Richard Feynman? Steven Weinberg? Barnett Newman? John D. Barrow? Philip Kitcher? Apocryphal? Anonymous?
Humorous illustration of a bird reading a book (Public domain)
Question for Quote Investigator: The philosophy of science critically examines the foundations and methods of empiricism. Practitioners of science are sometimes indifferent or hostile to this analysis. Apparently, a scientist once presented the following derisive analogy:
The philosophy of science is as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.
In other words, a textbook on ornithology would be indecipherable to a bird just as a treatise on the philosophy of science would be irrelevant to a working scientist. This thought has been ascribed to U.S. theoretical physicist Richard Feynman, but I am skeptical because I have never seen a solid citation. Would you please explore this topic?
Reply from Quote Investigator: QI has found no substantive support for the attribution to Richard Feynman. The quotation is not listed in the valuable 2015 compendium “The Quotable Feynman” from Princeton University Press.1
The earliest close match known to QI appeared in the journal “Nature” in 1987 which printed a speech delivered by theoretical physicist Steven Weinberg. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:2
I’ve heard the remark (although I forget the source) that the philosophy of science is just about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.
Steven Weinberg did not claim credit; instead, he presented an anonymous attribution. Interestingly, the remark is a member of a family of related sayings that began with an analogy credited to prominent U.S. painter Barnett Newman in the journal “Art in America” in 1955:3
. . . aesthetics is for the artist like Ornithology is for the birds . . .
A separate Quote Investigator article about the saying immediately above is available here.
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
Barnett Newman? Frederic James? Ad Reinhardt? Dorothy Gees Seckler? Jonathan Williams? Apocryphal?
Public domain illustration of the abstract painting style
Question for Quote Investigator: Art critics and historians have invented and propounded recondite theories of aesthetics. Yet, the motivations and inspirations of influential artists are detached from these abstruse theories. Apparently, a painter once presented the following sardonic analogy:
Aesthetics is for the artists like ornithology is for the birds.
In other words, birds do not read textbooks about ornithology, and vital artists do not read disquisitions on aesthetics. U.S. artist Barnett Newman, U.S. painter Frederic James, and U.S. painter Ad Reinhardt have all received credit for this analogy, but I have never seen a precise citation. Would you please help me?
Reply from Quote Investigator: In August 1952 Barnett Newman attended the Woodstock Art Conference in Woodstock, New York with several prominent artists and critics. An article in “The Kingston Daily Freeman” of Kingston, New York reported on the conference and published a germane quotation from Newman. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
In a direct challenge to the aesthetician, Barnett Newman, painter, stated that “what the artist creates is the reality and the people imitate that reality which the painter has created.” He demolished the value of aesthetic study for the artist with the observation that he had known a lot of ornithologists, and “they don’t think ornithology is for the birds!”
Thus, Newman expressed the central idea of the analogy, but he did not employ the compact self-contained statement at the 1952 conference. A few years later, in December 1955 an article in the influential magazine “Art in America” ascribed the analogy to Newman. It is possible that Newman was responsible for this formulation. Alternatively, the magazine writer Dorothy Gees Seckler constructed the analogy based on Newman’s 1952 remarks. The name “Barnett” was misspelled as “Barnet”:2
Apparently the artists of the Terrain Gallery, one of the liveliest of this type, do not believe with Barnet Newman that “aesthetics is for the artist like Ornithology is for the birds,” since they have initiated a series of aesthetic discussions around the Elie Siegel theory of opposites with exhibitions through the season to illustrate specific art principles.
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.? Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.? Virgil? Apocryphal? Anonymous?
Eighteenth Century Personification of Death
Question for Quote Investigator: The personification of Death has been employed in artworks to highlight mortality. We must attempt to achieve a full and worthwhile life during our brief period passing through this earthly realm. Here is a pertinent quotation:
Death plucks my ear and says “Live, for I am coming”
This macabre admonition has been attributed to physician Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., and ancient Roman poet Virgil (also spelled Vergil). I am having difficulty tracing the provenance of this statement. Would you please help?
Reply from Quote Investigator: One of the minor works attributed to Virgil is a drinking song titled “Copa” in which an entertainer at a tavern beyond the gates of Rome entices travelers to eat, drink, and spend the day with pleasure instead of arduously pursuing transient fame represented by a garland or wreath. Here are the final lines of the song in Latin and English. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
Quid cineri ingrato servas bene olentia serta?
Anne coronato vis lapidi ista legi?
