New answers tagged quotes
8
Napoleon born: 1769
First known attestation: 1716
Conclusion: NO! (Not the first at least.)
It's that easy to prove this negative. But in its place we only find the allegation that it was really Charles II who said it, referring to Isaac Vossius:
This Learned Divine, said he, is a very strange Man: He believes every thing but the Bible.
(Alternative link ...
8
There have been similar phrases uttered by many different people. Very often, it is said by religious leaders attacking atheism, especially by creationists attacking Darwinism.
Attribution to Napoleon goes back a long way. Here's a book from 1883. Note that the anecdote is uncited, and told by an anti-Darwinist. Very probably apocryphal.
It is related of ...
12
To a bit more history here, there's a 1998 book
Soaring and Settling by Rita Gross, which has a different take/version (p. 43):
I am just as frustrated that many Caucasian Buddhists, reasonably sophisticated in their assessments of certain elements of Christian tradition that are woefully out of date, will believe anything as long as it is said by a ...
36
It's difficult to prove a negative, especially when the purported quote is a translation with no reference to the original. But signs point to no.
I tried searching for a possible French original and found nothing, but there are so many possible ways this could have been said that the only word that is very likely to be present is “Bible” (spelled the same ...
answered Sep 23 at 22:19
Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
3,1571 gold badge24 silver badges27 bronze badges
Top 50 recent answers are included