<P> <A href="http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=moa;cc=moa;sid=ce97e3b008452f4c8d5484b927f6dbf1;q1=vulgar;idno=AJK2188.0001.001;view=image;seq=0156">http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=moa;cc=moa;sid=ce97e3b008452f4c8d5484b927f6dbf1;q1=vulgar;idno=AJK2188.0001.001;view=image;seq=0156</A>
<P>or go here and do search for vulgar
<P><A href="http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/b/bib/bibperm?q1=ajk2188">http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/b/bib/bibperm?q1=ajk2188</A>
<P>
<P> <B><I>kelley <star.matrix@verizon.net></I></B> wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">Hey all,<BR><BR>The request, below, is from a really great guy. It's just an oddball piece <BR>of trivia that's stumped him (and others). Any ideas as to the source of <BR>the quote? He called his public library and they figure it's from Beecher, <BR>but don't know where to start looking.<BR><BR>Thanks,<BR><BR>Kelley<BR>----fowarded message----<BR><BR>A couple of days ago one of the daily joke mailings included a quotation I <BR>liked that I was unfamiliar with:<BR><BR>"A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than <BR>himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces <BR>aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man <BR>aspires."<BR><BR>The attribution was to Joseph Conrad. However, based on a recent thread <BR>(maybe it was here but I think it was in a newsgroup), I decided to verify <BR>both the wording (suspiciou!
s !
of the misplaced "which") and the source, lest <BR>it turn out that it was something being put in the mouth of a character the <BR>author was mocking for his pomposity, à la Polonius.<BR><BR>So I went to Google and found that the quote is attributed to Joseph Conrad <BR>by some, to Henry Ward Beecher (predating Conrad considerably) by others, <BR>to Marcus Aurelius by one source, and to "anonymous" by yet another. Quite <BR>a selection for a passage I'd never encountered previously.<BR><BR>Of course, none of these sources actually cited a work--they were all just <BR>derivative collections of inspirational quotations.<BR><BR>So, now that I've exhausted Google's sources, short of taking a course in <BR>Latin and spending a month at the Bodleian (sp?), what's the best way to go <BR>about tracking something like this down?<BR><BR>Dick <BR></BLOCKQUOTE><p><br><hr size=1><b>Do You Yahoo!?</b><br>
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