Susan Ohanian? Thomas Sowell? Anonymous?
Question for Quote Investigator: Social media is rife with conflict. Comments about sensitive topics produce incendiary responses. I am reminded of this mordant insight:
There are only two ways of telling the complete truth—anonymously and posthumously.
U.S. economist Thomas Sowell and U.S. teacher Susan Ohanian have received credit for this remark. Would you please help me to find a citation?
Reply from Quote Investigator: In July 1985 Thomas Sowell published a column containing a long list of quips and adages which included the following three items. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
There are only two kinds of schools — those that keep up with the latest educational trends and those that teach.
There are only two ways of telling the complete truth — anonymously and posthumously.
There are only two kinds of gamblers — those who say they have lost more than they have won and those who lie about it.
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
In 1923 “The Morning Albertan” of Calgary, Alberta, Canada printed an article about Mrs. Waagen of the Red Cross. When she was asked whether she planned to describe her experiences in a book she answered with a thematically relevant comment:2
“Will you ever put your Red Cross experiences into a book?” I asked her once.
“If I do,” she laughed, “they will either be published anonymously or posthumously, I’m afraid”
In 1986 quotation collector Robert Byrne published “The Third and Possibly the Best 637 Best Things Anybody Ever Said” which included the following entry:3
There are only two ways of telling the complete truth anonymously and posthumously.
Thomas Sowell
In 1990 the syndicated newspaper feature “Celebrity Cipher” used the expression as the solution to a puzzle:4
PREVIOUS SOLUTION: “There are only two ways of telling the complete truth — anonymously and posthumously.” — Thomas Sowell.
In 1996 “The New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women” Compiled by Rosalie Maggio included the following item:5
There are only two ways to tell the one hundred percent truth: anonymously and posthumously.
Susan Ohanian, Ask Ms. Class (1996)
In 2000 the “Random House Webster’s Wit & Humor Quotationary” printed this item:6
THOMAS SOWELL (1930-). American economist
There are only two ways of telling the complete truth—anonymously and posthumously.
In conclusion, Thomas Sowell deserves credit for the statement he published in 1985. Susan Ohanian published a very similar remark in 1996, but Sowell’s statement maintains priority.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to the anonymous person whose inquiry led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration.
Image Notes: Public domain image of a tombstone engraved with the word “Unknown”. The image has been cropped and resized.
- 1985 July 5, The Stuart News, Life is just a two-way street by Thomas Sowell (Scripps-Howard News Service), Quote Page A5, Column 1, Stuart, Florida. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1923 November 28, The Morning Albertan, Canadian Authors (continuation), Quote Page 16, Column 5 and 6,Calgary, Alberta, Canada. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1986, The Third and Possibly the Best 637 Best Things Anybody Ever Said, Compiled by Robert Byrne, Quotation Number 603, Atheneum, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1990 November 13, Sapulpa Daily Herald, Celebrity Cipher, Quote Page 8, Column 2, Sapulpa, Oklahoma. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1996 Copyright, The New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women, Compiled by Rosalie Maggio, Topic: Truth, Quote Page 713, Column 1, Beacon Press, Boston, Massachusetts. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 2000, Random House Webster’s Wit & Humor Quotationary, Edited by Leonard Roy Frank, Person: Thomas Sowell, Quote Page 242, Random House, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