“I come to quote Caesar, not to reference him”

From Jonathan Alter’s excellent, “The Defining Moment: FDR’s First Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope”, pg. 210-11 (paperback ed.):

“The origins of [FDR’s first] Inaugural’s most famous line – “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” – remain unclear…Eleanor Roosevelt [claimed] one of her friends gave FDR an anthology of Henry David Thoreau’s writings…one of his line’s was “Nothing is so much to be feared as fear”…

Two years before the Roosevelt Inaugural, in February 1931, The New York Times ran a front page story on job creation begun by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Times quoted the chairman of the chamber as saying, “In a condition of this kind, the thing to be feared most is fear itself.” “

Funny, I’m pretty sure Roosevelt did not stop his speech and reference his sources. By the way, how did that all end up working out?

Next up…William Jennings Bryan, cereal plagiarist – you read right. Just ask the makers of “Cross of Gold Honey Nut Bran Clusters “*

*Resurrecting regularity since 1853, look for the picture of Millard Fillmore’s satisfied smirk on the box

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