The Antidote for Fake Quotes Is….

This is fake. What is it about fake quotes and numbers?

The quote above is so fake that it made me create an eighth category: Motivational Poster Fake. It ain’t real; it also ain’t deep. It shows up in print inspiration books in the 1980s. Somehow we can blame this on boomers, I think

Here’s the updated rating list.. And here’s a list of fake Aristotle quotes.

1. The Real Deal: A quotation from an ancient text which is extant.
2. Aegis Real: Like the head of the Gorgon Medusa, these quotations have been decontextualized and passed down embedded in some other ancient author. They have been attributed to the same author for a long time, but who really knows.
3. Delphian Graffiti: A quote of real antiquity, but whose attribution has been shifted for different valence in modern contexts (e.g., “know thyself” has been attributed to almost everyone)
4. Rhetorica ad Fictum Fake: (with thanks to Hannah Čulík-Baird) Aristotle and Quintilian think it is just fine to make up quotations for persuasive reasons. This actually undermines many of the attributions we have from antiquity. So, this is the kind of fake that is really old and may just be too good to be true.
5. Cylon-Helen: Just as Herodotus and Stesichorus report that ‘real’ Helen was replaced with a near-exact copy for the ten years of the Trojan War, so too some quotations are transformed through translation (Latin into Greek, Greek into Latin; or into Modern languages). The intervention of an outside force changes the cultural status of the words.
6. Peisistratos Fake: A quote that is not misattributed or transformed, but merely just dressed up and falsely claimed as antique for political reasons (the tyrant Peisistratos pulled some pretty crazy stunts to get into power). These quotations have no sources in antiquity and are used to enforce modern points of view.
7. Racist Fake: Quotations of the Peisistratus type but with the particular intention of enforcing a racist world view.
8. Motivational Poster Fake: This kind of quote sounds good, but has nothing to it. It is anti-Philosophical in its gooey sententiousness which values seeming over being to such an extent that it makes us all dumber. Also, it is fake without any roots in antiquity

Some real quotations;

Aristotle, Rhetoric 2 1381 a

“A friend is someone who loves and is loved back. Friends believe they are friends and see their relationship to one another in this way. Because of this, a friend is someone who is a partner in our happiness and a partner in our sorrow not for any other reason but for friendship.”

φίλος δ᾿ ἐστὶν ὁ φιλῶν καὶ ἀντιφιλούμενος. οἴονται δὲ φίλοι εἶναι οἱ οὕτως ἔχειν οἰόμενοι πρὸς ἀλλήλους. 3τούτων δὲ ὑποκειμένων ἀνάγκη φίλον εἶναι τὸν συνηδόμενον τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς καὶ συναλγοῦντα τοῖς λυπηροῖς μὴ διά τι ἕτερον ἀλλὰ δι᾿ ἐκεῖνον.

Aristotle*, Nicomachean Ethics 8.5 (1157b11)

“Disengagement destroys many friendships”

πολλὰς δὴ φιλίας ἀπροσηγορία διέλυσεν.

*This is Aristotle quoting an unknown source!

Plutarch, On Having Many Friends 1

“Shouldn’t we also face up to mockery because, although we have not even made one real friend, we are afraid we might have too many?”

ἆρ᾿ οὖν οὐχὶ καὶ ἡμῖν ἄν τις ἐπιχλευάσειεν ὅτι μηδέπω μίαν φιλίαν κεκτημένοι βεβαίως φοβούμεθα μὴ λάθωμεν εἰς πολυφιλίαν ἐμπεσόντες;