Tracing Quotations
Niels Bohr? Albert Einstein? Carl Alfred Meier? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: There is popular anecdote about a journalist or friend who visited the home of a prominent physicist. The visitor was surprised to find a horseshoe above the front doorway of the scientist’s abode. Tradition asserts that a horseshoe acts as a talisman of luck …
Continue reading “I Understand It Brings You Luck, Whether You Believe in It or Not”
Yogi Berra? Jim Prior? Clifford Terry? John Anders? Tish Baldrige? Anonymous? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Déjà vu is the eerie and intense sensation that something you are experiencing has happened before. This feeling is often illusory because the event being experienced is genuinely novel. The term déjà vu can also be used to simply reference …
Mark Twain? Thomas Jefferson? Martin Farquhar Tupper? Seneca? Winston Churchill? James A. Garfield? Thomas Dixon? Michel de Montaigne? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Everyone faces difficulties in life; however, the worry-filled anticipation of possible setbacks pointlessly magnifies dangers. A comical statement illuminating this theme has been attributed to both Mark Twain and Winston Churchill: I am …
Groucho Marx? George Carlin? John Charteris? Theodor Reik? Doctor Who? Shirley Hazzard? Niall MacDermot? Sam Ervin? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: The famous comedians Groucho Marx and George Carlin are both credited with a joke that can be expressed in many ways. Here are some examples: Military Intelligence is an oxymoron. Military Intelligence is a contradiction …
Continue reading “Military Intelligence is a Contradiction in Terms or an Oxymoron”