[Ads-l] Request Help Verifying Quote: Misquotation is, in fact, the pride and privilege of the learned

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Great thanks to Dave Wilton who accessed the book "Common
Misquotations" via the Princeton University Firestone Library. Also,
thanks to the archival storage organization ReCAP: Research
Collections and Preservation Consortium.

The book did not list a year of publication, but I determined that the
book was discussed in "The Age" newspaper of Melbourne, Australia on
December 22, 1934. Also, Dave noted that the library checkout card
listed June 4, 1937 as the first checkout date.

Here is a link to the new Quote Investigator article, Dave is acknowledged.

Quote Origin: Misquotation Is the Pride and Privilege of the Learned
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2025/11/23/misquotation-pride/

Feedback welcome,
Garson O'Toole
QuoteInvestigator.com

On Wed, Nov 19, 2025 at 1:30 PM ADSGarson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> According to "The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations" the remark
> in the subject line appeared in the introduction of the book "Common
> Misquotations" (1934) by Hesketh Pearson. I would like to verify this.
>
> WorldCat states that there are 8 editions of "Common Misquotations"
> held in 86 libraries. If you can access this book and you wish to help
> then please send me an email off list. The 1934 edition would be
> great; the 1978 reprint edition would also be ok.
>
> Below is a 1946 citation from an Irish newspaper which provides a
> longer excerpt:
>
> [ref] 1946 August 18, Sunday Independent, There's Method in
> Misquotation by Thomas Kelly, Sign of Erudition, Quote Page 9, Column
> 6, Dublin, Ireland. (Newspapers_com) [/ref]
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> An authority on the subject put his argument thus:
> "Misquotation is in fact the pride and privilege of the learned. A
> widely-read man never quotes accurately, for the rather obvious reason
> that he has read too widely. He can retain the thought, but seldom the
> structure of a phrase. There are exceptions, of course--Dr. Johnson
> was one--but it is broadly true to say that a person who wanders
> through the domain of literature cannot remember in detail any
> particular part of it."
> [End excerpt]
>
> Nigel Rees indicates that Pearson's book also contains this
> interesting remark: "Misquotations are the only quotations that are
> never misquoted." Maybe this statement is in the introduction.
>
> The goal is to obtain a complete citation with title, author, chapter
> title, page number, publisher, publication year, and copyright year.
> The information can be double-checked if you create scans or pictures
> of the pages displaying this metadata together with scans showing the
> target text. This may seem to be overkill, but inaccurate (or
> fabricated) citations are the bane of quotation research.
>
> Garson

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