Cyprus-Forum.com

[supporttheunderdog]

This is the famous quote of Lord Acton.

[Oracle]

What prize priggery.

Whilst I did not purport to quote Acton verbatim, merely constructed an eye-catching title for discussion of power and corruption, you as the prize idiot have set yourself up as the purveyor of the perfect quote by Lord Acton.

Well, tough! You got it wrong!

Lord Acton's famous quote for bullshitters who do not know how to discuss topics but only googlefart quotes, as stated in his letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 1887 ...


"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."


You forgot the "and", you fool!


Perhaps, you should follow tradition and try to get the quotation marks in too, since you are so pedantic at providing the perfect quote, in contrast to my indirect quote!

Now try and get the FULL quote (not my truncated version requiring a semicolon), and be a good fellow and use the quotation marks to signify you are quoting


Perhaps, when you have thought about it some more you can tell me why leaving out "tends to" changes the whole meaning?


Meanwhile, here's another of his which applies more aptly to you, whether it is 100% true, as was said or written, or not ...



A wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times.
Lord Acton

[supporttheunderdog]

:lol:

What prize priggery.

Whilst I did not purport to quote Acton verbatim, merely constructed an eye-catching title for discussion of power and corruption, you as the prize idiot have set yourself up as the purveyor of the perfect quote by Lord Acton.

Well, tough! You got it wrong!

Lord Acton's famous quote for bullshitters who do not know how to discuss topics but only googlefart quotes, as stated in his letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 1887 ...


"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."


You forgot the "and", you fool!


Perhaps, you should follow tradition and try to get the quotation marks in too, since you are so pedantic at providing the perfect quote, in contrast to my indirect quote!

Now try and get the FULL quote (not my truncated version requiring a semicolon), and be a good fellow and use the quotation marks to signify you are quoting


Perhaps, when you have thought about it some more you can tell me why leaving out "tends to" changes the whole meaning?


Meanwhile, here's another of his which applies more aptly to you, whether it is 100% true, as was said or written, or not ...



A wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times.
Lord Acton

when
Mea Culpa, but I only missed out one word, "and", not two others which I think are crotical, the "tends too", which many omit thinking they know the quote,.

My objections to the omission are two-fold:

1) That it is no longer the famous quote of Lord's actons words, but the infamous misquote: there was, as I haver spelt out, elswhere, the opportunity to include the full quote in the body of your post, which you (mistakenly?) chose not to do.

IMHO the misquote in fact shows disrespect.

2) With the shorthend vesrsion it is axiomatic that anyone in a position of power is corrupt,. The "Tends to" is therefore essential to the understanding of the relationship between power and corruption. In particular : it is not, in relation to power, an absolute statement, (save for those with absolute power) but there are many in positions of less than absolute power who are not corrupt: therefore there is only a tendency for power to corrupt. .


Thererefore in seeking to chose which thesis is the more correct (and above all which accounts fot the fact that not everyone in power is corrupt, IMHO propely applying Ockham's Razor, the original quote with tends to is to be prefered to any version without the tends too.

[Oracle]

I didn't know it was an infamous "misquote" as it was the one I (me, myself) reverted to using Occam's razor.

It sort of lends it more weight if people arrive at the same, independently, when streamlining the quote for whatever purposes.!

Try and think about what I asked you. How do the words "tends to" change the meaning?

They don't!

It's a quote with tautological clauses!

Don't forget he was writing a letter, so may not have given his phraseology much thought. It's natural to improve it. Stop fighting!

(Maybe "and" isn't a big deal, but you are the one who made a big deal about fitting the whole quote into a thread title and even an "and" then makes a big difference -- as I demonstrated here:

http://www.cyprus-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=32487!)

[supporttheunderdog]

Hi O,

The fact that he was writing a letter should not have adversely influence his phraseology, particularly when the letter was intended to convey a powerful argument, and particularly bearing in mind that what he writing about was very important to him: I suspect he played very considerable attention to his phraseology.

I also am certain there is no tautology in the use of the "tends to" as this is essential to his proposition, particularly as later on in the same letter he reinforces it by using the word tendency, making it clear that power has a tendency to corrupt.

I otherwise do not see the need to improve his aphorism, and indeed would not be so presumptuous to wish to intentionally do so.