Franklin D. Roosevelt? James Roosevelt? Richard ‘Skeets’ Gallagher? William ‘Buster’ Collier Jr.? C. Z. Weiser? Anonymous?
Question for Quote Investigator: Successful public speaking is both difficult and stressful, but it can be highly rewarding. The following tripartite guidance is both cogent and humorous. Here are two versions:
Be brief, be sincere. and be seated. Be sincere, be brief, and be seated.
These words have been credited to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, but I have never seen a solid citation. Would you please explore this topic?
Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest ascription to Franklin D. Roosevelt located by QI appeared in “The Washington Post” in January 1940. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
The other day James Roosevelt opened a talk he made at Hollywood by saying: “My father gave me these hints on speechmaking. Be sincere … be brief … be seated.”
Thus, there is some evidence that F.D.R. employed the expression while conversing with his son James. However, the remark was already circulating before 1940, and it is unlikely that F.D.R. coined it.
For example, in February 1935 U.S. actor Richard ‘Skeets’ Gallagher appeared on stage in a farce titled “Hollywood Holiday”. After a successful performance there were multiple curtain calls. When Gallagher appeared he delivered a one-line speech:2
Gallagher said his mother had often told him, “When you are called upon to make a speech, always be brief, sincere and be seated.”
It is conceivable that the expression was originally crafted by the mother of Richard ‘Skeets’ Gallagher, but the existence of other apparently unrelated citations in 1935 suggest to QI that the creator remains anonymous.
Additional details and citations are available in the article on the Medium platform which is located here.
Image Notes: Picture of empty seats from Hansjörg Keller at Unsplash. The image has been cropped.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Calvin Engime whose inquiry led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration.
[1] 1940 January 13, The Washington Post, My Friends, Quote Page 8, Column 2 and 3, Washington, D.C. (ProQuest)
[2] 1935 February 16, Journal-Every Evening, Movie Stars Back To Stage by W. P. F., Quote Page 19, Column 1, Wilmington, Delaware. (Newspapers_com)
Winston Churchill? Ernest Rutherford? Henry Tizard? Apocryphal?
Question for Quote Investigator: When access to money is restricted it becomes more difficult to accomplish tasks. Deeper and more creative thought is required to make progress. Here are four versions of a pertinent expression:
(1) We have not got any money, so we have got to think. (2) We haven’t any money so we’ve got to think. (3) We have run out of money. I guess we’ll have to think. (4) We are running short of money, so we must begin to think.
This notion has been ascribed to the prominent New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherford and to the famous British statesman Winston Churchill. I am skeptical because I have not seen a solid citation. Would you please explore this topic?
Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1952 English chemist Henry Tizard was awarded the Messel Medal of the Society of Chemical Industry. He delivered a speech at a meeting of the organization on July 9th which was reported in the journal “The Chemical Age” on July 19th.Tizard employed the saying in his speech, but he credited colleague Ernest Rutherford. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
It was just as easy, Sir Henry said, to waste money on research as on anything else—especially if it were the taxpayers’ money. In this connection he recalled a remark once made by the late Lord Rutherford concerning the advantage held by scientists—‘We have not got any money, so we have got to think.’
Tizard clearly felt that the saying was valuable because he used it twice during his speech:2
It was more important to strengthen our technology than to expand our science. We must avoid the luxury of employing first-class scientists on second-class projects. Science was not enough; and he again quoted Lord Rutherford’s words, ‘We have not got any money, so we have got to think.’
The above passages from 1952 are the earliest matches known to QI. Ernest Rutherford died in 1937. The accuracy of the quotation and its ascription is based upon the memory and veracity of Tizard.
Attributions to Winston Churchill appeared by the 1990s, but he died in 1965. The saying does not appear in the comprehensive reference “Churchill By Himself: In His Own Words” compiled by Richard M. Langworth.3QI believes that the linkage to Churchill is not substantive.
Additional details and citations are available in the article on the Medium platform which is located here.
Image Notes: Picture of miscellaneous currency from John McArthur at Unsplash. The image has been cropped.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Jonathan Lighter and Dan Goncharoff who participated in a mailing list thread about old sayings back in 2011 which ultimately led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration. Goncharoff pointed to the intriguing 1943 citation. Thanks also to Bill Sweetman’s email inquiry which helped to motivate this research. Additional thanks to Barry Popik for his helpful investigation.
