Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 September 30

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September 30

Voltaire quote about the multitude of books

Did Voltaire write "the multitude of books is making us ignorant", and if he did, in what context? I've found it online, but never with any details about when and where he supposedly wrote it. Sjö (talk) 09:00, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Nor can I find it in Voltaire's works, and I doubt it's there. It might be someone's summary of one of the threads of argument in his essay on books in the Dictionnaire philosophique. There's also something similar in Edward Bickersteth's The Christian Student (1829): "[T]he very multitude of books adds to the difficulty of choice and selection, and disposes the supine and indolent to sit down in contented ignorance". --Antiquary (talk) 10:28, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

It sounds like a variation of Ecclesiastes 12:12 - And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh. Or possible a variant on Rousseau's "I hate books, for they only teach people to talk about what they don't understand." Wikiquotes lists it as unsourced. Wymspen (talk) 12:13, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

GBS & mistakes

Further to a document linked in a thread above, there is a quotation widely attributed (on the internet) to George Bernard Shaw - "Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time". According to the author of the paper "While this quote is extensively repeated on the internet it does not appear in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations and never appears on the web with a source reference. It is possible that this quote is in fact erroneously attributed; the author would be grateful to anyone who can provide a source from any of Shaw’s writings". I too would be grateful for a source for this. One can't help feeling that GBS wasn't the sort to ever allow that he could have made a mistake, even once. DuncanHill (talk) 15:21, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Looks like early sources attribute this to Josh Billings rather than GBS. Another example of Churchillian Drift. --Antiquary (talk) 16:08, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, DuncanHill (talk) 16:10, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

I wish someone would stop removing answers before I get a chance to read them. Very rude and disruptive. DuncanHill (talk) 16:10, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

I also wish people would stop making me look like a liar by removing things above to which I have referred. Downright nasty behaviour. DuncanHill (talk) 16:11, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

The Vermont Agricultural Report of 1884 has something almost identical, attributed to "some one", which pretty much rules out GBS while leaving Josh Billings in the frame. --Antiquary (talk) 16:32, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Magic: The Gathering vs. Dungeons & Dragons

Which is a bigger moneymaker for Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast: Dungeons & Dragons or Magic: The Gathering? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.83.103.197 (talk) 18:13, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't know that anyone outside Hasbro has that information. Hasbro puts both of those groups in their "Gaming Brands" bucket so there's no way to compare them. See [1]. shoy (reactions) 17:16, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Hmm, it does say "all gaming revenue, most notably MAGIC: THE GATHERING and MONOPOLY," so perhaps that's the answer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.83.103.197 (talk) 14:29, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

The answer may also depend on what time frame you mean. My understanding is that D&D has greatly waned in popularity over the last decade plus. So, the answer to the question may be different for "currently" and "since 1974". On the other hand, since Hasbro only acquired the property in 1999, maybe they do have the same answer. Matt Deres (talk) 16:36, 4 October 2018 (UTC)