Pone merum et talos. Pereant, qui crastina curant! Mors aurem vellens—Vivite, ait, venio.
Why reserve you the garland, all sweet with perfume,
To deck the cold marble that closes the tomb?—
Set the dice and the wine:—May he perish who cares
For the good or the ill which to-morrow prepares; Death pulls by the ear, and cries, “Live while you may; I approach, and perhaps shall be with you to-day.”
The translation above appeared in an 1827 book about Roman literature by John Dunlop. The song was ascribed to Virgil by fifth-century grammarian Servius, but the authorship is disputed, and modern scholars have become skeptical.
The line mentioning Death achieved a spike in popularity in 1931 when it was spoken by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. within a radio address transmitted during his 90th birthday celebration. Holmes credited the line to a “Latin poet who uttered the message more than fifteen hundred years ago”.
A variety of English translations have entered circulation. Here is a sampling of renditions with dates:
1827: Death pulls by the ear, and cries, “Live while you may.” 1899: Death plucks my ear, and says, “Live! for I come.” 1906: Death, plucking his ear says, “Live ! I am coming!” 1916: Death, your ear demands and says, “I come, so live to-day.” 1929: Here’s Death twitching my ear, “Live,” says he, “for I’m coming!” 1931: Death plucks my ear and says “Live I am coming.” 1931: Death clutches my ear, and says, “Live, I am coming.” 1977: Death tugs at my ear and says: “Live, I am coming.”
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
Sir Walter Raleigh? Walter Alexander Raleigh? Dale Carnegie? Andrew McAleer?
Portrait of William Shakespeare
Question for Quote Investigator: Creating an artwork or writing a book requires audacity. The existing trove of high-quality art and literature is humbling in its size and magnificence. The newcomer must wonder whether it is possible to equal or surpass previous achievements. Here are two versions of a pertinent remark:
(1) I can’t write a book commensurate with Shakespeare, but I can write a book by me.
(2) I cannot write a book commensurate to Shakespeare, but I can write a book by me.
This statement has been attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh which is an ambiguous name. Sir Walter Raleigh of the Elizabethan era was an English statesman and explorer who died in 1618. A different Sir Walter Raleigh was a Professor of English Literature at Oxford University who died in 1922. I have been unable to find a citation for this quotation. Would you please help me?
Reply from Quote Investigator: Sir Walter Raleigh (Walter Alexander Raleigh) authored a well-received book about Shakespeare in 1907. During that year he sent a letter to Thomas Herbert Warren, President of Magdalen College, Oxford. The letter was published posthumously by Lady Raleigh in 1926. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
Everyone says it was a horribly difficult thing to write on Shakespeare. So it was and is, I suppose, but I didn’t think of it that way, or I couldn’t have written.
I can’t write a book commensurate with Shakespeare, but I can write a book by me,—which is all that any one can do. I feel as free to think about Shakespeare as to think about the moon, without putting myself into competition. So I was not conscious of impudence, or even of ambition.
Thus, Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh deserves credit for the quotation under examination. Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.? Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.? Albert Einstein? Ralph Waldo Emerson?
The Schmadribach Falls (of the Swiss Alps) by Joseph Anton Koch circa 1822
Question for Quote Investigator: Encountering a novel idea or sensation causes changes that permanently alter one’s intellect. This notion can be expressed as follows:
A mind that is stretched by a new idea or experience can never shrink back to its old dimensions.
Attempting to trace this saying is confusing because the phrasing is highly mutable. The adage has been attributed to physician Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., physicist Albert Einstein, and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. I have not been able to find solid citation using the original phrasing. Would you please help me?
Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest match known to QI appeared in the September 1858 issue of “The Atlantic Monthly” of Boston, Massachusetts within a recurring column called “The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table” written by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Senior. Holmes’s mind was expanded when he saw a majestic mountain range. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
Every man of reflection is vaguely conscious of an imperfectly-defined circle which is drawn about his intellect. He has a perfectly clear sense that the fragments of his intellectual circle include the curves of many other minds of which he is cognizant. He often recognizes these as manifestly concentric with his own, but of less radius. On the other hand, when we find a portion of an arc outside of our own, we say it intersects ours, but are very slow to confess or to see that it circumscribes it.
Every now and then a man’s mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions. After looking at the Alps, I felt that my mind had been stretched beyond the limits of its elasticity, and fitted so loosely on my old ideas of space that I had to spread these to fit it.
QI believes Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. should receive credit for this adage. The variant phrasings evolved from Holmes’s initial expression. The attributions to Albert Einstein and Ralph Waldo Emerson appeared many decades after 1858 and are unsupported.
