A popular statement on the Internet attributed to the Irish playwright is that the meaning of life lies not in choosing the most suitable social role, but in inventing your own. We decided to check if he said anything like that.
This phrase with Shaw's attribution is often found on sites with selections quotes from famous personalities and in modern motivational literature. Social network users also share it on their pages (“VKontakte", Facebook*, Instagram*, X, Threads*) and blog platforms (LiveJournal, "Zen").
In the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet, the quote has spread in several variations, the most common being “Life is not about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself” and “Life is not about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” In English, Shaw’s native language, in which all his works are written, there is only one wording in popular sources: “Life is not about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself." However, “Verified” was unable to find such a phrase in any collected works Show, nor on authoritative resources specializing in the study of his heritage - sites International Shaw Society And British Shaw Society, founded during the life of the playwright.
Judging by data Quote Investigator, a portal that specializes in verifying the authorship of quotes, first attributed the statement to Shaw in 1997. Then, in the August 11 issue of the Californian newspaper San Francisco Chronicle, an article was published about the American judicial system. The note included a comment from Deputy Public Defender Claire Mayer using the phrase and attributing it to Shaw. Since the playwright's death in 1950, his entire surviving written legacy has been carefully studied, so it is doubtful that, 47 years later, a woman with no connection to research into Shaw's life and work would have found a new, previously unknown quote from him anywhere. However, the authors of Quote Investigator write, a similar idea in different formulations was found in the press and literature before, but either without any indication of authorship at all, or with reference to other people, for example, psychoanalyst Karen Horney or writer Mary McCarthy.
Barry Popik, an American etymologist who has served as a consultant to many authoritative reference books, such as the Oxford English Dictionary, will also be released in 2021 got interested the origin of the quote being analyzed. Like Quote Investigator, it found no evidence that Shaw had anything to do with this statement, nor could he identify the real author.
Despite the fact that Shaw is quoted much less frequently than, for example, Mark Twain or Albert Einstein, words that the playwright did not say are also often attributed to him. “Verified” has previously examined quotes erroneously attributed to Shaw, for example: “A happy family is an early paradise"
Thus, there is no evidence that Bernard Shaw is the author of the phrase “Life is not about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” This is a fairly common idea, found in different formulations, so it is not easy to find out who exactly this idea belonged to. However, it is not found in the works and other written sources from the pen of the Irish playwright.
*Russian authorities consider the company Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social networks Facebook, Instagram and Threads, to be an extremist organization and its activities in Russia are prohibited.
Cover photo: Bain News Service, publisher, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Read on the topic:
- Did Bernard Shaw say: “Now that we have learned to fly through the air like birds, to swim under water like fish, we lack only one thing: to learn to live on earth like people”?
- Did Shakespeare say that he always felt happy because he expected nothing from anyone?
- Did Mark Twain say, “20 years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the things you did do”?
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