This Is Why I Bought Bartlett’s!

Back when I bought my copy of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations: A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs Traced to Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature (17th Edition), I was excited to have it. I’ve not used it enough, but I’ve broken it out the last couple days; doing what I have today, I found the source quote of a maxim that I’ve long espoused. I state it as:

The level of a man’s intelligence is the degree to which he agrees with me.

That’s pretty close to how Tom Clancy stated it in one of his novels. I think the source, though, falls from François, Duc de La Rochefoucald:

We rarely find that people have good sense unless they agree with us.

Reflections, maxim 347

Excellent!

Posted July 14th, 2006 in Booklogging, Fooftatsic.

5 comments:

  1. Coldstone:

    Maybe a better maxim is:
    “The level of a man’s conformity is the degree to which he agrees with me.”

    Of course maybe a better maxim to live by is:
    “Judge not, lest ye be judged”

  2. Geof F. Morris:

    I find the “Judge not, lest ye be judged,” maxim to be one of the most misunderstood verses of the Bible. :)

  3. Coldstone:

    Yeah, I just threw it out there because I couldn’t think of anything else :)
    I actually came across your site installing some blogging software. It was in the install instructions for GreyMatter. I don’t mean to be nosy, but are you using it? Your site really cool.

  4. Geof F. Morris:

    If you look around and pay attention, you’ll see that, no, I haven’t used GM in years.

    And I would email you about this, but you’ve chosen not to leave an email with any of your comments. Unless you choose to do so with your next comment, I will start ignoring you. Thanks. :)

  5. Geof F. Morris's Indiana Jones School of Management:

    Thoughts on Never Eat Alone…

    As I noted, I’ve been reading Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time thanks to the generosity of Jonathan, who let me borrow his copy. I think that Jon knew what he was doing when he gave it to me. [But then a…

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