Confucius, for example, is credited with saying, “I have never seen a man as fond of virtue as of women.” Certainly man’s nature has not changed from that proclivity in the last 1,400 years, as our newspapers have recently informed us.Ĭonfucius is also supposed to have advised, “Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish-don’t overdo it.” How much more pleasant life would be on our planet if all great nations, and small, observed that rule.īut I suspect that “One picture is worth a thousand words” was invented by Barnard, if only because a recent invention, the camera, has given it such validity.įor showing us what a thing looks like, what it is, on the surface, no medium is superior to a photograph. In the first place, I notice a tendency in books of quotations to attribute anything unidentifiable to the ancient Chinese, who sometimes are represented as the founts of all wisdom. I have an idea that Barnard is the true author of the saying. But certainly the visual and audio arts, even if you don’t know what they mean, are usually more moving than mere words. When I go to an opera or a concert I always read the program notes to tell me what the music is about. I am never sure that I am getting the right message. It is quite enough, for the point, to say that “one picture is worth a thousand words.” Nothing is gained by making it 10,000 words, and nothing is gained by making it “more than.”Īrtists, musicians and photographers express abstract ideas through their work, but the meaning is often left to the eye or ear of the beholder. If it is indeed of Chinese origin, and the Bartlett’s version is correctly quoted, we owe our thanks to Barnard for the simpler form he achieved. Bartlett’s, by the way, quotes it as “One picture is worth more than 10,000 words,” and calls it a Chinese proverb.
I am glad to have the saying nailed down in the form I prefer. He changed it to ‘One picture is worth a thousand words’ in Printer’s Ink, 10 March, 1922, and called it ‘a Chinese proverb, so that people would take it seriously.’ It was immediately credited to Confucius.” The entry reads: “ ‘One look is worth a thousand words.’ Fred R. Read the enclosed account of the maxim from Burton Stevenson’s Home Book of Proverbs, Maxims and Familiar Phrases (Macmillan).” Kelly notes: “You should have said that its Chinese origin is also extremely dubious. Kelly reminds me that I recently quoted it as “One picture is worth more than 1,000 words,” adding that it was “a statement of extremely dubious truth, which is of Chinese origin.” I have now forgotten the context, but reader H.
It has a universal appeal one’s first reaction is almost always, “How true ” but on second thought its verity disappears. From time to time, either to agree with it or disagree with it, I have quoted the supposedly ancient aphorism, “One picture is worth a thousand words.”