[1] 1952 July 19, The Chemical Age: The Weekly Journal of Chemical Engineering and Industrial Chemistry, Volume 67, Issue 1723, Article: SCI Chooses American President: Seventy-First Annual General Meeting Held at Aberdeen, Start Page 77, Quote Page 79, London, England. (Verified with scans)
[2] 1952 July 19, The Chemical Age: The Weekly Journal of Chemical Engineering and Industrial Chemistry, Volume 67, Issue 1723, Article: SCI Chooses American President: Seventy-First Annual General Meeting Held at Aberdeen, Start Page 77, Quote Page 80, London, England. (Verified with scans)
[3] 2013 (Kindle Edition), Churchill By Himself: In His Own Words by Winston S. Churchill, Compiled and edited by Richard M. Langworth, (Quotation is absent.) RosettaBooks.
Lin Yutang? Sydney J. Harris? Carl Bakal? Anonymous?
Question for Quote Investigator: The kaleidoscopic world of fashion contains fluctuating hemlines, shifting necklines, transparent fabrics, and revealing slits. A pundit once stated that fashion embodies the struggle between the admitted desire to dress and the unadmitted desire to undress. Would you please explore the provenance of this remark?
Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1937 “Vogue” magazine published an essay by Chinese linguist and inventor Lin Yutang which discussed contemporary fashion. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
At present, probably the most sophisticated innovation is the long gown with a high slit at the sides, coming away above the knees. The instinct, I feel, is essentially French. For women’s dress is most bewitching when there is a subtle interplay between the art of concealment and the art of revelation. All women’s dresses, in every age and country, are merely variations on the eternal theme of struggle between the admitted desire to dress and the unadmitted desire to undress.
Additional details and citations are available in the article on the Medium platform which is located here.
Image Notes: Dress with a revealing slit from WedMaid Dresses at Unsplash. The image has been cropped.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to the anonymous person whose inquiry led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration.
[1] 1937 July 1, Vogue, Volume 90, Issue 1, Features: A Chinawoman’s Chance by Lin Yutang, Start Page 42, Quote Page 42, Column 1, Condé Nast, New York, (ProQuest)
Question for Quote Investigator: Apparently, a famous psychoanalyst once said that when one looks back at one’s life the periods of struggle will be considered the most beautiful. Do you know whether something like this was said by Sigmund Freud or C. G. Jung?
Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1907 psychotherapist Sigmund Freud wrote a letter to his colleague C. G. Jung in which he encouraged Jung to continue his efforts despite opposition. Freud wished to found a journal which would be called “Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse”. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
Let us found our journal. People will grumble, buy and read it. One day in retrospect the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.
Freud penned the original statement in German. The translation above by Tania and James Stern appeared in the “Letters of Sigmund Freud” in 1960.
Additional details and citations are available in the article on the Medium platform which is located here.
Image Notes: Picture of a person climbing a cliff from Patrick Hodskins at Unsplash. The image has been cropped.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Jon Miltimore who wrote an article that referred to this quotation. Miltimore searched Wikiquote and the Quote Investigator website for the quotation and found nothing relevant. Miltimore also asked ChatGPT which replied that the quotation was “commonly attributed to Sigmund Freud. However, there is no concrete evidence that he actually said or wrote these words.” Now, a search at the Quote Investigator website will find this webpage of helpful information.
[1] 1960, Letters of Sigmund Freud, Selected and edited by Ernst L. Freud, Translated by Tania and James Stern, Letter Number 127, Letter from: Sigmund Freud, Letter to: C. G. Jung, Letter location: Rome, Date: September 19, 1907, Start Page 257, Quote Page 258, Basic Books, New York. (Verified with scans)
Charles F. Kettering? Alec Issigonis? T. R. Quaife? Norris Cotton? Paul H. Gilbert? Jimmy Durante? Ed Byron? Georg Christoph Lichtenberg? Anonymous?
Question for Quote Investigator: When the opinions of committee members diverge significantly it becomes difficult to formulate a coherent consensus. This notion has been humorously expressed with a clever adage:
A camel is a horse designed by a committee.
U.S. inventor Charles F. Kettering and U.K. automotive designer Alec Issigonis have received credit for this saying, but I am skeptical because 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 “Reader’s Digest” magazine in September 1954 within a section titled “Toward More Picturesque Speech”. The word ‘horse’ was omitted; hence, the match was incomplete. Yet, the key idea was communicated with the words ‘camel’ and ‘committee’. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
A camel looks like something put together by a committee (T. R. Quaife)
Often sayings published in “Reader’s Digest” were reprinted in other periodicals and achieved wide distribution. For example, the saying above appeared in November 1954 within the “Stockton Evening Record” of Stockton, California. The newspaper acknowledged “Reader’s Digest”.2 The saying also appeared in the “Manchester Evening News” of Manchester, England. The newspaper acknowledged T. R. Quaife.3
In December 1957 the full quip with the word ‘horse’ appeared within a joke published in “Sports Illustrated” magazine:4
Child: Daddy, what is a camel? Father: What is a what? Child: What is a camel? Father: A camel is a horse that was designed by a committee.
