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> Also reminds me of the quote by Einstein, something about judging the ability of a fish to climb a tree. Almost certainly not by Einstein, for what it's wort
by 0xcde4c3db 8y ago
> Also reminds me of the quote by Einstein, something about judging the ability of a fish to climb a tree.
Almost certainly not by Einstein, for what it's worth. It was probably made up by motivational speaker Matthew Kelly or someone close to him, as the earliest verifiable occurrence of the quotation is in his 2004 book The Rhythm of Life: Living Every Day with Passion and Purpose [1].
[1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/04/06/fish-climb/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/04/06/fish-climb/
- kumarvvr 8y agoOhh ok. Great to learn this bit of trivia. Almost everywhere I saw this quote (ahem, reddit) it is almost always associated with Einstein.
- abecedarius 8y agoI have a heuristic: when a genius is quoted saying something that could've come from a TED talk, they probably didn't say it. Sometimes they said something kind of similar that got "sanded down" by meme evolution.
- krallja 8y agoI wonder if it’s derived from the feminist slogan “a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle”?
- yantrams 8y agoWow. Thanks for sharing that piece of trivia! Now I get what this song from 1981 - The fish needs a bike by Blurt - was referring to. I always thought it was a reference to some surrealist work or something :) https://www.discogs.com/Blurt-The-Fish-Needs-A-Bike/release/717696 https://www.discogs.com/Blurt-The-Fish-Needs-A-Bike/release/...