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”
Mark Twain? George Roemisch? Sophia May Eckley? Ella A. Giles? Elizabeth Reeves Humphreys? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The following evocative metaphorical definition of forgiveness is often attributed to Mark Twain: Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it. But I have seen the quotation below credited to someone …
Continue reading “Forgiveness Is the Fragrance the Violet Sheds on the Heel That Has Crushed It”
John Pierpont Morgan? John D. Rockefeller? William Rockefeller? Jay Gould? Jesse Livermore? Dear Quote Investigator: The best-known prediction for investors is also the most humorously vacuous. According to legend a young person approached one of the top businessmen in the U.S. and asked with an undertone of desperation for guidance in the stock market. The …
Continue reading “I Believe the Market Is Going to Fluctuate”
Dorothy Parker? Katharine Hepburn? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a famously severe criticism that was aimed at an inexpressive theater performer or movie star in the 1930s. Here are two prototypes: This performer ran the gamut of human emotion all the way from A to B. This thespian runs the gamut of emotions from …
Continue reading “She Runs the Gamut of Human Emotion from A to B”
Robert Browning? Johann Paul Friedrich Richter? Jakob Böhme? Johann Gottlieb Fichte? Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel? Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The popular play “The Barretts of Wimpole Street” dramatized the compelling love story between the poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning. The work was first performed in the 1930s and was later made …
Continue reading “When I Wrote It, Only God and I Knew the Meaning; Now God Alone Knows”
Samuel Johnson? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: After Samuel Johnson published his masterful dictionary of the English language he was reportedly approached by two prudish individuals: “Mr. Johnson, we are glad that you have omitted the indelicate and objectionable words from your new dictionary.” “What, my dears! Have you been searching for them?” Recently, I heard …
Continue reading “Improper Words: Have You Been Searching for Them?”
Tallulah Bankhead? Joan Collins? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Two vibrant actresses have been connected to a satirical statement about purity: Tallulah Bankhead and Joan Collins. I think that the statement was made as a humorous self-description. But it may have been made as a criticism. Here are two versions: I’m as pure as the driven …