[Ads-l] Quote: Give me a good fruitful error any time, full of seeds (Probably not Vilfredo Pareto)

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

The 12th edition of "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations" (1948) credits
the famous Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto with the following
remark:

Give me a fruitful error any time, full of seeds, bursting with its
own corrections. You can keep your sterile truth for yourself.

Later editions of "Bartlett's" also credit Pareto. Unfortunately, none
of these reference works provide a supporting citation. The note
"Comment on Kepler" is appended to the text. I received a request to
trace this quotation.

The ascription to Pareto is incorrect in my opinion. The earliest
match appeared in a 1945 quotation collection titled "The Practical
Cogitator: Or, The Thinker's Anthology" by Charles P. Curtis Jr. and
Ferris Greenslet.

Confusion occurred because the target quotation was located within an
entry for Vilfredo Pareto. The entry began with a translation of text
written by Pareto about the scientist Johannes Kepler. This text was
followed by the target quotation which was written using a slightly
smaller font. The font change signaled that the target quotation was
not written by Pareto. Instead, it was commentary written by the
editors Curtis and Greenslet.

Here is a link to the Quote Investigator article:
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2024/08/02/fruitful-error/

Feedback welcome
Garson O'Toole

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