Whenever I come across quotes which I find interesting, I will usually try to check whether they are genuine or not. This usually entails tracing down the earliest version of the quote in print. I read the following quote which divides humans and nations into three categories in a French translation on 27^th July 2014 and again in French roughly four years later. Yesterday, I borrowed from my local university library a book about the global conspiracy against our health (Claire Séverac, Complot mondial contre la santé, Élie et Mado, Porto Vecchio, Corsica, 2011) and today as I wanted to find out whether or not a passage about vaccines I had found interesting would be available online (thereby allowing me to quote it without having to type it myself), I fell upon the same quote I had read previously in 2014 and 2018: ‘Le monde se divise en trois catégories de gens: un très petit nombre qui fait se produire les événements, un groupe un peu plus important qui veille à leur exécution et les regarde s’accomplir, et enfin une vaste majorité qui ne sait jamais ce qui s’est produit en réalité.’ Nicholas Murray Butler, président de la Pilgrim Society, prix Nobel, membre de la Carnegie, membre du CFR.)  [‘The vast population of this earth, and indeed nations themselves, may readily be divided into three groups. There are the few who make things happen, the many more who watch things happen, and the overwhelming majority who have no notion of what happens.’]

Unfortunately, this translation in French (which is widely disseminated over the Internet) adds some words (‘veille à leur exécution’, ‘sees to their implementation’) as well as it leaves out the sentence which comes immediately after the first two sentences: ‘Every human being is born into this third and largest group; it is for himself, his environment and his education to determine whether he shall rise to the second group or even to the first.’ [For anybody who would want to read this last sentence in French: ‘Chaque être humain naît dans ce troisième et plus grand groupe ; c’est à lui-même, à son environnement et à son éducation de déterminer s’il s’élèvera au deuxième groupe ou même au premier.’]

This quote was part of an address Nicholas Murray Butler, an American philosopher, educator, a Nobel Prize winner for his peace activism and efforts to establish a new international order, gave on 23^rd March 1931 before the University of California, Berkeley. Although this address was published already in 1931, I was unable to find an electronic version of it online. Fortunately, the address was included in a compilation of Mr Murray Butler’s speeches which is available online, on page 17 of Looking forward; what will the American people do about it? Essays and addresses on matters national and international (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932).

The passage from which this quote is taken reads as follows:

THESE UNITED STATES

On this very day twenty-four years ago, it was my privilege to speak before the University of California on Charter Day. The topic at that time was “True and False Democracy.” An attempt was then made to appraise the new forces which were at work in the political and economic life of the world and to indicate the path of true progress toward the protection and development of liberty and in building institutions that are truly democratic upon steadily strengthening foundations. The eternal warfare between the struggle for liberty and the theory of equality was pointed to as offering the surest clue to an understanding of what was then taking place throughout the world.

The well-nigh quarter-century which has elapsed has been eventful to a degree which is without precedent.  No man in his senses would have dared twenty-five years ago to predict the sort and kind of happenings that have held the world in their grip almost from that time to this. And the end is not yet by any means.

The vast population of this earth, and indeed nations themselves, may readily be divided into three groups. There are the few who make things happen, the many more who watch things happen, and the overwhelming majority who have no notion of what happens. Every human being is born into this third and largest group; it is for himself, his environment and his education to determine whether he shall rise to the second group or even to the first.
[…]
https://archive.org/details/lookingforward0000nich/page/16/mode/2up

As I do not wish to comment on the author of this quote (except that his essay ‘True and False Democracy’, which I went through very quickly, has sentences which read like this one ‘or was the truth not with Mazzini, who defined democracy as “the progress of all through all, under the leadership of the best and wisest”’), I shall leave the reader of this entry to decide which category they fit in; for my part, I harbour no doubt that I belong to the second one...

Other links
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1931/butler/biographical
https://archive.org/search.php?query=Nicholas+Murray+Butler&and%5B%5D=creator%3A%22butler%2C+nicholas+murray%2C+1862-1947%22
[...]
These United States, 1931 March 23, 1931
[...]
https://findingaids.library.columbia.edu/ead/nnc-ua/ldpd_13236481/dsc/1
https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/those_who_make_things_happen_those_who_watch_things_happen_and_those_who_wo