A Simple Lesson in Properly Attributing Quotations to General Authorities"©

There is an interesting quotation floating around the web attributed in blogs, editorials, and even in Book of Mormon commentaries to Elder David B. Haight.(1)  It reads:

Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years.People grow old by deserting their ideals, their faith.There is always the love of wonder, a childlike appetite for what is next, and the joy of your life. ou are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear or despair.

In the center of our heart is a recording chamber, and so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage, and faith, so long are we young.

Recently I wanted to add this to my own commentary on the Book of Mormon but the reference was incomplete. Generally it is attributed to a talk by Elder Haight in the November 1983, Ensign, p. 25. Wanting the title of the talk I went to my collection of Ensigns and was surprised to find on page twenty-five a talk by Paul H. Dunn. Elder Haight’s talk was elsewhere, but did not contain the quotation in question. I did not examine Elder Dunn’s talk, thinking the reference was in error as to date. I Googled some phrases and found it again cited, this time in a talk by Elder Jacob de Jager, “Service and Happiness,” Ensign (October 1993), p. 32, but his reference was back to the same page number in the November 1983 Ensign. So, puzzled I went back to Elder Dunn’s talk and read it.  Sure enough it was there–mostly!  He said:

To those in their golden years, age should only be hateful if it means the cessation of growth, the withering of dreams, the silencing of feelings. And these qualities, after all, have nothing to do with chronology and everything to do with the heart. Douglas McArthur [sic] once observed, “Live with enthusiasm! Nobody grows old by deserting their ideals.  Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt, as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear, as young as your hope, as old as your despair.”

So, how did this quotation become associated with Elder Haight?  Read what Elder de Jager said in 1993:

Not long ago, I had the privilege of attending a mission presidents’ seminar in San Francisco with Elder David B. Haight of the Council of the Twelve. He shared with us some thoughts from an unknown author about growing old.

“Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old by deserting their ideals, their faith. There is always the love of wonder, a childlike appetite for what is next, and the joy of your life. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear or despair.

“In the center of our heart is a recording chamber, and so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage, and faith, so long are we young.  (Ensign, Nov. 1983, p. 25).”

Well now we know where Elder Haight enters in, but we have all kinds of other problems. Elder de Jager says the quotation was cited by Elder Haight, but gives reference to Elder Dunn’s talk, who attributed it to Douglas MacArthur. How did that happen? Moreover, the de Jager version has an additional paragraph of one sentence which is not in Elder Dunn’s talk. Did Elder Haight give Elder de Jager a copy of what he was sharing with the Mission Presidents which included the longer version? If so, why did Elder de Jager cite the Dunn talk when referring to it? Mystery! And Elder Haight apparently said he didn’t know where it came from, but Elder Dunn attributed it to MacArthur. What is the truth?

Well, it is common for people to attribute some version of this statement to MacArthur, but it isn’t his either. I have a trusty book in my collection of books of quotations.  It is entitled, “Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations from the Library of Congress.”(2) It is a compilation of quotations which congressmen and others wanted verified and the staff tracked them down.  It just so happens that this quotation is one of them. The basic story is this: A man named Samuel Ullman (1840-1924) wrote a poem entitled “Youth.” It was privately printed first, but published in 1934. The published version was longer than the private edition which did not have the “oft-quoted ‘you are as young as your faith...”(3) The book goes on to say:

General Douglas MacArthur quoted the entire poem without attribution on his seventy-fifth birthday, in a speech to the Los Angeles County Council, American Legion, Los Angeles, California, January 26, 1955.”(4)

So MacArthur quotes it but doesn’t say where he got it. Others copy, excerpt, and/or edit it and attribute it to MacArthur, such as Elder Dunn’s version. Elder Haight also used some version of it, but didn’t know where it came from. But in a comedy of slipshod errors, copying others without checking, etc., etc., etc., it is now attributed to Elder Haight himself. The entire item is cited in Respectfully Quoted, and most of the elements of the de Jager version are there, but it is a clip-and-paste edit of a longer statement.(5)

Lesson: I suppose there are many lessons to draw from this little foray into frequently cited literary quotations, especially when found on the Internet.  I would boil them down to one: do your own homework thoroughly and carefully, especially if your work will be published. What we all need is a staff like the one at the Library of Congress to track down the source of the quotations we want to use!

Let’s think together again, soon.

Notes:

1.  K. Douglas Bassett, comp., Doctrinal Insights to the Book of Mormon: Volume Two: Jacob Through Alma (Springville, UT: Cedar Fort, 2007), p. 40.  Apparently several other online Book of Mormon commentaries have copied Bassett without checking his accuracy.

There is a similar problem with the famous quotation "all putts don't drop" attributed to President Hinckley.  Actually he was quoting someone else.

2.  Suzy Platt, ed., Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations from the Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, 1992).

3.  Platt, Respectfully Quoted, p. 393. 

4.  Platt, Respectfully Quoted, p. 393, emphasis added.

5.  You can read the entire excerpt from Platt’s book here: www.bartleby.com/73/2099/html