Plato and music education

(Yes, I know this isn’t a Catholic quotation. I went investigating anyhow.)

I would teach children music, physics and philosophy, but most importantly music, for the patterns in music and all the arts are the key to learning. – Plato

It sounds like something that might be in The Republic, but ….

1. Wikiquote has it as an unsourced quotation.
2. A generic Internet search for it is of course hopeless (though I tried anyhow).
3. It’s not in the Jowett translation of The Republic, which I understand has translation issues but is the only translation freely available that I could find. (Hint: I am not going to try to wade through The Republic in Greek.)

I did find it on Google Books in a couple spots, one of which gives as a reference “National Coalition for Music Education, 1997”. But a Google search for whatever document that may be referencing came up empty.

Chesterton: Fearless, happy, and in constant trouble?

I see there’s a meme going around attributing this to G. K. Chesterton:

Jesus promised his disciples three things–that they would be completely fearless, absurdly happy, and in constant trouble.

The thought might be Chesterton-esque, but it’s not by Chesterton (and the phrasing doesn’t sound like him either). Thanks to the power of the Interwebz, I was able to find the actual source in about two minutes. It’s from William Barclay’s commentary of the Gospel of St. Luke, which I found on Google Books. Barclay wrote the quotation as given above and goes on to say in the very next sentence:

G. K. Chesterton, whose principles constantly got him in trouble, once said, ‘I like getting into hot water. It keeps you clean!’

So someone (I know not whom) pulled Chesterton’s name from the second sentence and incorrectly attached it to the line from Barclay.