Here is a sampling of the different versions of the saying together with dates and attributions:
1858 Sep: Every now and then a man’s mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions. (Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.)
1895 Oct: A man’s mind now and then is stretched by a new idea and does not afterward shrink to its former dimensions. (Attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes)
1949 Sep: Man’s mind once stretched to a new idea will never return to its former dimensions. (Attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes)
1949 Oct: A man’s mind once stretched to a new idea never quite returns to its original size. (Attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes)
1957: The mind, once stretched, never returns to its original size. (Anonymous)
1959: A man’s mind stretched by a new idea can never go back to its original dimensions. (Attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes)
1960: A stretched mind never returns to its original dimension. (Anonymous)
1961: A man’s mind, once stretched by an idea, can never return to its original size. (Anonymous)
1967: Sometimes a person’s mind is stretched by a new idea and never does go back to its old dimensions. (Attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes)
1980: The mind, once expanded to the dimension of larger ideas, never returns to its original size. (Attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes)
1998: A mind once stretched by new thoughts can never regain its original shape. (Attributed to Albert Einstein)
2006: The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions. (Attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson)
2008: A mind exposed to a new idea never shrinks back to its original size. (Attributed to Albert Einstein)
2009: The mind that opens to a new idea never goes back to its original size. (Attributed to Albert Einstein)
Below are details for selected citations in chronological order.
Lightbulb illustration from Gerd Altmann at Pixabay
Question for Quote Investigator: An innovative scientist was once asked about how it was possible to generate worthwhile ideas. He replied approximately as follows:
You have a lot of ideas and throw away the bad ones.
This remark has been ascribed to Linus Pauling who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962. Would you please help me to find a citation?
Reply from Quote Investigator: A partially matching quotation from Linus Pauling appeared in “Fortune” magazine in April 1960 within an article about prominent U.S. chemists. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
Pauling energetically pursued his ideas in many directions. “The best way to have a good idea,” he says, “is to have a lot of ideas.”
In January 1961 “Time” magazine printed a slightly different version of Pauling’s remark:2
Linus Carl Pauling, 59, Caltech’s outspoken, opinionated chemist, began prying into the personality of the atom just after World War I, when the laboratories of his specialty were alive with novel and productive ideas. The coincidence was explosive. For Pauling believes that “the best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.” He had plenty.
In 1969 Dickinson College of Carlisle, Pennsylvania awarded Pauling the Priestley Memorial Award. The local newspaper, “The Evening Sentinel”, published an article about the ceremony which included remarks from Pauling during which he employed the full version of the quotation:3
“I was once asked ‘How do you go about having good ideas?’ and my answer was that you have a lot of ideas and throw away the bad ones. Train your subconscious to discard the bad ones,” he suggested.
“Often a flash of inspiration gives scientists answers and ideas. Later the scientist looks for a logical derivation and often succeeds in finding one.”
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
William Butler Yeats? John Millington Synge? Oliver Stone? George Bernard Shaw? Mary Higgins Clark? Martha Manning? Paul Greenberg? James Finn Garner? Apocryphal? Anonymous?
Painting of “O’Malley Home” by Robert Henri circa 1913
Question for Quote Investigator: The painful history of the island of Ireland has produced numerous inhabitants with a melancholy disposition. This notion is reflected in the following humorously inverted saying:
Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.
These words have been attributed to Nobel prize-winning Irish writer William Butler Yeats, but I have never seen a citation, and I have become skeptical. Would you please explore this topic?
Reply from Quote Investigator: Several researchers have unsuccessfully attempted to locate this statement in the works of William Butler Yeats who died in 1939. The ascription is currently unsupported.
The earliest match located by QI appeared in a 1991 article in the “San Francisco Chronicle” of California. The piece contained remarks from U.S. movie director Oliver Stone who was releasing a biopic about songwriter and vocalist Jim Morrison of the rock group “The Doors”. Stone used the saying while describing the psychology of Morrison, and Stone credited the words to Yeats. Stone’s variant phrasing used the word “itinerant” instead of “temporary”. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
“He was pessimistic by nature,” Stone adds. “He reminds me of something William Butler Yeats said about another Irishman: ‘He had an abiding sense of tragedy, occasionally interrupted by an itinerant sense of joy.’”
Citations crediting Yeats also appeared in 1993, 1994, 1995 and afterward. QI believes that the ascription to Yeats is incorrect, but a citation before 1991 probably exists. At this time, the originator remains anonymous.
