The Worlds Most Misconstrued snd Defiled Quotes

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Florion

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Cakes said:
"Let them eat cake."

Supposedly Marie Antoinette said this in response to another famine in France, making her look to be a tremendous *****. In reality what she (supposedly) said was "qu'ils mangent de la brioche." Brioche is a type of bread. Also, she almost certainly never said this. There is no record of this phrase until some years after it supposedly happened: also, she was incredibly unpopular amongst the French, and many (false) stories were about regarding her callousness and the like, and this is just another.
That's funny. The version I heard was that a translator was using "cake" as a euphemism for "s***." xPPP
 

Semitendon

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Aug 4, 2009
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The_AC said:
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

What people think it means: You tried to do something good, but failed, and accidentally did something bad.

What it really means: Just intending to do something good is pointless, you actually have to do something.
This quote also has another popular meaning:

A path to destruction is paved by those claiming to be intent on good.
 

theultimateend

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fix-the-spade said:
Survival of the fittest

It was not, is not and never has been survival of the fittest.

It is survival of the best fitted (to a given environment).

Cheetahs are among the fittest animals on the planet, ditto Wolves, Great White Sharks, Polar Bears and Blue Wales, so how come they're all in decline. Perhaps that animal with the ability to adapt and fit itself and it's home to almost any environment has something to with it.
This one never ceases to infuriate me.
Fun sidenote. For many animals that have mating combat between males you will find that the women actually copulate with a weaker male that mates with her while the greater males fight.

In many cases the weaker one gets her preggo, and the stronger one assumes the children are his and protects them.

I wish I remembered the percent, it was pretty sizeable. Maybe I'll google it later :p.

NeutralDrow said:
Spectrum_Prez said:
NeutralDrow said:
Spectrum_Prez said:
Many editions of George Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984 published during the Cold War had the opening quote "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism". The publishers intentionally left out the last part of his sentence: "and for democratic socialism, as I understand it."

Actually, this is entirely anecdotal, I forgot which source I learned this from. The irony just kills me though.
The irony being that George Orwell was actually a democratic socialist, right?
The irony being that this type of censorship was typical of the totalitarianism he objected to and wrote about in his novels. Wait, were you making a joke? I think I've missed something.
Actually, I misread your statement. I thought you were claiming the George Orwell was against democratic socialism, which would have been laughably silly.
Don't feel bad I had to read it about 10 times before it clicked.

orannis62 said:
"I could care less." Incorrect, you Couldn't care less.
Unfortunately it still leaves you being very ambiguous. Unless I am misreading it I'd figure that it could easily mean "I am passionate about this topic and couldn't care less about it." Because it is so important to you you physically can't care less about it.

I'm no English major though so I may be butchering it further.
 

Starke

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RAND00M said:
Well i have been hearing people throw "Carp Diem" alot around lately.I always ask them what it means.Only about twenty% get it right.Most say "Life You're Life" But when it is "Seize the day/moment".
"Carp Diem" would be Goldfish Day, "Carpe Diem" would be seize the day/moment (IIRC).
BudZer said:
"There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet."

Literally translated it would be "There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet." That just annoys me. Not exactly a quote, as it isn't verbal, but the capitalization of god annoys me greatly in that context as it basically says "There is no BudZer but BudZer and BudZer is his BudZer."
Allah is sometimes translated as "The God" not just "God", but yeah.

Also "Beam me up Scotty." It comes from nowhere, maybe the cartoon, but, its not anywhere in the series.
 

Kpt._Rob

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Apr 22, 2009
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"I think therefore I am."

That's only half the quote, not surprisingly, people don't like the whole quote.

"I doubt therefore I think, I think therefore I am." -Rene Descartes
 

Seanchaidh

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"Common sense is not so common."

Voltaire didn't mean that people lacked it, he meant that it differed from person to person. The second is a far more accurate, subtle and important point than the first, but people tend erroneously to think he meant that people were stupid.
 

Thaius

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Clarkarius said:
Personnaly I'm putting my money on a certain quote from Star Wars...
"The Force is strong with this one."

Yeah, that one gets so screwed up all the time. Like every movie I see messes it up.
 

Fire Daemon

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Dec 18, 2007
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One thing that always kind of irks me is how people get this wrong:

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every
man is a piece of the continent, a part of the
main. If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory
were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or
of thine own were: any man's death diminishes
me, because I am involved in mankind, and
therefore never send to know for whom the bells
tolls; it tolls for thee."

I don't expect for everyone to remember the whole thing and repeat it but people always get the last two lines confused. People always say 'don't ask for who' or 'it tolls for you' and I don't think that the people who get it wrong even understand what it's about. It doesn't change the meaning when you make those mistakes but it does dumb it down a bit.
 

Housebroken Lunatic

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I don't know if this is pretty common knowlege these days, but i still hear people attribute the quote:

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it

... To Voltaire. He never actually said this, it was Evelyn Beatrice Hall who wrote it as a summary of Voltaire's beliefs in the biography she wrote about him.
 

Eclectic Dreck

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orannis62 said:
"I could care less." Incorrect, you Couldn't care less.
Either can be correct. In one case, there might be even deeper levels of apathy in which case I could, in fact, care less. In the other, one has reached the deepest level of apathy, and as such they are incapable of caring any less then they currently do. Realistically, most of the time the correct version is "I could care less", because if they care enough to respond to an inquiry on the subject then there is clearly at least one step further (ignoring the inquiry altogether).
 

userwhoquitthesite

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Has anyone mentioned the whole beatles thing?

John lennon said more people (worldwide) had heard of the beatles than jesus, and was saying that it was crazy.

People took his statement as "we are a much bigger deal than jesus"
 

Bloodeye

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JacOak said:
Um, I know one! Wait...
*Hurries off to fetch quote that hasn't been used*

"'Tis better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all"
The original quote, edited after a firestorm of controversy, was
"'Tis better to have loved and lost then listen to an album by Olivia Newton-John. Because anything is better than that."

Cookie for reference.
All those years of wasting my life in front of the TV have finally paid off. Its said by Holly on Red Dwarf.
 

Link Kadeshi

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Oct 17, 2008
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The one I hate the most is:
"Life is good"
No, life sucks, reality bites. Life is good... Why I should smack someone... Someone weaker than me, so I don't get hurt.
 

Agema

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Just to be clear, to misconstrue something is to misunderstand the meaning of something, whilst getting a quotation wrong is a misquotation. Hence you can can misquote something but not misconstrue it, or vice versa or both.
 

Seanchaidh

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Eclectic Dreck said:
orannis62 said:
"I could care less." Incorrect, you Couldn't care less.
Either can be correct. In one case, there might be even deeper levels of apathy in which case I could, in fact, care less. In the other, one has reached the deepest level of apathy, and as such they are incapable of caring any less then they currently do. Realistically, most of the time the correct version is "I could care less", because if they care enough to respond to an inquiry on the subject then there is clearly at least one step further (ignoring the inquiry altogether).
Yes, and when you say "I could care less" you convey no useful information whatsoever. I think this is best summarized by a diagram:

 

Crystalgate

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"I'd rather be judged by twelve than carried by six."

Way to often construed as meaning the person rather kill and go to prison than getting killed. However, just because you're on trial it doesn't mean you will go to prison, you could also get a not guilty verdict. If you remove that possibility, you're changing the meaning of the quote considerable. The implication of whether or not making sure your action is legal shall be a priority has reversed. This is a huge difference.