All Wars Are Planned by Older Men in Council Rooms Apart

Grantland Rice? Herman Melville? Herbert Hoover? Reverend E. W. Elstron? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: A mournful anti-war poem contains this line: All wars are planned by older men in council rooms apart. The poem has been attributed to Grantland Rice who was a popular sports journalist. I have seen a version of the verse that …

Better To Fail in Originality than To Succeed in Imitation

Herman Melville? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The major literary figure Herman Melville was famous for envisioning an archetypal beast and a fateful battle in “Moby-Dick; or, The Whale” published in 1851. Reportedly, Melville wrote an article that extolled creativity with the following assertion: It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation. …