Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities Can Make You Commit Atrocities

Voltaire? Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan? Desmond MacCarthy? Sissela Bok? Joseph Wood Krutch? Norman L. Torrey? Marvin Lowenthal? Henry Hazlitt? Richard Dawkins? Apocryphal?

Dear Quote Investigator: A system that forces people to embrace absurd beliefs causes damage to their processes of rational thought. These impaired people are more likely to act illogically and destructively. With encouragement they may act barbarously. Here are three instances from a family of related sayings:

(1) Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

(2) People will continue to commit atrocities as long as they continue to believe absurdities.

(3) If we believe absurdities we shall commit atrocities.

The famous French philosopher Voltaire (pen name of François-Marie Arouet) supposedly made one of these remarks, but I have been unable to find a precise citation. Would you please explore the provenance of these sayings?

Quote Investigator: Researchers have been unable to find an exact match for any of these statements in the works of Voltaire. There is a partial match using the word “unjust” instead of “atrocities”. Here is the original French statement followed by three possible translations:[1]1767 (Letters dated 1765), Collection des Lettres sur les Miracles: Écrites a Geneve, et a Neufchatel, Voltaire, Letter XI, Ecrite par Mr. Théro à Mr. Covelle (Robert Covelle), Start Page 145, … Continue reading

1765: Certainement qui est en droit de vous rendre absurde, est en droit de vous rendre injuste

Translation 01: Certainly, whoever has the right to make you absurd has the right to make you unjust

Translation 02: Truly, whoever can make you look absurd can make you act unjustly

Translation 03: Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices

The line above appeared within letter number eleven published in 1765 in Voltaire’s work “Collection des Lettres sur les Miracles” (“Collection of Letters on Miracles”). A larger excerpt appears further below.

Pertinent matches in English using the word “atrocities” began to appear by 1914. Voltaire usually received credit for these sayings, and they form a natural family although the precise phrasings and meanings vary. The following overview with dates shows the evolution:

1914: As long as people continue to believe absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities (Spoken by a fictional version of Voltaire)

1933: Men will continue to commit atrocities as long as they continue to believe absurdities (Described as “formula of Voltaire”)

1936: Men will continue to commit atrocities as long as they continue to believe absurdities (Attributed to Voltaire)

1937: If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities (Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan)

1944: Men will be brutal so long as they believe absurdities (Attributed to Voltaire)

1946: People who believe in absurdities will commit atrocities (Attributed to a great thinker)

1960: Certainly any one who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices. (Translation of Voltaire by Norman L. Torrey)

1963: Those who can persuade us to believe absurdities can make us commit atrocities (Described as a dictum of Voltaire by Norman L. Torrey)

1977: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities (Attributed to Voltaire)

Here are selected citations in chronological order.

Continue reading Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities Can Make You Commit Atrocities

References

References
1 1767 (Letters dated 1765), Collection des Lettres sur les Miracles: Écrites a Geneve, et a Neufchatel, Voltaire, Letter XI, Ecrite par Mr. Théro à Mr. Covelle (Robert Covelle), Start Page 145, Quote Page 150 and 151, Published A Neufchatel.(Google Books Full View) link

We Are Taught To Fly in the Air Like Birds, and To Swim in the Water Like the Fishes; But How To Live on the Earth We Don’t Know

George Bernard Shaw? Martin Luther King? Maxim Gorky? Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan? C. E. M. Joad? Walter Winchell? Jack Paar? Anonymous?

Quote Investigator: Technological progress today is shockingly vertiginous, but advancements toward human reconciliation and harmony are glacially slow. A saying from the previous century treats this topic with poignancy:

Now that we have learned to fly the air like birds, swim under water like fish, we lack one thing—to learn to live on earth as human beings.

This saying has been attributed to the famous playwright George Bernard Shaw and the civil rights champion Martin Luther King. Would you please explore its provenance?

Quote Investigator: QI has found no substantive evidence that George Bernard Shaw wrote or spoke this statement. Martin Luther King did employ this saying in his Nobel Prize speech, but it was already in circulation. The earliest citation known to QI attributed the saying to the prominent Russian author Maxim Gorky who credited an anonymous peasant. Here is the key passage from the 1925 book “Social Classes in Post-War Europe” by Lothrop Stoddard. Emphasis added by QI:[1]1925, Social Classes in Post-War Europe by Lothrop Stoddard, Quote Page 26, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York. (Verified with scans; thanks to Charles Doyle and the University of Georgia … Continue reading

Not long ago Maxim Gorky stated that the Russian peasant profoundly hates the town and all its inhabitants. According to the Russian muzhik, the city is the source of all evil. Modern “progress” does not appeal to him, the intellectuals and their inventions being regarded with deep suspicion. Gorky relates how, after addressing a peasant audience on the subject of science and the marvels of technical inventions, he was criticized by a peasant spokesman in the following manner: “Yes, yes, we are taught to fly in the air like birds, and to swim in the water like the fishes; but how to live on the earth we don’t know.” In Gorky’s opinion Russia’s future lies in peasant hands.

This evidence was indirect because it was not written by Gorky, and QI has not yet located this statement in his oeuvre. Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Continue reading We Are Taught To Fly in the Air Like Birds, and To Swim in the Water Like the Fishes; But How To Live on the Earth We Don’t Know

References

References
1 1925, Social Classes in Post-War Europe by Lothrop Stoddard, Quote Page 26, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York. (Verified with scans; thanks to Charles Doyle and the University of Georgia library system)