Who Really Said That?

In this excerpt from his new book, What the Saints Never Said, Trent Horn tells you exactly why and how misquotations of the Saints can lead to problems, and even the spreading of heresy.
The villain clad in black raises his fist at the hero and says, “Luke, I am your father!” The dashing captain unfolds his communicator and gives the order, “Beam me up, Scotty.” A mysterious jungle man sets down the woman he’s rescued and she teaches him to say, “Me Tarzan, you Jane.”

What do these three things have in common?

You might say they’re lines from famous movies: The Empire Strikes Back, Star Trek, and Tarzan the Ape Man respectively. But then you remembered this is a book about fake quotations and you changed your answer: they’re misquotations from famous movies.

In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker accuses Darth Vader of killing his father. Vader responds, “No, I am your father”—not “Luke, I am your father.” The crew of the Starship Enterprise often asked Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott to beam them up via the transporter, but no one in the Star Trek films or television shows ever said, “Beam me up, Scotty.” Finally, in the 1932 classic Tarzan the Ape Man, Tarzan only says “Tarzan. Jane. Tarzan. Jane,” not “Me Tarzan, you Jane.”

Misquotations aren’t restricted to fictional characters, either. George Washington never admitted to chopping down a cherry tree by saying, “I cannot tell a lie”; Albert Einstein never said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”; and Vince Lombardi didn’t coin the phrase, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”

In What the Saints Never Said you’ll see which famous sayings attributed to the saints of the Catholic faith are misquotations, misattributions, and in some cases total fabrications.

What Makes a Saint Quote Fake?

The kinds of fake quotes that are attributed to the saints come in roughly one of three types: misquotes, misattributions, and fabrications.

A misquote (or what I call “close, but not quite”) is similar to something a saint did say but still different enough to warrant mentioning. The earlier example from The Empire Strikes Back is a classic example of a misquotation; the real quote and the misquote differ by only one word. These kinds of misquotes are usually just harmless paraphrases, but in some cases changing one word in a passage can alter the entire meaning.

A misattribution occurs when an authentic quote is attributed to someone who did not originate it. For example, many people think the famous circus owner P.T. Barnum said, “There’s a sucker born every minute,” but Barnum was too shrewd to insult the public so blatantly (Barnum did say people could be easily “humbugged,” or duped). Likelier candidates for the quote include Barnum’s rival Adam Forepaugh, and con man Joseph Bessimer.

A fabrication is essentially a quote that has no original source. These usually appear in the form of anonymous, inspirational quotes that are attached to famous people in order to make them sound more impressive. Even though they are fabrications, I doubt the majority of them are intentional deceptions.

If you enjoyed this excerpt, and want to find out more, order your copy of What the Saints Never Said today!

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