I saw a charming aphorism on Facebook this morning and was intrigued by the double-meaning possibilities. The copy editor in me insists on due diligence (the saying was both misquoted and misattributed), and a little fact-checking took me down quite the rabbit hole. You can follow the trail yourself here: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/01/11/what-lies-within/.
In the marketplace of wisdom
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
– Henry Stanley Haskins
“What lies follow us and what lies
precede us are nothing
compared to the lies within us.”
Without qualm I misattribute
this misquote to Dr. Phil, who misread
a website dedicated to Henry
David Thoreau, misremembered
the source as Ralph Waldo
Emerson, and misreported
it thus: “What lies behind us
and what lies in front of us pales
in comparison to what lies within us.”
(Reposted from the Lexington Poetry Month website: https://lexpomo.com/poem/in-the-marketplace-of-wisdom/)
The Daily Compost 