Tracing Quotations
Oscar Levant? Edmund Fuller? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: I see on the website that you looked into a quotation credited to the pianist, actor, and wit Oscar Levant and showed that someone else probably said it first. But I am confident that the following quote was originally said by Levant, and it fits the theme …
Continue reading “An Epigram is Only a Wisecrack That’s Played Carnegie Hall”
Mohandas Gandhi? George Perry Graham? Louis Fischer? Henry Powell Spring? Martin Luther King? Dear Quote Investigator: Mohandas Gandhi’s policy of non-violence was famously used during the campaign for independence in India. There is a well-known quotation that helps to express the rationale for this non-retaliatory philosophy: An eye for an eye will leave everyone blind. …
Continue reading “An Eye for an Eye Will Make the Whole World Blind”
Benjamin Jowett? Father Strickland? William T. Arnold? Harry Truman? Ronald Reagan? Charles Edward Montague? Edward Everett Hale? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a quotation I love that presents an insightful guideline for the most effective way to achieve a goal by accenting humility: The way to get things done is not to mind who gets …
Continue reading “A Man May Do an Immense Deal of Good, If He Does Not Care Who Gets the Credit”
Gore Vidal? Franklin P. Adams? George S. Kaufman? Mary Horan? Chico Marx? Walter Winchell? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: The holiday season is here, and I have a question about a pun. A critic once told Gore Vidal that one of his novels was meretricious and Gore pointedly replied: Really? Well, meretricious and a happy New …
Robert Benchley? Irvin Cobb? Will Rogers? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: A variety of quips have been credited to the great wit and stylish film actor Robert Benchley, but I don’t see his name very often on this website. Bartlett’s Book of Anecdotes contains a story that illustrates his sharp humor. Benchley was attending a Hollywood …
Paul Ehrlich? Alexander Pope? Senator Soaper? Bill Vaughan? Agatha Christie? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: I am reading your blog and that shows I am not a Luddite, but computers can be very exasperating. One of my favorite quotations on this topic is the following: To err is human, but to really foul things up you …
Continue reading “To Err is Human; To Really Foul Things Up Requires a Computer”
John F. Kennedy? Edmund Burke? R. Murray Hyslop? Charles F. Aked? John Stuart Mill? Dear Quote Investigator: Here is a challenge for you. I have been reading the wonderful book “The Quote Verifier” by Ralph Keyes, and he discusses the mixed-up quotations that President John F. Kennedy sometimes declaimed in his speeches. Here is an …
Continue reading “The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing”
Dorothy Parker? An old farmer? A young newspaper editor? Bennett Cerf? Dear Quote Investigator: Recently when a friend delivered a clever retort I told her it was worthy of Dorothy Parker, but she did not recognize the name. I love Parker’s witticisms and am sad that her fame is going into eclipse. The prominent publisher …
Continue reading ““I simply can’t bear fools.” “Apparently, your mother could.””
Collis Huntington? Richard Ballinger? David Starr Jordan? Upton Sinclair? Dear Quote Investigator: Collis Huntington was one of the top railroad tycoons in the 1800s. His business skills helped to build the first transcontinental railroad in the United States and many other rail links. But his detractors considered him ruthless and greedy. These negative traits are …
Thucydides? W. B. ‘Bill’ Hayler? Horowitz’ First Law? Dear Quote Investigator: I once served on a ship that had a brass plaque on the bridge engraved with the following: A collision at sea can ruin your whole day. This comes across as a modern sardonic saying, and I was surprised to read the name of …
Continue reading “A Collision at Sea Can Ruin Your Entire Day”