Americans for Prosperity calls volunteers to action with spurious Thomas Jefferson quotation
This week’s Bogus Quotation Falsely Attributed to a Founding Father comes to us courtesy of the New Hampshire chapter of Americans for Prosperity, the advocacy arm of billionaire conservatives Charles and David Koch.
A meme posted on the group’s Volunteer Center Facebook page, which solicits volunteers to “make calls for freedom and economic prosperity,” features this purported Thomas Jefferson quotation: “Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.”
It’s a bogus quotation.
Researchers for the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which owns and maintains Jefferson’s Monticello plantation, determined the quote can “unequivocally” be attributed to twentieth century Polish writer, Witold Gombrowicz. “How it came to be attributed to Thomas Jefferson is unclear,” they added.
The researcher’s noted the quotation first appeared in Gombrowicz’ “Diary, Vol. II,” which was published in 1988. The first documented misattribution to Thomas Jefferson is found in Hubert K. Rampersad’s “Total Performance Scorecard: Redefining Management to Achieve Performance with Integrity,” which was published 15 years later.