Thus, T. R. Quaife is the leading candidate for creator of the core expression using ‘camel’ and ‘committee’. An anonymous person improved the saying by adding the word ‘horse’.
Thematic precursors depicted the humorous transformation of animals such as the donkey, horse, camel, and cow. Below is an overview with dates representing the evolution of the joke:
1801: Der Esel kommt mir vor wie ein Pferd ins Holländische übersetzt. (Georg Christoph Lichtenberg) Translation: The donkey seems to me like a horse translated into Dutch.
1946 Feb: Daffynition: CAMEL: A warped horse. (Paul H. Gilbert)
1949 Nov: A camel is a horse that swallowed its saddle. (Attributed to Jimmy Durante)
1950 Oct: “What is your definition of a camel?” “That’s a cow upside down.” (Billy Glason)
1954 Sep: A camel looks like something put together by a committee (Attributed to T. R. Quaife in “Reader’s Digest”)
1955 Nov: Even a camel reminds you of an animal that was put together by a committee. (Anonymous)
1956 Feb: giraffe—it’s the kind of an animal that looks like it had been put together by a committee. (Anonymous)
1957 Apr: camel—a beast that looks as if it had been designed by a committee. (Anonymous)
1957 Dec: Child: What is a camel? Father: A camel is a horse that was designed by a committee. (Anonymous)
1958 Feb: A camel is a horse put together by a TV network planning board. (Credited to Ed Byron by Leonard Lyons)
1958 Mar: Heard the new definition of a camel? It’s a race horse designed by a committee. (Anonymous)
1958 Jul: The refreshed definition of a camel: a horse planned by a committee. (Anonymous)
1959 Jun: Definition of a camel: this is “a greyhound put together by a committee.” (Anonymous)
1961 Apr: A camel is a horse designed by a committee. (Attributed to Charles F. Kettering)
1964 Jul: The camel was an example of a horse designed by a committee. (Attributed to Alec Issigonis)
Additional details and citations are available in the article on the Medium platform which is located here.
Image Notes: Illustration of two camels from Sebastian Laube at Unsplash.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Jeff Braemer whose inquiry led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration. Also thanks to researcher Nigel Rees who pointed to the saying by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Additional thanks to Barry Popik for his pioneering research. Popik located the 1957 “Sports Illustrated” citation and other helpful citations.
[1] 1954 September, Reader’s Digest, Volume 65, Number 389, Toward More Picturesque Speech, Quote Page 128, The Reader’s Digest Association, Pleasantville, New York. (Verified with hardcopy)
[2] 1954 November 2, Stockton Evening Record, Section: Editorial Page, Scissors: A Roundup of Best Humor, Quote Page 30, Column 5, Stockton, California. (Newspapers_com)
[3] 1954 November 15, Manchester Evening News, Mr. Manchester’s Diary, Quote Page 4, Column 9, Manchester, Greater Manchester, England. (Newspapers_com)
[4] 1957 December 9, Sports Illustrated, Events & Discoveries, Start Page 22, Quote Page 23, Column 1, Time Inc., New York. (Verified with scans)
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg? Stendhal? Marie-Henri Beyle? W. H. Auden? Bayard Taylor?
Question for Quote Investigator: A German humorist who lived in the 18th century thought the Dutch language sounded ridiculous as indicated by the following quip:
A donkey appears to me like a horse translated into Dutch.
Would you please help me to find the name of the humorist together with a citation?
Reply from Quote Investigator: German physicist and satirist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg died in 1799. His writings were collected and published shortly after his death. The second volume in 1801 contained the following saying in German. One possible translation into English has been included below. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
Der Esel kommt mir vor wie ein Pferd ins Holländische übersetzt. The donkey seems to me like a horse translated into Dutch.
[1] 1801, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg’s Schriften nach dessen Tode aus den hinterlassenen Papieren gesammelt und herausgegeben (Georg Christoph Lichtenberg’s writings collected and published after his death from the papers he left behind), Edited by Ludwig Christian Lichtenberg and Friedrich Kries, Volume 2, Quote Page 378, Göttingen in der Dieterichschen Buchhandlung. (Google Books Full View) link
The quip was circulating in English by 1879 when it appeared in the book “Studies in German Literature” by Bayard Taylor:2
I think even our extravagant American idea of humor will appreciate his remark that “a donkey is simply a horse translated into Dutch;” . . .
