Two more misquotes

Misattributed lines fail in more than one way. Nietzsche's dancing sentence is filed with the source 'no work by Nietzsche'. Sagan's 'somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known' is Sharon Begley in Newsweek, writing about him, not a sentence he published. The notes are doing different jobs: one is a modern sentence in an old costume, one is a reporter's line later remembered as the subject's voice. Neither becomes his because it sounds like the public idea of him.

“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”

Friedrich Nietzsche · Genealogy and perspectivism

societymindmeaning

Misattributed

Meaning & application

“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”

Carl Sagan · Thinkers beyond philosophy

knowledgemeaning

Misattributed

Meaning & application

Mini check

Sagan said extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Which history of that sentence is right?

He popularised the wording. Laplace, and later Truzzi, had already asked for proof to match the strangeness.He invented the standard in Cosmos, and no earlier writer had tied strange claims to a heavier burden of proof.A Newsweek caption coined it in 1977, and Sagan never used the line in Cosmos or in Broca's Brain at all.It means a familiar claim needs no evidence once any working scientist has repeated it aloud in public.

"I feel sure the quote is ancient, so it is ancient." What went wrong?

Feeling sure was treated as evidence of how old the text is.Ancient texts are said to be undatable by any method we have.Feelings are said to be always false, with no true one left.A manuscript date was found and then set aside unused.

Try it today

When a line sounds exactly like someone, treat that feeling as a reason to check, not as a source.

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