So I was flying home today from Richmond, VA with a co-worker, and he and I were discussing Blogs.  I told him tonight was ‘Quote Night’ and that I had one of my favorites to post.  One that has stuck with me for years and years. He asked where I got them, and I confessed that most are just ones I remember from days gone by, or I have made up myself, but the question made me think about correct citations and credits. 

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So to be accurate tonight I went to answer.google.com to make certain my wording was correct, and that this particular quote actually came from Socrates, not Aristotle, Plato or some other dead philosopher. 

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OH NO!!!!  There is a fly in my ointment!  Nobody really knows if Socrates actually said this, and there’s lots of reason to think he did not.  One of the big AH HA’s is that all we know about Socrates is what others have written about him, since none of his original works have survived.  Gulp.

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None-the-less, here is the quote that I like so much.  Following the quote, if you’re still reading, is what I found concerning its legitimacy.

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‘The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.’

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Is this really a quote from Socrates, my grandfather, my father, or me?!?!?!?!?!

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This quote was reported in the New York Times years ago and reprinted widely.   After Malcolm Forbes (a personal hero) included Socrates’ words in a Forbes magazine editorial entitled ‘Youth’, his research staff went crazy trying to prove authenticity. They contacted a wide range of librarians, classicists, and other experts on Socrates. None knew of any source for the passage. The researchers finally called Amsterdam’s mayor, Gijsbert van Hall. Van Hall said he’d seen the lines by Socrates in a Dutch book whose title he could not recall. There the search ended.

Even though it is pretty suspect that this quote is from ole Socrates…I personally am going with.