General George S. Patton is one of my personal heroes. He was a singular man; a man of great determination, a man of distinction, even though he showed flashes of poor judgment. He was, after all, the man who whipped Rommel.
I've read several biographies of the Second World War's greatest attacking general, including David A. Smith's George S. Patton, A Biography, George Forty's Patton's Third Army at War, Martin Blumenson's Patton: The Man Behind the Legend, and even General Wesley Clark's Patton: A Biography.
In other words, I think I'm pretty conversant with the man, the general, his life, his personal philosophy, and the things he said and did. Which is why it bugs me when I see things like this:
In all of my readings on Patton - and yes, in the movie with George C. Scott - I've never come across a scrap of evidence that Patton ever said this. So my advice? Stop using it! In all candor, it makes the person using the quote look careless and sloppy.
I'm not talking about obvious quotes, like the well-known meme where the words "Don't believe everything you see on the internet" are attributed to Abraham Lincoln. That's a joke, an obvious joke, and actually a joke that makes a good, if kind of left-handed, point. I'm talking about fake quotes attributed to a famous person, presented to bolster an argument. That's a variant of the Appeal to False Authority fallacy, and when exposed, damages the credibility of the person who used it. I'm also not talking about deliberate fabrications, with which the internet abounds.
Granted, we all get caught out every now and then. I've been blogging and writing on political and social issues for 20-some years, and I've made some doozies, let me tell you. But things like that Patton quote, that's so easily verified as fake, and the use of it makes the user look less credible.
Here are a few more examples of fake quotes:
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is often quoted as saying: "You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass." While the source for this is reputed to have been a personal letter, no such letter has ever surfaced. None of the many men who served with Yamamoto ever confirmed the quote. This is an interesting one, as it has the benefit of likely being accurate in context, as an invasion of North America would have been a nightmare for Japan, but there's no evidence Yamamoto ever actually said it.
This also applies to the post-Pearl Harbor quote also often attributed to Yamamoto: "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." Again, the quote has the benefit of being true, in that this is what the Japanese actually did in December 1941, as the history of the Pacific war so assuredly proved; again, there is no evidence that Admiral Yamamoto actually said it. The misquote was in fact first mentioned in the (excellent) Richard Fleischer/Kinji Fukasaku/Toshio Masuda film, Tora! Tora! Tora!
Moving a bit further back in history, the origins of the quote "The ends justify the means" is often attributed to Niccolò Machiavelli. I've read Machiavelli, and have never seen these words in any of his work. What he actually said was "One must consider the final result," which you must agree is an entirely different rhetorical kettle of fish.
Examples of such misquotes, and misattributed quotes, abound. And the use of them damages the credibility of the user - as happened a few years back when none other than Nancy Pelosi claimed to be quoting the Bible, in saying "To minister to the needs of God's creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us." While you can find several instances of her saying this, those words do not in fact appear in the Bible; the former Speaker defended herself in 2019 by saying "I can't find it in the Bible, but I quote it all the time," Pelosi, who is Catholic, told the gathering. "I keep reading and reading the Bible —I know it's there someplace. It's supposed to be in Isaiah." That quote is not in Isaiah or anywhere else.
Consider, then, how that misquote makes Nancy Pelosi look. Consider what that insistence of hers says about her credibility.
Now, consider how citing the false Patton quote above affects the credibility of the person citing the statement.
Sauce for the goose.
To the readers, I can only say this: It's not hard to verify the source of a quote. Even a false quote, like the Yamamoto quote described above, can be used to frame an argument, as in "...a quote often but incorrectly attributed to Admiral Yamamoto..." But there's no reason, with the world's largest library at our fingertips, to not make an attempt to verify a quote before using it. Failure to do so badly damages the credibility of an argument.
Facts matter. Even on Twitter.
