Quote Origin: In the Sublime War of Humanity Against Reality, Humanity Has But One Weapon, The Imagination

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Lewis Carroll? Cheshire Cat? C. S. Lewis? Jules de Gaultier? Benjamin de Casseres? Percy Bysshe Shelley? Herbert Kaufman? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: Reality can be cold and disheartening. Yet, humans have the extraordinary facility to imagine a different and more entertaining universe. Here are two versions of a pertinent saying:

(1) Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.
(2) In the war against reality, humanity has but one weapon—Imagination.

This remark has been attributed to the popular children’s author Lewis Carroll, the well-known fantasy author C. S. Lewis, the French philosopher Jules de Gaultier, and the essayist Benjamin de Casseres. Who is the genuine originator of this expression? Would you please explore this topic?

Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1916 Benjamin de Casseres published an essay about the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in “The Poetry Journal”. De Casseres employed a version of the saying while describing the works of Shelley, but he did not attribute the comment to the poet. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1

In the sublime war of man against Reality man has but one weapon, the imagination. The ethereal imagination is the highest form of the evolution of the transfiguring and sublimating power of images. It marks the boundary line between the mystery of matter and the mystery of spirit. It is the fine volatilized plasma of an esoteric dimension, of a world where the truths hinted at by the x-ray and radium are true for the human mind and body.

Based on current evidence QI believes that Benjamin de Casseres deserves credit for the quotation under examination. Jules de Gaultier improbably received credit in 1935 after the saying had been circulating for nearly two decades. Lewis Carroll and C. S. Lewis implausibly received credit in the 21st century.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

In 1912 Herbert Kaufman published in a New York newspaper a religious poem titled “The Greater Heroism” which contained a thematic match for the saying. The following six lines occurred at the end of the poem:2

The new soldier serves for the common good.
He comes in the name of faith—to heal—to cleanse.
Doubt and superstition and ignorance and wrong living and dirt are his only enemies.
Brotherhood is his battle-cry and hope his oriflamme.
He bears but one weapon—imagination—and where he treads he banishes despair and pain.
“He fights at Armageddon and he battles for the Lord.”

In 1913 Benjamin de Casseres published an essay titled “Jules de Gaultier: Super-Nietzschean” in “The Forum” periodical of New York. The depiction of Jules de Gaultier’s viewpoint differed significantly from the saying under exploration. The existence of a separate reality was questioned:3

Life is carried on by an act of the imagination perpetually repeated. Every human being sees himself as he is not. An ideal and a lie are one and the same thing.

The philosophy of Jules de Gaultier fused imagination and reality according to the following commentary from Benjamin de Casseres:4

Schopenhauer’s formula that man by “dint-of-wishing” will in the long run become the thing he wishes to be, Nietzsche’s command given to men that they shall endeavor to “surpass themselves” and Jules de Gaultier’s dogma that all reality, social as well as cosmic, exists first of all as a figment in the brain and is externalized by a long series of trials and imitations, are at bottom the same.

It is a new cosmogony. Man is himself a god, a fabricator, and his workshop is in his skull. His brain is the loom of the Unconscious, and with the stuffs he weaves there he dresses the external world.

In 1916 Benjamin de Casseres employed the quotation under analysis within an essay he published in “The Poetry Journal” as mentioned previously:

In the sublime war of man against Reality man has but one weapon, the imagination.

In 1926 Benjamin de Casseres published a collection of essays titled “Forty Immortals”. The essay containing the quotation was reprinted; hence, it continued to circulate:5

In January 1935 the mass-circulation periodical “The Reader’s Digest” printed the following filler item. QI conjectures that this item was sent to the magazine by a correspondent, and the attribution was not verified:6

In the war against Reality man has but one weapon — Imagination.
—Jules de Gaultier

In March 1935 the saying appeared in the “Cook Weekly Courier” of Nebraska in a section edited by local high school students. QI conjectures that a student saw the item in “The Reader’s Digest” and reprinted it:7

“In the war against Reality man has but one weapon—Imagination.”
—Jules de Gaultier.

In May 1935 columnist Neal O’Hara shared the quotation with his readers:8

Thought from the pen of Jules de Gaultier: “In the war against Reality, man has but one weapon—Imagination.”

In 1945 the quotation appeared as an entry in the book “Modern Humor for Effective Speaking” by Edward Frank:9

In the war against Reality, man has but one weapon—Imagination.
Jules de Gaultier

In 1966 Leonard Louis Levinson published “The Left Handed Dictionary”, and the reformulated quotation appeared as a definition:10

IMAGINATION. The one weapon in the war against reality.
Jules de Gaultier

In 1988 “Webster’s New World Dictionary of Quotable Definitions” contained the following entry:11

IMAGINATION
The one weapon in the war against reality.
Jules de Gaultier

In 2007 @hqotd tweeted the following:12

hqotd Jules de Gaultier: “Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.”