Additional details and citations are available in the article on the Medium platform which is located here.
Image notes: Public domain depiction of the ancient horse Equus Scotti and other prehistoric animals used in the 1914 book Tierwanderungen in der Urwelt.
Acknowledgement: Quotation expert Nigel Rees pointed out that this saying was a thematic precursor of the popular statement “A camel is a horse designed by a committee”. This observation inspired QI to investigate this statement and create an article. Rees and other researchers knew that Georg Christoph Lichtenberg crafted this saying.
Question for Quote Investigator: A kiss has been described as a “wordless articulation of desires whose object lies in the future.” Would you please help me to determine who made this statement?
Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1986 U.S. essayist and “Time” magazine journalist Lance Morrow published a piece about kissing which included the following passage. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
Kissing is a promise that reserves the right of refusal. A kiss is mute and highly articulate. It involves a brief fusion of two heads, the head being the residence of mind and soul. The mouth is simultaneously the front office of language and of hunger.
The kiss is a wordless articulation of desires whose object lies in the future, and somewhat to the south.
What made the screen kiss stimulating in the old days was that the consummation was left to occur in the viewer’s imagination.
Additional details and citations are available in the article on the Medium platform which is located here.
The Quote Investigator website has a webpage about a thematically related expression “Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire” which is available here.
Image Notes: Illustration of a couple about to kiss from Klara Kulikova at Unsplash. The image has been cropped and resized.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Mardy Grothe whose inquiry led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration. Some instances replace the original word “desires” with “desire”.
[1] 1986 January 19, The Sun-Herald, The kissing style of the great screen lovers … but now the stars are fearful by Lance Morrow, Quote Page 155, Column 2, Sydney, New South Wales, New South Wales, Australia. (Newspapers_com)
Walt Disney? Carolyn Kay Shafer? Douglas Adams? John Lloyd? Adam Breede? Ralph Spence? Anonymous?
Question for Quote Investigator: I first encountered the following quip many years ago. Here are two versions:
(1) You don’t have to be crazy to work here, but it helps. (2) You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it does help.
Would you please explore the origin of this humorous remark?
Reply from Quote Investigator: This joke has been employed by famous individuals. For example, in 1933 the entertainment entrepreneur Walt Disney received credit for the jest from his secretary:1
“We have a staff of exceptionally young people. Good fellowship predominates, but we all work hard.
“Mr. Disney is never too busy to be genuinely interested in each individual. He often says jokingly: ‘You don’t have to be crazy to work here, but it helps!’”
This remark fits the following template: “You don’t have to be crazy to X, but it helps” A family of expressions of this type is sometimes called a snowclone. Here is an overview with dates which depicts the evolution of the joke:
1920 Jun: A man don’t have to be crazy to believe in Free Trade, but it helps. (Anonymous)
1921 Jul: A man don’t have to be crazy to play golf, but it helps a great deal. (Attributed to unnamed business man in St. Paul, Nebraska)
1925 Nov: You don’t have to be crazy to dance the Charleston, but it helps. (Attributed to Ralph Spence)
1925 Jun: You don’t have to be crazy to play this on a saxophone, but it helps a lot. (Crossword clue in “Judge” magazine)
1926 Aug: One doesn’t have to be crazy to pick an all-star team but it helps. (Columnist Percy the Pest)
1930 Dec: “Do you have to be crazy to write poetry?” “No, but it helps” (Anonymous)
1932 Jul: Mr. Allison also admits that one doesn’t have to be crazy to write columns, but that it helps. (Attributed to Albert Allison)
1933 Nov: You don’t have to be crazy to work here, but it helps! (Attributed to Walt Disney)
1934 Sep: You don’t have to be a nut to go hunting and fishing, but it helps. (Columnist Hank in Springfield, Illinois newspaper)
1941 Feb: It is not necessary to go crazy over the work, but it helps. (Engineering student at University of Michigan)
1948 Mar: You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it does help. (Anonymous sign)
Additional details and citations are available in the article on the Medium platform which is located here.
Image Notes: Picture of a boardroom from Benjamin Child at Unsplash. The image has been cropped.
Acknowledgements: Great thanks to Laurence Horn, Bill Mullins, and Dan Goncharoff whose discussion thread inspired QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration. Also, thanks to British quotation expert Nigel Rees who discussed this topic in “Cassell’s Humorous Quotations” and included a 1969 Peter Nichols citation.
