Inspirational Quotes from My Personal Heroes

No, really!

I love to collect inspirational quotes from famous figures of the past and present! I thought I’d share some of my personal favorites that I’ve collected. I’ve even numbered them for convenience. Please, read them!

1. Clover blooms in the fields / Spring breaks loose, the time is near.

   Winston Churchill

2. Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.

   Eleanor Roosevelt

3. Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours.

   Gandhi

4. The tallest blade of grass is the first to be cut by the scythe.

   Cardi B

5. Fear the goat from the front, the horse from the rear, and man from all sides.

   Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson

6. It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.

   Shakira

7. I'm fine with my spite and my tears, and my beers and my candles.

   Tiglath Pileser III, son of Adad-Nirari, King of Assyria

8. I captured many troops alive: I made one pile of the living and one of heads. I hung their heads on trees around the city.

   John Lennon

9. He's the reason for the teardrops on my guitar.

   Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus

10. The sepulchers of their earlier and later kings, who did not fear Assur and Ishtar, my lords, and who had plagued the kings, my fathers, I destroyed, I devastated, I exposed to the sun. Their bones I carried off to Assyria.

    Ariana Grande

11. The greatest happiness is to vanquish your enemies, to chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth, to see those dear to them bathed in tears, to clasp to your bosom their wives and daughters.

    Taylor Swift

Credit: https://www.ualberta.ca/newtrail/ideas/a-case-of-misattribution.html

Okay, I confess, those are not inspirational quotes from my personal heroes. Instead, I took quotes from various historical and current public figures, and switched or replaced a bunch of the attributions. I’ve done my best here to arrange these quotes and misattributions from most plausible to least plausible, ending with a truly ridiculous attribution of a (disputed) Genghis Khan quote to that other great leader of savage Mongolian hordes, Taylor Swift.

My personal favorites from this list are the actual Taylor Swift lyric, which I attributed to an ancient Assyrian king (quote 7) and an actual Assyrian inscription by Ashurbanipal, which I attributed to Ariana Grande (See Grisly Assyrian Record of Torture and Death¹ for the source. As side note, that article is absolutely fascinating, if a bit grim.).

Now as I said, I tried to order these quotes from most to least plausible, but I’m not sure how well I’ve done. Ultimately, I’d like to end up with a list of quotes that I can use as chapter introductions or blog post headers, something sequential, that generates a slowly building sense of suspicion as you read more and more.

Clearly, I need data to properly sort and modify this list, and maybe some sort of disbelief metric, so here’s my questions:

• When did you notice something was off about the quotes?

• What triggered your initial suspicion?

• Which quote put you over the edge into total disbelief?

• What is your personal “plausibility score” for each quote, from 1-10?

If you have a moment, comment on this article with your answers!

So far, I’ve run this test on about six people, mostly my immediate family and close friends. I won’t tell you their answers, so that I don’t unintentionally bias you, but hopefully an optimized list will be posted eventually.

1. Editor, H. S. (2002;2002). BAR 17:01 (Jan/Feb 1991). Biblical Archaeology Society