In October 2012 a tweet from @palendrome_x suggested that the quotation appeared in a famous book by Lewis Carroll:13

Imagination is the only weapon in a war against reality. -Alice in Wonderland

In December 2012 a tweet from @tomfenwicksmith suggested that another famous fantasy author crafted the saying:14

‘imagination is the only weapon we have in the war against reality’ thank you cs.lewis #scampforsanta

In 2015 “Valley Morning Star” newspaper of Harlingen, Texas printed the following passage:15

Now the library stood in the midst of McKelvey Park, adding the bright colors from the Alice in Wonderland story. In bold letters read the words from the tale, “Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.”

In 2016 a business book titled “In Your Creative Element” incorrectly suggested that a character created by Lewis Carol employed the saying:16

As the Cheshire Cat says in Alice in Wonderland: ‘Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality’ …

In conclusion, Benjamin de Casseres penned this saying in an essay published in “The Poetry Journal” in 1916. QI believes De Casseres deserves credit for this saying. The phrasing has evolved over time, and a few other authors have received credit, but QI has been unable to find substantive support for other attributions.

Image Notes: Illustration of a person meditating from geralt at Pixabay. Image has been cropped and resized.

Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Jim O’Shaughnessy, Sesquicentennial Snark, Alex Bulat-van den Wildenberg, and Chris Perera whose inquiries and comments led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration.

Update History: On September 4, 2024 the format of the bibliographical notes was updated.

  1. 1916 July, The Poetry Journal, Volume 6, Number 1, Shelley by Benjamin de Casseres, Start Page 19, Quote Page 20, The Four Seas Company, Boston, Massachusetts. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
  2. 1912 December 8, The Buffalo Sunday Times, The Greater Heroism by Herbert Kaufman, Quote Page 44, Column 3, Buffalo, New York. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  3. 1913 January, The Forum, Jules de Gaultier: Super-Nietzschean by Benjamin de Casseres, Start Page 86, Quote Page 86, Mitchell Kennerley, New York.(Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
  4. 1913 January, The Forum, Jules de Gaultier: Super-Nietzschean by Benjamin de Casseres, Start Page 86, Quote Page 86, Mitchell Kennerley, New York. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
  5. 1926, Forty Immortals by Benjamin de Casseres, Chapter: Shelley, Quote Page 172, Seven Arts Publishing Company, New York. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
  6. 1935 January, The Reader’s Digest, Volume 26, Number 153, (Filler item), Quote Page 38, The Reader’s Digest Association, Pleasantville, New York. (Verified with hardcopy) ↩︎
  7. 1935 March 7, Cook Weekly Courier, Cook School News, Editor: Lynn Trank Jr., Assistant: Mabel Seeba, (Article epigraph), Quote Page 1, Column 3, Cook, Nebraska. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  8. 1935 May 30, Evening Courier, Pull Up A Chair by Neal O’Hara, Quote Page 8, Column 3, Camden, New Jersey. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  9. 1945, Modern Humor for Effective Speaking by Edward Frank Allen, Section: Imagination, Entry Number 221, Quote Page 39, Dover Publications, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
  10. 1966 (Copyright 1963), The Left Handed Dictionary by Leonard Louis Levinson, Entry: Imagination, Quote Page 111, Collier Books, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
  11. 1988, Webster’s New World Dictionary of Quotable Definitions, Edited by Eugene E. Brussell, Second Edition, Section: Imagination, Quote Page 277, Column 2, Webster’s New World, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
  12. Tweet, From: Humourous QotD @hqotd, Time: 7:31 AM EST, Date: Sep 23, 2007, Text: hqotd Jules de Gaultier: “Imagination is the …”. (Accessed on twitter.com on Oct 31, 2022) link ↩︎
  13. Tweet, From: amren @palendrome_x, Time: 3:02 PM EST, Date: Oct 26, 2012, Text: Imagination is the only weapon … (Accessed on twitter.com on Oct 31, 2022) link ↩︎
  14. Tweet, From: TFS @tomfenwicksmith, Time: 6:01 PM EST, Date: Dec 23, 2012, Text: imagination is the only weapon … (Accessed on twitter.com on Oct 31, 2022) link ↩︎
  15. 2015 March 22, Valley Morning Star, Spreading Literacy: Students bring “Little Free Libraries” to the Valley, Start Page C1, Quote Page C2, Column 3, Harlingen, Texas. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  16. 2016, In Your Creative Element: The Formula for Creative Success in Business by Claire Bridges, Chapter 3: The characteristics of creative people, Quote Page 68, Kogan Page Limited, London. (Google Books Preview) ↩︎
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