--- kelley <star.matrix at verizon.net> wrote:
> Hey all,
>
> The request, below, is from a really great guy. It's
> just an oddball piece
> of trivia that's stumped him (and others). Any ideas
> as to the source of
> the quote? He called his public library and they
> figure it's from Beecher,
> but don't know where to start looking.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Kelley
> ----fowarded message----
>
> A couple of days ago one of the daily joke mailings
> included a quotation I
> liked that I was unfamiliar with:
>
> "A noble man compares and estimates himself by an
> idea which is higher than
> himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself.
> The one produces
> aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in
> which a vulgar man
> aspires."
>
> The attribution was to Joseph Conrad. However, based
> on a recent thread
> (maybe it was here but I think it was in a
> newsgroup), I decided to verify
> both the wording (suspicious of the misplaced
> "which") and the source, lest
> it turn out that it was something being put in the
> mouth of a character the
> author was mocking for his pomposity, à la Polonius.
>
> So I went to Google and found that the quote is
> attributed to Joseph Conrad
> by some, to Henry Ward Beecher (predating Conrad
> considerably) by others,
> to Marcus Aurelius by one source, and to "anonymous"
> by yet another. Quite
> a selection for a passage I'd never encountered
> previously.
>
> Of course, none of these sources actually cited a
> work--they were all just
> derivative collections of inspirational quotations.
>
> So, now that I've exhausted Google's sources, short
> of taking a course in
> Latin and spending a month at the Bodleian (sp?),
> what's the best way to go
> about tracking something like this down?
>
> Dick
>
===== Kevin Dean Buffalo, NY ICQ: 8616001 AIM: KDean75206 Buffalo Activist Network http://www.buffaloactivist.net http://www.yaysoft.com
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com