Tracing Quotations
Spike Milligan? John MacGregor? William Gordon Stables? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: The nausea of seasickness feels endless. An absurdist quip suggests that the only genuine remedy is a return to solid ground: The best cure for seasickness is to sit under a tree. The Irish-English comedian Spike Milligan has received credit for this line, but …
Continue reading “A Sure Cure for Seasickness Is To Sit Under a Tree”
Oscar Wilde? Seamus Heaney? Dorothy Parker? Israel Zangwill? Jen Kirkman? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The body and the soul separate at the time of death according to many religious systems. Hence, the idiom “keep body and soul together” refers to maintaining life, i.e., earning enough money to maintain health and activity. The famous Irish wit …
Oprah Winfrey? Anne Saidman? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: At an early age U.S. talk show host, producer, and entrepreneur Oprah Winfrey believed that she was responsible for her own choices and actions. She worked hard to make a good life and obtain success. One of her inspirational quotations used the phrase “responsible for myself”. Would …
Continue reading “I Was Responsible for Myself, and I Had To Make Good”
Dorothy Parker? Alexander Woollcott? Israel Zangwill? Oscar Wilde? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The body and the soul separate at the time of death according to many religious systems. Hence, the idiom “keep body and soul together” refers to maintaining life, i.e., earning enough money to maintain health and activity. A quipster once reversed this formula …
Continue reading “Salary Is No Object; I Want Only Enough To Keep Body and Soul Apart”
Margaret Atwood? David? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The North American fur trade between First Nations and Europeans began in the 16th century. In the 19th century millions of beaver pelts were sold in Europe. The importance of this trade has been summarized with the following blunt statement: Canada was built on dead beavers. The famous …
Voltaire? Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan? Desmond MacCarthy? Sissela Bok? Joseph Wood Krutch? Norman L. Torrey? Marvin Lowenthal? Henry Hazlitt? Richard Dawkins? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: A system that forces people to embrace absurd beliefs causes damage to their processes of rational thought. These impaired people are more likely to act illogically and destructively. With encouragement they may …
Continue reading “Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities Can Make You Commit Atrocities”
Hugh Garner? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: A Canadian author once praised the writing profession because it “interfered less with my drinking”. Would you please help me to identify this author and find a citation? Quote Investigator: Writer Hugh Garner is best known for the Depression-era novel “Cabbagetown”. He won the Governor General’s Award of Canada …
Continue reading “There Is No Other Career . . . Which Would Have Interfered Less With My Drinking”
Benjamin Franklin? George S. Patton? G. E. Marchand? Gertrude Nelson Andrews? Nicholas Murray Butler? George Lawton? Peter McWilliams? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Living fully during each day of one’s allotted time in this world is an admirable goal, yet few achieve this objective. Here are two versions of a humorous and melancholy comment often credited …
Continue reading “Many People Die at Twenty-Five and Aren’t Buried Until They Are Seventy-Five”
Niels Bohr? Hans Bohr? Werner Heisenberg? Oscar Wilde? Emilio Segrè? Carl Sagan? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: A famous scientist once asserted something like this: The opposite of a deep truth is another deep truth. Would you please help me to find a citation and the correct phrasing? Quote Investigator: In 1949 the prominent physicist Niels …
Continue reading “Deep Truths Are Statements in Which the Opposite Also Contains Deep Truth”
Oscar Wilde? Niels Bohr? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Sometimes a narrow logical analysis is not enough to understand a topic. In the realm of art, the negation of a truth may yield another truth. The famous wit Oscar Wilde once made a claim of this type. Would you please help me to find a citation. …
Continue reading “A Truth in Art Is That Whose Contradictory Is Also True”