Atheist Memes

Do not compare yourself to others. If you do so, you are insulting yourself.

• Adolf Hitler

Yeah it's not hard to agree with that, even if the guy was a monster of the worst kind.

Maybe I should quote someone else who said something similar, would be less controversial and to not put the asshat on pedestral, but in this case it was likely the OP didn't know much about the person and just saw a text he agreed on.

The difference being, Hitler was well known for his bigotry. Some quotes are popular because they express an idea in a clever or entertaining way. Other quotes are used to invoke the gravitas of the original speaker or the original context. Sometimes it's a bit of both.

Quoting Hitler, even for something relatively benign like his lunch order, implies that you support his ideology and actions. "I'll have the salad, just like Hitler" has an obvious undertone of bigotry. Hitler might have shared some truisms, but chances are you can find similar, alternative quotes from famous people who didn't commit a genocide.

Hardly anyone knows who Madeline O'Whatever is, and knowing she is a Holocaust denier, to me, means that she's a nutjob. But it doesn't mean all of her statements are false. The above statement is true, regardless of any unrelated delusions held by the speaker.

Sure, but with the context he was:

1. factually correct.
2. there isn't some ulterior motive in the quote, e.g. racism, antisemitism, nationalism, etc.

Or to put it another way, I would be comfortable saying, "he was a dog shit human being, but he was right that one time."