What is the most popular scene in the Bible? Adam and Eve biting the apple. It’s not there.
Plato never wrote his most famous line: ‘Only the dead have seen the end of war.’
Don Quichote de la Mancha never said: ‘Let the dogs bark, Sancho. It’s sign we are on track.’
Voltaire’s best-known line was not said or written by him: ‘I do not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel never wrote: ‘All theory is grey, my friend, but green is the tree of life.’
Sherlock Holmes never said: ‘Elementary, my dear Watson.’
In none of his books or pamphlets did Lenin write: ‘The ends justify the means.’
Bertolt Brecht was not the author of his most oft-cited poem: ‘First they came for the Communists / and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Communist …’
And neither was Jorge Luis Borges the author of his best-known poem: ‘If I could live my life over / I would try to make more mistakes …’
stem: eduardo galeano
perspectief: today, april 23, world book day, it wouldn’t hurt to recall that the history of literature is an unceasing paradox
titel: fame is baloney
bron: children of the days: a calendar of human history (2013, transl. mark fried)
mopw: meerstemmige encyclopedie / appel