Tracing Quotations
Mohandas Gandhi? Dorothy Uris? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Archaeologists and historians have expended enormous efforts in tracing the origins of civilization. A trenchant humorist has said that scholars should not be trying to ascertain where civilization began; instead, they should be trying to guess when it will begin. Did Mahatma Gandhi say something like …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: The Question Is Not Where Civilization Began, But When Will It”
Arthur C. Clarke? Isaac Asimov? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The famous science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke believed that proclamations of impossibility were too readily dispensed by blinkered elderly scientists. Would you please help me to find a citation for Clarke’s First Law? Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1962 Arthur C. Clarke published a …
Ernest Rutherford? Robert Millikan? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The experimental physicist Ernest Rutherford won a Nobel Prize for his pioneering work on radiation. Later his research group at the Cavendish Laboratory of the University of Cambridge split the nucleus of an atom in a controlled manner. Yet, he doubted that atomic physics would produce …
J. D. Salinger? Wilhelm Stekel? Otto Ludwig? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger is a popular work embodying adolescent angst and confusion. During one scene a teacher of the protagonist Holden Caulfield gives him a remarkable quotation ascribed to a psychoanalyst named Wilhelm Stekel. Has anyone attempted …
Voltaire? Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Coffee enthusiasts enjoy sharing an anecdote about Voltaire who savored the aromatic beverage throughout his life. The famous philosopher’s physician warned him that coffee was a slow poison. He replied, “Yes, it is a remarkably slow poison. I have been drinking it every day …
Charles Dickens? Ellen Pickering? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: The famous English writer Charles Dickens has received credit for a high-flown expression that compares a person’s hopes to a beautiful bloom that should not be spoiled. I have been unable to find this saying in any of his novels, and I have begun to doubt …
Mark Twain? Josh Billings? Artemus Ward? Kin Hubbard? Will Rogers? Edwin Howard Armstrong? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: The Oscar-winning 2015 film “The Big Short” begins with a display of the following statement: It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. The …
Steven Wright? Kurt Vonnegut? Emo Philips? Rich Siegel? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: A speaker will typically ask audience members to raise their hands to signal an affirmative answer to a question. A humorist constructed a funny remark based on a transformation of this scenario: If you believe in psychokinetic powers, please raise my hand. …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: How Many People Here Tonight Are Telekinetic? Raise My Hand”
Philip Gosse? John Bishop? Leonard Lyons? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: A family of popular comical anecdotes conforms to the following template. An individual suffers a grievous injury such as a spear through the chest. A companion asks about his or her status, and the reply is absurdly understated: “Does it hurt?”“Only when I laugh.” …
Continue reading “Dialogue Origin: “Does It Hurt?” “Only When I Laugh””
Al Capp? Li’l Abner Yokum? Mammy Yokum? Question for Quote Investigator: The comic strip “Li’l Abner” created by Al Capp achieved great popularity in the 1940s and 1950s. The setting was the fictional village of Dogpatch in the Southern United States. Al Capp employed an exaggerated Southern dialect which he spelled phonetically. Teenager Li’l Abner …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Good Is Better than Evil Because It’s Nicer”