Be kind for everyone

Last year, Jami and I were drinking bloody Marys in the kitchen and she was cooking something wonderful and we were listening to NPR's "Speaking of Faith with Christa Tippett," when her guest quoted this saying, "be kind for everyone is fighting a great battle." Her Guest attributed it to Philo. In fact most of the internet references to this phrase and its various permutations - every one [man, person, people] is carrying [fighting] a [great] burden [battle] [inside] - reliably but unnecessarily beginning with "be kind - refer this phrase to Philo. Checking the Philoblog (yes, there's a blog devoted to Philo of Alexandria: see philoblogger.blogspot.com of 9/19/2005 for the google hit on this topic) shows however that people who really love Philo and have read him cannot locate this phrase in any work of Philo. This phrase is also popularly attributed to Plato. An occasional person cites anonymous, but most people feel a need to cite someone: "an ancient Asian philosopher"; "a Russian proverb"; "St. Philo", among others (Marian Parker, who is that?) . The Philo blog discussion refers frustratingly to an article published in 1906, that refers to II Peter 1:57 - there're no more than 21 verses in any of its three chapters though, 61 verses in the whole book, and nothing faintly resembles this saying. When I looked this saying up last year, I eventually found a source that said it came from an American lecturer of the late 19th century: that is that this phrase may not have existed before 1880. John Watson, a prime minister of Australia is cited a few times as coining this sentence, but he's not the person I'd seen cited before. I know it's not Marion Parker. Another citation attributed it to both Watson and TH Thompson: it could be the latter, as that's the ordinary kind of American name I'd originally seen cited for it, that I faintly remember, and that is now absent from google's cache.
Still whenever I see this phrase cited for Philo (and it's so offhandedly cited to be embarrassing: the work it comes from is never cited - it would be like me quoting something and citing "Bible" or "Encyclopedia Britanica") I've begun to laugh. After awhile Philo will be stuck with this phrase, something he didn't say, while things that he did say, admirable things are gradually forgotten. Enough people believe that this is Plato that there could even be a dispute: it would be interesting to see how they settle that dispute - I hope not through counting internet citations. I feel a great deal of fun could be achieved by citing just about anyone. I love the "Asian philosopher" or the "Russian proverb": what bold attempts to give it some exotic cache. It might as well be cited as Ben Franklin, and I'm surprised no one has done that. I'm going for Thomas Paine: that great battle inside: there's a lot of pain in that.
Mark Twain in his book Roughing It describes a similar experience. In all his western journeys invariably he'd be treated to a story about Horace Greeley, a shaggy dog story. It would be prefaced by "Here's something you might not be aware of, Horace Greeley once rode this [stage, train, boat] .... " and it wold go on interminably. School marms would tell it (where have all the school marms gone?), Indians, young and old: this story might spring out of the mouth of anyone and Twain became gradually on his guard: he shied away from associating with certain people, fearing that this anecdote would be sprung on him. And he says, the worst thing is "it never happened." These things take on a life of their own.