Who really said that?
“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” – Henry Thomas Buckle (1821 – 1862), English historian
Not unlike gossip, many of the popular quotations we can easily pull from the Internet are misattributed or taken out of context. It’s worth doing some research to determine the origin and authenticity of the material. The more we spread misinformation, the harder it is to pinpoint the truth, the real source. Just like gossip.
Today’s quote is often attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt. But apparently scholars can’t find anything close to it in any of Roosevelt’s writings or speeches. According to an in-depth piece in the Quote Investigator, the origin of the phrase can be traced back to the 19th-century English historian, Henry Thomas Buckle.
As per the Quote Investigator, it evolved from a paragraph of Buckle’s writing about the conversation habits of three different British classes: “You can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next, by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest, by their preference for the discussion of ideas.”
While it’s hard to ignore the blatant snobbery of Buckle’s observation, it’s not hard to see how it morphed into a popular aphorism that’s often misattributed to a variety of sources from Socrates to Charles Stewart to Eleanor Roosevelt.
No matter who said it, the quote reminds us to think about how we converse with each other. Do we spend most of our time chattering about other people? Or do we challenge ourselves to aim higher? Discussing issues, ideas, and current events is harder — because it requires learning facts and reflecting on the information we’ve read or heard. We have to know what’s going on in the world. Talking about people, on the other hand, is a low-hanging fruit that’s all too easy to reach. ~Cindy La Ferle
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Cindy La Ferle
Throughout my career, I've worked as a book production editor, travel magazine editor, features writer, and weekly newspaper columnist. My award-winning lifestyles features and essays have appeared in many national magazines and anthologies, including Newsweek, Reader's Digest, The Christian Science Monitor, Writer's Digest, Victoria, Better Homes & Gardens, Bella Grace, and more. My weekly Sunday "Life Lines" column ran for 14 years in The Daily Tribune (Royal Oak, MI) and won a First Place (Local Columns) award from the Michigan Press Association. My essay collection, Writing Home, includes 93 previously published columns and essays focusing on parenthood and family life.
