Misquotation: ‘Facts are stupid things’
Often represented as a misquotation by Ronal Reagan of the words of John Adams (second President of the United States), defending soldiers in the ‘Boston Massacre’ trials in March 1770. In the course of his speech, he uttered the words:
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the states of facts and evidence.
In his address to the 1988 Republican National Convention, Ronald Reagan introduced a section of his speech with the words:
Before we came to Washington, Americans had just suffered the two worst back-to-back years of inflation in 60 years. Those are the facts, and as John Adams said, ‘Facts are stubborn things.’
This paragraph, and the following four paragraphs, finished with Adams’s words. However, at the end of the third paragraph, Reagan made a verbal slip, which he immediately corrected. A transcript of the speech reads,
'Facts are stupid things – stubborn things, should I say. [Laughter].’
However, despite its origin as a slip of the tongue, ‘Facts are stupid things’ has taken on a life of its own in the world of quotations.
From Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
- See more at: http://oupacademic.tumblr.com/post/60397790031/misquotation-facts-are-stupid-things#sthash.eunP6RVw.dpuf
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