge the Character of a Man by How He Treats Those Who Can Do Nothing for Him

Ann Landers? Abigail Van Buren? Johann Wolfgang von Goethe? Samuel Johnson? Malcolm Forbes? Paul Eldridge? Charles Haddon Spurgeon? James D. Miles? Dan Reeves?

Dear Quote Investigator: I am attempting to verify the following quotation because it will appear in a forthcoming book, but I have discovered multiple attributions:

You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.

As I searched further I found a similar quotation with additional attributions:

The true measure of an individual is how he treats a person who can do him absolutely no good.

Can you help determine the origin of this saying?

Quote Investigator:  QI agrees that these two expressions and several others can be grouped together because they are semantically closely aligned. Interestingly, members of this set have been employed by (or attributed to) a wide variety of individuals including: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Samuel Johnson, Ann Landers, Abigail Van Buren, Malcolm Forbes, Paul Eldridge, James D. Miles, and Dan Reeves.

The earliest close match for this saying that QI has located appeared in the popular newspaper column of Earl Wilson. He credited the well-known magazine publisher Malcolm Forbes in 1972 [EWMF]:

Remembered Quote: “You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.”—Malcolm S. Forbes.

In 1978 Forbes published a collection of his own quotations called “The Sayings of Chairman Malcolm” [SCMF]. This title was constructed as wordplay on the well-known doctrinal work “The Sayings of Chairman Mao” also called “Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung” or “The Little Red Book”.

A close variant of the saying under investigation was presented in the book and featured prominently in multiple advertisements that appeared in the New Yorker magazine for the collection in 1979 [SCMF] [NYMF]:

“You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who can do nothing for them or to them.”

—from The Sayings of Chairman Malcolm

Today a visitor to the Forbes magazine website can search a quotation database maintained by the publisher called “Thoughts on the Business of Life” that contains more than 10,000 entries. The version of the adage in “The Sayings of Chairman Malcolm” is available in the database [TBMF].

The famous advice giving sisters Abigail Van Buren and Ann Landers used versions of this saying in the 1970s. But QI has not yet located any evidence of use before 1974 for either woman. The attachment of the quotation to the notable figures Samuel Johnson and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe appears to be unsupported by current evidence.

QI has also examined a related saying: If you want to know what a man’s like, look at how he treats his inferiors. Click here to read the other article.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Continue reading You Can Easily Judge the Character of a Man by How He Treats Those Who Can Do Nothing for Him