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The name “MacLaren is spelled “Maclaren” in this cite also : He responded by sending the short but striking sentence: “Be pitiful, for every man is fighting a hard battle.” No message is more needed in our days of stress and storm, of selfish striving and merciless competition.Īnother citation in 1898 provides the name of a publication in Britain that published the message of MacLaren. “IAN MACLAREN,” along with other celebrities, was asked to send a Christmas message to an influential religious weekly in England. This article is dated January, but it seems likely that the message was published in England before Decem: A Boston, Massachusetts periodical, Zion’s Herald, contains a story about a Christmas message from MacLaren. The next citation skips all the way back to 1898. Years before the Great War and all the problems that have hurtled down on us poor mortals in consequence thereof, Ian Maclaren wrote: “Be pitiful, for everyone is fighting a hard battle.” The name “MacLaren” is spelled “Mclaren” in this cite : In the quote, MacLaren urges people to be compassionate to one another using the now uncommon meaning of the word pitiful. This is a reference to World War I, as World War II begins in 1939. The excerpt below mentions the Great War.
#EVERYONE HAS A STORY QUOTE FULL#
Full of or characterized by pity compassionate, merciful, tender. Here is the appropriate definition from the Oxford English Dictionary: The word “pitiful” is used in a way that is now rare. The next instance appears in a letter in a Canadian newspaper in 1932, but the meaning of the quotation given is not obvious to most modern readers. Not until trouble and heartache and sorrow came into my own life could I fully comprehend the words of Ian McLaren: “Let us be kind, one to another, for most of us are fighting a hard battle.” In 1947 the saying appears in a Charleston, South Carolina newspaper : But the Scottish author died in 1907, and so the writer who signed the letter with his name was perhaps reusing the old pseudonym. This provides more evidence that the quote of interest is associated with Ian MacLaren. Sir–A thought to help us through these difficult times: Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. In 1957 a curious letter appears in Trenton Evening Times in New Jersey : But Ian MacLaren noted wisely, “Let us be kind to one another, for most of us are fighting a hard battle.” We sympathize with ourselves because we see our own difficulties so clearly. Most of us are acutely aware of our own struggles and we are preoccupied with our own problems. In 1965 in the Chicago Tribune the words attributed to Ian MacLaren are a close match to the quotation we are tracing : His book “Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush” was a best seller in the 1890s. Ian MacLaren was the pseudonym or pen name of Rev. Everyone you meet is carrying a heavy burden.”
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His oft-quoted words offer wise counsel: “Be kind. Ian MacLaren, a noted Scotsman, author of “Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush,” cared deeply about those around him. In the following passage sympathy for fellow men and women is evoked because each is carrying a heavy burden : Continuing backward in time, in 1984 a newspaper in Seattle, Washington contains a quote that is somewhat similar to the target quote. John Watson is a relatively common name so this attribution is of limited help without further information. A 1995 book of daily meditation topics contains an epigraph that credits the saying to a figure whose name does not sound ancient :īe kind everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. The citations below are a select subset in reverse-chronological order. Instead, another surprising word was used. The original aphorism did not use the word “kind”. QI was able to trace the saying back more than one-hundred years to its likely origin. Philo of Alexandria is another popular choice when assigning attribution, e.g., QuotationsBook credits Philo. Quote Investigator: The websites ThinkExist, Quotations Page, and Brainy Quote do have this quotation listed under the august name of Plato.
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It is attributed to Plato on this little thing I have up in my office, but I was told by a friend that it wasn’t him.įred Shapiro replied “this sounds anachronistic for Plato by almost 2500 years” and then invited readers to attempt to trace the quotation. Question: This question is from Glossolalia Black.īe kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. Fred Shapiro’s posts appear on the Freakonomics blog. This blog post is based on a question that was posed at the wonderful blog used by the quotation expert Fred Shapiro who is the editor of one of the best reference works in this area: The Yale Book of Quotations. Plato? Philo of Alexandria? Ian MacLaren? John Watson?