Great minds discuss ideas...

I like a little bit of everything, the small negates the great and I turn out to be pretty average I guess...
 
Of course! I haven't really said anything yet, really. And I'm always here, watching, I just take cover when things get a little too turbulent. Destructive without being constructive.
I think I've read several quotes from her that I have liked, but this one I don't get. I've talked to lot's of people about more or less complicated ideas in both great and small discussions. Lot's of people are curious but a lot of us don't have the capacity formulate and handle complicated ideas. I can sort of see where she's coming from with small minds discussing people, even though I find the statement overly dismissive, but I don't think discussing ideas signifies greatness in any way. I'm looking forward to seeing why you brought this up.
 
That was the short answer....the longer answer is...I've got no time for hollywood gossip or star gazing (at popular people, celestial bodies are another matter). Events, yeah I contemplate events and the root cause of the problem that cause the symptom we describe as an event. Ideas? That is why I have been here for ten years...tis one of the calmest places to discuss ideas with good people...
 
I am generally in agreement with Mz Roosevelt, but then again, 'small minds' have their opinions on events and ideas too.

If I was being smart-arse, I'd wonder whether Eleanor Roosevelt said that because of the criticism she no doubt received, being into women's rights, civil rights, speaking on her husband's behalf, etc., etc. I'm sure she must have annoyed a lot of people. (In defending Catholicism, I could say the same thing.)

Don't know much about her. The one thing I do is when she met the black man who built a plane, taught himself to fly, then flew east-to-west across America. She was touring with her husband to win the black vote in support of the war. He offered to take her up for a spin. Everyone laughed politely and said 'No!'. She said yes. I can only wonder at what went through a few minds as the First Lady flew off into the wild blue yonder, alone in a plane with a self-taught black man at the controls.

Is it people who bring ideas to life, or do ideas animate people ... or is that a chicken/egg, nature/nurture type of thing?
 
Excellent response, Thomas! Thank you!

I'll wait a bit more and see what else is added before I bring in my two cents.
 
Thomas said:
The one thing I do is when she met the black man who built a plane, taught himself to fly, then flew east-to-west across America. She was touring with her husband to win the black vote in support of the war. He offered to take her up for a spin. Everyone laughed politely and said 'No!'. She said yes. I can only wonder at what went through a few minds as the First Lady flew off into the wild blue yonder, alone in a plane with a self-taught black man at the controls.
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I always get in trouble for correcting mythology...and the parts I don't know are whether he ever built his own plane ....but the parts I do know is he did teach himself to fly, but that was in a plane he bought, (the flying club wouldn't let a black man in) and he was the first black man to get a pilot license, was hired by our gov't to flight train the Tuskegee Airmen, a division of black airman...and he flew her in a military plane, that the flight was planned before her arrival and was a photo op to allow this black division into the war. All still quite the big deal....
 
Thomas said:
I am generally in agreement with Mz Roosevelt, but then again, 'small minds' have their opinions on events and ideas too.
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Agree, and I'd like to add that this quote is by definition I suppose....a great generalization. 'great minds' do also discuss people...
 
The quote sounds contrived. She was a great activist politician who never missed a chance at self promotion.

Maybe this post now becomes a threadbare tangent but it should be good for a chuckle - She was a very quotable, intelligent, outspoken and entertaining woman politician/activist. A trail blazer for sure.

Excuse the pun but she could be a little edgy for the times. Another quote (paraphrased) attributed to her: 'I once had a rose named after me. I was really pleased until I read the description. It said, no good in bed but does well up against the wall.'
 
For me, her meaning was not in the words she spoke. It was the meaning between the words. Obviously at some point in time, everyone discusses all three: ideas, events, people. That is a given. But from what perspective do people discuss these things. People who perceive the world as about other people perceive ideas and events through the lens of 'people'. And so forth.

It is not a matter of superior versus inferior. Rather it is a matter of the focus a person brings to life. People who view the world primarily though ideas don't have time and could not care less about the Kardashians. People who view the world primarily through people cannot get enough of the Kardashians, and that is the limit of their philosophical development.
 
In wondering what context she said it....I find it disputed as to whether she was the originator or a repeater...or even said it...
  • Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.
    • There are many published incidents of this as an anonymous proverb since at least 1948, and as a statement of Eleanor Roosevelt since at least 1992, but without any citation of an original source. It is also often attributed to Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, but though Rickover quoted this, he did not claim to be the author of it; in "The World of the Uneducated" in The Saturday Evening Post (28 November 1959), he prefaces it with "As the unknown sage puts it..."
    • Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, and little minds discuss people.
      • In this form it was quoted as an anonymous epigram in A Guide to Effective Public Speaking (1953) by Lawrence Henry Mouat
      • New York times Saturday review of books and art, 1931: ...Wanted, the correct quotation and origin of this expression: Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people...
    • Several other variants or derivatives of the expression exist, but none provide a definite author:
      • Great minds discuss ideas, mediocre minds discuss events, small minds discuss personalities.
      • Great minds discuss ideas
        Average minds discuss events
        Small minds discuss people
      • Small minds discuss things
        Average minds discuss people
        Great minds discuss ideas
    • ...Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas. (Marie Curie, undated (died 1934), as quoted in Living Adventures in Science by Henry and Dana Lee Thomas, 1972)
    • ...Some professor of psychology who has been eavesdropping for years makes the statement that "The best minds discuss ideas; the second in ranking talk about things; while the third group, or the least in mentality, gossip about people"… (Hardware age, Volume 123, 1929)
    • ...He now reports that, "the best minds discuss ideas; the second ranking talks about things; while the third and lowest mentality – starved for ideas – gossips about people." (Printers' Ink, Volume 139, Issue 2, 1927, p. 87)
    • ...It has been said long ago that there were three classes of people in the world, and while they are subject to variation, for elemental consideration they are useful. The first is that large class of people who talk about people; the next class are those who talk about things; and the third class are those who discuss ideas... (H. J. Derbyshire, "Origin of mental species", 1919)
    • ...Mrs. Conklin points out certain bad conversational habits and suggests good ones, quoting Buckle's classic classification of talkers into three orders of intelligence — those who talk about nothing but persons, those who talk about things and those who discuss ideas... (review of Mary Greer Conklin's book Conversation: What to say and how to say it in The Continent, Jan. 23, 1913, p. 118)
    • ...[ Henry Thomas Buckle's ] thoughts and conversations were always on a high level, and I recollect a saying of his which not only greatly impressed me at the time, but which I have ever since cherished as a test of the mental calibre of friends and acquaintances. Buckle said, in his dogmatic way: "Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons, the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas"… (Charles Stewart, "Haud immemor. Reminescences of legal and social life in Edinburgh and London. 1850-1900", 1901, p. 33)
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I think Eleanor Roosevelt's statement is very dependent on what constitutes great, average and small minds. Without knowing the context in which she spoke it's difficult to say. Be that as it may, I don't think the notion of what is being discussed, be it an idea, event or people, is a good indication of great, average or small minds.

The real question for me is, when a great mind speaks to an average mind and a small mind joins in, do any of them know who is who and does it matter? After all, even a small mind can have a great idea and vice-versa.
 
Exactly and the point I didn't expound upon when I said it was a generalization is the judgmental and snobbish tenor to the quote.
 
Juan, will you be grading our mind based on this? Because I really like ideas and people are stupid...
 
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