Bontang Notes and Best Quotes

This phrase differs from the others in that it is specifically misused, rather than misinterpreted. It's a twist on an earlier saying that states the exact opposite: "God is in the details." The original phrase is often attributed to German architect Mies van der Rohe, but, while he was likely detail-oriented, this connection has since been called into question. The 18th edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations identifies the source as "anonymous," but notes that it has been attributed to Gustave Flaubert ("Le bon Dieu est dans le détail") and the 17th-century humorist Caspar Barlaeus ("God hides in the smallest places"). Regardless, it seems that a number of history's greatest thinkers would disagree with the transformation of this idiom.

This is another Shakespeare quote that works well enough as a stand-alone mantra, but wasn't originally said in earnest. It's written in a letter to Malvolio, an egotistical and obnoxiously self-righteous character who shuns anything fun. It's meant to stroke his already huge ego. The lines are repeated by Feste at the end of the play, in a mocking tone. Whether or not the Bard thought these words to be genuinely wise on their own is, of course, debatable, but we're willing to bet that he's poking fun at how grandiose the expression sounds.

These may be okay words to live by (although they're a little too easy to parody - see Jude Law dopily musing, "How am I not myself?" in "I Heart Huckabees"). Within the context of Shakespeare's Hamlet, they are meant ironically. They're uttered not by the play's noble (if indecisive) protagonist, but by Polonius, the resident hypocrite, who is not supposed to be taken seriously.

Robert Frost's poem does illustrate a lovely sentiment, but he never meant for his two roads to serve as a metaphor for the rewards reaped when exploring the unknown. In fact, Frost writes in the poem that while one road is appealing, the other is "just as fair," and, as far as the number of travelers each has had, they're "really about the same."

The final stanza, then, refers to the narrator's description of a choice he made earlier in life, while reflecting on it "ages and ages hence."

Don't worry, you're not alone if you've been reading this poem all wrong. Even Frost's contemporaries misread "The Road Not Taken." He explained to a friend William H. Pritchard that the poem was written "about his friend Edward Thomas, who when they walked together always castigated himself for not having taken another path than the one they took."

Call us pedantic, but the removal of a couple words from this quotation makes all the difference. The original source, Timothy 6:10 from The King James Bible, doesn't claim that money itself is the root of all evil -- greed, or the love of money is. This interpretation of the quote is reiterated in The Canterbury Tales.