Quote: Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts

Wed Nov 17 00:26:19 UTC 2010

Thanks for pointing out this quote Victor and showing that Moynihan
credited Alan Greenspan. This post is about the saying attributed to
Bernard Baruch.

Barry Popik said on his website:
"Every man has a right to his own opinion, but no man has a right to
be wrong in his facts” is credited to American financier Bernard M.
Baruch (1870-1965), who probably said it in the 1940s.

Evidence indicates that Barry is correct. His webpage presents
citations back to 1950. Here is an excerpt from an associated press
article that directly quotes Bernard M. Baruch in 1946. The wording of
the saying is slightly different:

Cite: 1946 October 09, Galveston Daily News, [AP article dateline Oct.
8] "Baruch Upholds U.S. Atom Plan; Hits at Wallace", Page 1, Column 3,
Galveston, Texas (NewspaperArchive)

Every man has the right to an opinion but no man has a right to be
wrong in his facts. Nor, above all, to persist in errors as to facts.

The words appear as a free standing quotation credited to Bernard
Baruch in other papers in 1946. Here is an example. Again, the wording
is slightly different:

Cite: 1946 October 25, Rhinelander Daily News, "Democrats Eye 'Sure'
Victory in Two State Districts", [Quote is free standing after the end
of the article] Page 8, Column 3, Rhinelander, Wisconsin.
(NewspaperArchive)

Every man has a right to an opinion but no man has a right to be wrong
in his facts. - Bernard M. Baruch.

Google Books has a match that it dates to 1946. The snippet looks like
it is directly from Bernard Baruch's speech as reported in the
Galveston Daily News:

[Unverified Google Books match] 1946, Proceedings of the Indiana
Academy of Science, Page 8, Volume 56, Indianapolis, Indiana.

http://books.google.com/books?id=ta3NAAAAMAAJ&q=%22wrong+in%22#search_anchor

The only dissension I have located from the attribution to Baruch is a
citation that Google Books claims is dated 1948. This cite credits
someone named Rayburn H. Carrell.

[Unverified Google Books match] 1948, The Texas outlook, Volume 32,
Page 7, Texas State Teachers Association.

Every man has a right to his opinion, but no man has a right to be
wrong in his facts." - Rayburn H. Carrell

http://books.google.com/books?id=UXkVAAAAIAAJ&q=Rayburn#search_anchor

Rotarian magazine in July 1959 has a match for Carrell. This may be
the same person. Here is the information provided:
Rayburn H. Carrell, Rotarian
Life-Insurance Underwriter
Arlington, Texas

http://books.google.com/books?id=KzcEAAAAMBAJ&q=Rayburn#v=snippet&q=Rayburn&f=false

In 1950 a New Jersey newspaper reprinted an article from the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch titled "Wisdom of Bernard Baruch". This article asserts
that Baruch pronounced his memorable words in 1918:

Cite: 1950 June 27, Trenton Evening Times, Wisdom of Bernard Baruch:
>From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Page 14, Trenton, New Jersey.
(GenealogyBank)

Every man has a right to his own opinion; but no man has a right to be
wrong in his facts. - Statement as Chairman, War Industries Board,
1918.

It looks like there is a match in Forbes magazine in 1949 that
attributes the saying to Baruch. I might be able to check this on
microfilm and check the two Google Books matches on paper sometime in
the coming week.

Garson

On Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 2:51 AM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Quote: Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own
>              facts
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The quote "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own
> facts" is widely attributed to Daniel Patrick Moynihan. One person who
> had a big hand in spreading this belief is George Will, who included the
> comment in his turn-of-the-century book. But he is not alone--there are
> multiple references in the Congressional Record and other associated
> papers that attribute the quote to Moynihan. It even appears in Audacity
> of Hope, where the comment is uttered by Moynihan in an exchange with
> another Senator who had claimed entitlement to his own opinion.
>
> Yet, in Moynihan's own words, the quote is not his:
>
> In Came the Revolution (1988), Moynihan wrote: "/Alan Greenspan/, who
> chaired the commission, adopted a simple rule: Each member was entitled
> to his own opinion but not his own facts."
>
> Well, at least, the quote has not been attributed to Mark Twain or
> Dorothy Parker.
>
> But a 1998 publication cited (with a dead link) in Wikiquote, attributed
> the same line to James R. Schlesinger in a 1973 Congressional testimony.
> The latter should be checkable. And, in fact, Barry Popik appears to
> have checked it, as of July 30, 2009:
>
> http://bit.ly/aXPPap
> "Each of us is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts."
>
> OK, the ever-so-slight variation--does that entitle anyone to credit
> Moynihan? As for Schlesinger, was the 1973 hearing his confirmation
> hearing in the Senate? Or did this come up in some other grilling he got
> in Congress?
>
> Popik takes it back further:
>
>> "Every man has a right to his own opinion, but no man has a right to
>> be wrong in his facts” is credited to American financier Bernard M.
>> Baruch (1870-1965), who probably said it in the 1940s.
>
> Popik also lists a number of citations with all three
> attributions--Baruch, going back to 1950 through 1965; Schlesinger to
> 1977-1984; Moynihan to 1987 (indirectly, through a 1994 volume), with
> most (caveat 1998 mentioned in Wikiquote) recent attributions going to
> Moynihan. I don't doubt that Moynihan loved the line--it appeals to a
> pragmatist of Moynihan's caliber.
>
> I find it interesting that most of the 1990s and forward attributions
> are to Moynihan and Schlesinger and Baruch were quickly forgotten, but,
> in particular, no one mentions Moynihan's /own/ attribution of the
> wisecrack to Alan Greenspan.
>
> VS-)
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org