Tracing Quotations
Eleanor Roosevelt? Reader’s Digest? Apocryphal? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a remarkably insightful statement about self-esteem that is usually credited to Eleanor Roosevelt, the diplomat and former First Lady: No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. This is one of my favorite quotations, but I have not been able to determine …
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George S. Kaufman? Eddie Fisher? Clifton Fadiman? Dick Cavett? Dear Quote Investigator: Many, many years ago I saw an old clip on TV of George S. Kaufman and he was replying to a question submitted by a listener/viewer/audience member. For the sake of example let’s say it was a woman complaining about her husband’s smoking …
Continue reading “Combining the Mount Wilson and Mount Palomar Telescopes Still Won’t Be Enough”
Samuel Goldwyn? Roger Miller? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: I noticed that the Wikiquote website lists one of my favorite funny sayings attributed to Samuel Goldwyn, the famous film producer [WSG]. In the version of the story I heard, a friend told Goldwyn that he wanted to honor the studio head by naming his son after …
Albert Einstein? Leo Mattersdorf? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: I have been struggling trying to figure out how much I owe to the Internal Revenue Service this year. The quote I would like you to explore does not sound very extraordinary. What makes it funny and outrageous is the identity of the person who supposedly …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: The Hardest Thing in the World to Understand Is Income Taxes”
Vladimir Lenin? Winston Churchill? George Riddell? H. L. Mencken? Fictional? Dear Quote Investigator: I was thumbing through The Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations to try and find a good saying about freedom of the press and I was stunned to see this hostile sentence [OPQ]: As to freedom of the press, why should any man …
John Maynard Keynes? E. A. G. Robinson? Fictional? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Many times I have seen the following quote attributed to John Maynard Keynes: Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone. I cannot find a source. Also, …
Dorothy Parker? Walter Winchell? Fictional? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Recently, I gave a close friend a book as a gift, and on the accompanying card I included a quotation that Dorothy Parker once used in a book review: This must be a gift book. That is to say, a book which you wouldn’t take on …
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Tug McGraw? Joe Namath? Charles Edward Greene? Bill Lee? Fictional? Dear Quote Investigator: I laughed out loud when I read the answer given by Major League Baseball star Tug McGraw when he was asked whether he preferred grass or Astroturf: I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf. This quote appeared in a newspaper article last …
Wife of the Bishop of Worcester? Wife of the Bishop of Birmingham? Wife of Samuel Wilberforce? Wife of an English Canon? A Decorous Spinster? Fictional? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a remarkable quotation that dramatically highlights the controversial intersection between science and religion in the nineteenth century. The words were attributed to a Bishop’s wife …
Thomas Wolfe? Orlando Aloysius Battista? Eddie Rickenbacker? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: While searching for quotations about success I found the following: You have reached the pinnacle of success as soon as you become uninterested in money, compliments, or publicity. Several web pages credit this saying to the famous writer Thomas Wolfe, but I’ve read “Look …