A lesson of history.

Today, I told Fintan, 8, about the Spartans. I told him of their greatness as warriors, and their valor in battle, their great martial skill and their highly organized – and rather hard – culture. He listened, quietly and waited for me to finish. Then, his voice rose, in challenge, as if I had overlooked something obvious:

“But Dad, there are no more Spartans left.”

My response was a momentary – and appreciative – silence. He had a point.

“Yes. You are quite right, Fintan.”

Sometimes, a look at the modern world, is a profound lesson, itself, as to whom was really successful in history. How funny for Fintan to see through my tale of Spartan greatness, so readily. Then again, there are not many cultures who are truly great, by Fintan’s implicit measure: will our own people survive in 2,500 years time? At this point, there is no telling, though I hope so.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

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Quotations of Valentine Cawley.

At various times and places, my words have been quoted, by other people. Sometimes, it is in a newspaper, sometimes in a forum, or elsewhere on the internet. It was a surprise to me, when people began to quote me,(the first time I ever noticed was the quote on examinations, below, in a forum). Then, however, I understood that something I had written or said, had made an impression on people, and so they wished to relay that quote to others.

Sometimes, I know I have been quoted because a searcher arrives on my blog, with an exact quote from me as their search term. In such cases, I assume that I have been quoted by a student writing an essay, or some other such context. Sometimes these quotes are surprisingly long - several lines - which can only be from reading it elsewhere, perhaps lifted and placed in an essay.

The quotation incidents that I have seen, have credited my words to me. However, the ones involving searchers off the net with quotes in their search are most probably uncredited quotes, since they never use my name in the quote search.

So, I have mixed feelings about the quoting. The credited ones are OK and I am happy to see that - but the uncredited ones are, basically, plagiarism. Luckily, the internet is my friend in this respect, since any Professor who checks one of my lifted quotes on the net, will find the original source material - and the true author.

I have listed below some of the quotes that I have come across replicated elsewhere, of my own work. I will add to this list as I note others. If you see any quotes, elsewhere, please let me know in the comment section below, since I am interested tracking the usage of quotations of my writing. It is interesting to see when and where they are used.

Apologies for the title for this blog post. I know it sounds egoistic but actually it is just a title for the search engines, to make this post easy to find. Were it unnecessary to flag it for search engines, I would have chosen something much more modest and discrete to label it. I hope you can understand.

"Being a graduate doesn't mean you are smart, it means that someone else is stupid enough to give you a degree." October 31 2008

“Whenever a teacher takes a stand against plagiarism, the entire school should stand behind him or her.” I wrote this in two newspapers in Malaysia, on the subject of plagiarism, recently.

"Education" might as well be spelt "e-r-a-d-i-c-a-t-i-o-n", where creativity is concerned."

“The role of a family, is to make a world that has never been and never will be again, to sustain people who have never been and never will be again. A family is a pocket universe, and no less important than the universe itself, for being smaller.”

“An examination is all about testing you on someone else's thoughts. Many children become expert on other people's thoughts - but have none of their own. In some way, focusing too much on what other people have thought and written in books seems to inhibit the development of the ability to have your own.”

“Jade Goody is worthy because she is known, but she is not known because she is worthy.” (March 12, 2009) This remark made it to a leading Danish daily newspaper, which translated it into Danish, for its readers and referred to me as "The commentator, Valentine Cawley said...". Their journalist had been reading my blog, in research for his article.

“Giftedness is not a measure of wealth - it is a measure of mind - and great minds may emerge in the most unpromising of circumstances.” (August 7, 2007)

“I have thought of a good quote about modesty, but I think I will keep it to myself.” Quoted in an interview with Time Out magazine, in London, in November 1994.

“A good gentleman never reveals his tailor.” Quoted in The Observer newspaper, UK, November 1994, in reply to a journalist asking who had made Valentine’s 18th century clothes. (This may have been: "A true gentleman never reveals his tailor" - it is a long time now since I first said it.)

At the time of writing, I do not know whether the tendency to quote me will remain sporadic - as it now is - or whether it will gather momentum. I suppose that all depends on whether a subset of people find the remarks of interest enough to let others know about them.

Regarding the "good gentleman" quote above. That was plagiarized by an advertising director in London by the name of Edmundo Arigita. His girlfriend expressed surprise, when she overheard me reflecting on the fact that my quote had been published in the newspaper. She said to her boyfriend, Edmundo: "So THAT is where that came from." Clearly, he had been using the remark - and since he makes adverts for a living, I do wonder whether he stole it for one of them. He tried to shrug it off by saying: "Lots of people say that." Err...no. They didn't say it before I did...which is why the journalist felt it worthy of quoting me, in the Observer newspaper.

So, sometimes, the quoting is unattributed - as in, theft.

If you come across any quotes of my writing, or spoken word, attributed or unattributed, please let me know.

Thanks.