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
Ralph Waldo Emerson? Mary Pickford? Irving Hoffman? Office Cat? Junius? Anonymous?
Clock Illustration from Gerd Altmann at Pixabay
Question for Quote Investigator: A constant stream of social media and news updates is available to each of us. It is easy to seek out material which induces anger, yet the value of continuously inflicting aggravation and anguish upon oneself is unclear. Here are two versions of a pertinent adage:
(1) Every minute you are angry, you lose 60 seconds of happiness.
(2) Every moment you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of joy.
The influential transcendentalist thinker Ralph Waldo Emerson has received credit for this saying, but I have never seen a solid citation. Would you please explore this topic?
Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest match located by QI appeared in “The Placer Herald” of Auburn, California on February 3, 1934. The text below occurred as a short filler item. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
Every minute you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness.
Selected.
The term “selected” meant that the statement had been reprinted from an unnamed book or periodical. None of the early instances found by QI provided an ascription. Thus, the originator remains anonymous.
Ralph Waldo Emerson who died in 1882 received credit by 1955. The long delay and the lack of a contemporary source means that the supporting evidence for the attribution to Emerson is not substantive at this time.
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
Mark Twain? Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.? Markus Herz? Ernst Freiherr von Feuchtersleben? Walter C. Alvarez? Anonymous?
The Apothecary by Gabriël Metsu circa 1651–67
Question for Quote Investigator: All kinds of medical advice is available on the internet. However, the quality is variable, and some of the recommendations are deleterious. A pertinent quip has been circulating for decades. Here are two versions:
(1) Never read medical books. You might die of a misprint. (2) Be careful when you’re reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
This remark has been attributed to the famous humorist Mark Twain and the prominent U.S. physician Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., but I have not found any solid citations. Would you please explore this topic?
Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest match located by QI appeared in the German periodical “Der Gesellschafter oder Blätter für Geist und Herz” (“The Companion or Pages for Mind and Heart”) in 1817. The following excerpts in German are followed by translations into English. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
Zu einem Patienten, dem es zur Gewohnheit geworden war: durch medizinische Hülfsbücher sich selbst helfen zu wollen, sagte der verstorbene Dr. Herz: Nehmen Sie sich in Acht, Sie sterben einmal an einem Druckfehler!
The late Dr. Herz said to a patient who had become accustomed to trying to cure himself with medical manuals: “Be careful, you’re going to die one day from a printing error!”
In 1818 the full name of the doctor was specified as Marcus Herz in a short item printed in “Die Leuchte: Ein Zeitblatt für Wissenschaft, Kunst und Leben” (“The Lamp: A Journal for Science, Art and Life”):2
„Der stirbt noch an einem Druckfehler!” sagte Marcus Herz von einem, der sich aus Büchern kurirte.
“This one is going to die of a misprint!” said Marcus Herz of one who cured himself from books.
Markus Herz (also spelled Marcus Herz) was a prominent German physician and lecturer who died in 1803. Thus, these attributions occurred posthumously which reduced their credibility. Nevertheless, Markus Herz is the leading candidate for creator of this quip.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. who died in 1894 received credit for the joke by 1939. Mark Twain who died in 1910 received credit by 1972. In both cases, this evidence is weak.
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
Vincent van Gogh? Sarah Harding? Anonymous? Apocryphal?
“Irises” by Vincent van Gogh
Question for Quote Investigator: Conforming to social norms is much easier than following a divergent, colorful, and eccentric pathway through life. This notion has been expressed as follows:
Normality is a paved road; it’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.
The famous Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh has received credit for this statement, but I have become skeptical because I have never seen a solid citation. Would you please explore his topic?
Reply from Quote Investigator: The website of the Van Gogh Museum of Amsterdam has an extensive database of letters from Vincent Van Gogh with English translations. QI performed many search queries on this database and was unable to locate a match for the quotation within the database.
Van Gogh died in 1890, and the earliest match known to QI appeared in a 2009 exhibition catalog titled “Vincent Van Gogh: Between Earth and Heaven: The Landscapes” from the Kunstmuseum Basel in Switzerland. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
“Normality is a well-paved street; it is good for walking—but no flowers will grow there.”
Vincent van Gogh
The quotation occurred on the front flap of the dust jacket. It did not appear in the main body of the book. Unfortunately, no citation was provided. At present, QI would not ascribe this statement to Vincent van Gogh because this evidence is too weak. The creator remains anonymous. Perhaps a future researcher will uncover a superior citation.
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
