There are a lot of false quotes by Albert Einstein and CS Lewis on social media, and there have always been "Bible" quotes or "In the Middle Ages/Shakespeare's Time" explanations. Have fun adding to that list for sayings or phrases. There is a strong human tendency to associate one's own ideas with someone thought to be smart or good.
I get a lot of Impressionist art popping up in front of me, likely because I have clicked "like" on others. The fake ones, the ones by modern artists that even I can tell are not from the 1800s, are attributed to Van Gogh. I have not seen anyone try to ride a Monet wave, or Toulouse Lautrec or anyone else, always Van Gogh. I attach no particular significance to this other than people liking VVG and considering him the best piggyback.
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Reminds me of this exchange from "Fiddler on the Roof":
Tevye: As Abraham said, "I am a stranger in a strange land."
Mendel: Moses said that.
Tevye: I'm sorry. As King David said, "I am slow of speech and slow of tongue."'
Mendel: That was also Moses!
Tevye: For a man slow of tongue, he talked a lot!
"I really didn't say everything I said," - Yogi Berra
My mother posted something attributed to "Plato" the other day. I could tell right away that it wasn't a legitimate attribution because it was about a concern that wasn't present in ancient Greece -- empathy, a word that kind of looks like Greek but was actually coined in the 19th century.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/empathy
The ancient Greek word being modified into a new word by the 19th century thinker actually meant the opposite: a deep inner sense of malice towards another.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B5%CE%BC%CF%80%CE%AC%CE%B8%CE%B5%CE%B9%CE%B1
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