>From: kelley <star.matrix at verizon.net>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>Subject: Verifying the source of a quotation
>Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2002 15:55:26 -0400
>
>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
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