As it happens, I tend to get a lot of email from boaty folks and a not insignificant number of which who include pithy slogans or quotes as part of their signature.
Like this one...
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didnt do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
Point of fact: Just yesterday I had a bakers dozen of emails from different folks who all had that quote as part of their signature ... Which I can understand because its a great quote and speaks volumes for folks of the nautically obsessed sort.
That said, the problem with this quote is not the content but the fact that all those people who have adopted it dont know who said it and think its from Samuel Langhorne Clemens (AKA Mark Twain).
Really.
The actual source of the quote is from the 1991 book "P.S. I Love You: When Mom Wrote, She Always Saved the Best for Last" by H. Jackson Brown in which the quote is attributed to his mother.
Thats right, Mark Twain never said or wrote it but Mr Browns mother did.
Offhand, the quote in question never sounded to me like something Twain would have written or said because it had that upbeat (bordering on saccharine) vibe and seemed to be somewhat out of character for a man known for his caustic edged wit.
Which just goes to show that before you adopt something as the basis for your personal philosophy, a pithy quote to add substance to your signature, or something you want to have tattood to part of your body, that a quick fact check might actually be in order.
So it goes...
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