[1] 1933 November 12, The Evansville Press, Mickey Mouse Played Cupid Role in Romance of Former Evansville Girl, Quote Page B1, Column 4, (Credit was given to Walt Disney by his secretary Carolyn Kay Shafer (Mrs. Frank Churchill)), Evansville, Indiana. (Newspapers_com)
G. K. Chesterton? Malcolm Muggeridge? Émile Cammaerts? Umberto Eco? Apocryphal?
Question for Quote Investigator: An individual who becomes skeptical about traditional belief systems does not automatically embrace careful thought and rationality. Instead, the individual may embrace more eccentric belief systems and superstitions. Consider the following related remark:
When people cease to believe in God, they do not then believe in nothing, but in anything.
This statement has been attributed to the prominent English writer and philosopher Gilbert K. Chesterton. However, I am uncertain because I have not found a solid citation. Would you please explore this topic?
Reply from Quote Investigator: Researchers have been unable to find this saying in the writings or speeches of G. K. Chesterton who died in 1936.
The earliest known linkage to the famous writer appeared in the 1937 biography “The Laughing Prophet: The Seven Virtues and G. K. Chesterton” by Émile Cammaerts. The biography discussed a story titled “The Oracle of the Dog” featuring Chesterton’s amateur detective character Father Brown during which the sleuth asserted that some modern thinkers had replaced their rationalism and skepticism with superstition. Cammaerts summarized the viewpoint as follows. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything …
Cammaerts was not quoting Chesterton; instead he was concisely representing a stance he ascribed to Chesterton and his character Father Brown.
In 1953 English journalist Malcolm Muggeridge attributed the full saying under examination to Chesterton:2
G. K. Chesterton once remarked that, contrary to the popular supposition, when men cease to believe in God they do not then believe in nothing, but in anything.
Muggeridge helped popularize the attribution to Chesterton by presenting it repeatedly, e.g., in 1953, 1955, 1963, and 1966. The credibility of this linkage was weak because the phrasing of the attributed statement varied.
Below is an overview showing excerpts and dates. The overview begins with thematically related statements from other thinkers and continues with remarks from Chesterton that were pertinent to this topic. The overview ends with versions of the saying that have been attributed to Chesterton after his death.
1844: When people cease to believe in God, they believe in ghosts. (Attributed to Georg Christoph Lichtenberg)
1867: When men cease to believe in God, they begin again to believe in ghosts, i. e. in shams. (George M. Grant)
1870: “When men cease to believe in GOD, they believe in ghosts.” Destroy the venerable edifice of belief in the sober and severely moral and orderly GOD of the Bible, and amidst the ruins will spring up superstitions, extravagant and obscene … (J. Rice Byrne)
1908: The man who cannot believe his senses, and the man who cannot believe anything else, are both insane. (G. K. Chesterton)
1914: There may have been a time when people found it easy to believe anything. But we are finding it vastly easier to disbelieve anything. Both processes save the human mind from the disgusting duty of distinguishing between one thing and another. (G. K. Chesterton)
1923: It’s the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense, and can’t see things as they are. A dog is an omen and a cat is a mystery and a pig is a mascot and a beetle is a scarab, calling up all the menagerie of polytheism from Egypt and old India. (Spoken by Father Brown in G. K. Chesterton’s short story “The Oracle of the Dog”)
1924: You all swore you were hard-shelled materialists; and as a matter of fact you were all balanced on the very edge of belief—of belief in almost anything. There are thousands balanced on it to-day; but it’s a sharp, uncomfortable edge to sit on. You won’t rest till you believe something. (Spoken by Father Brown in G. K. Chesterton’s short story “The Miracle Of Moon Crescent”)
1928: Men have always one of two things—either a complete and conscious philosophy or the unconscious acceptance of the broken bits of some incomplete and shattered and often discredited philosophy. (G. K. Chesterton)
1937: The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything. (Émile Cammaerts’s depiction of G. K. Chesterton’s viewpoint)
1953: When men cease to believe in God they do not then believe in nothing, but in anything. (Malcolm Muggeridge’s depiction of G. K. Chesterton’s viewpoint)
1955: When people cease to believe in God, they do not then believe in nothing, but in anything. (Malcolm Muggeridge’s depiction of G. K. Chesterton’s viewpoint)
1963: When people cease to believe in a deity they do not then believe in nothing, but — what is much more calamitous — in anything. (Malcolm Muggeridge’s depiction of G. K. Chesterton’s viewpoint)
1989: When men stop believing in God, it isn’t that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. (Umberto Eco’s depiction of G. K. Chesterton’s viewpoint)
Additional details and citations are available in the article on the Medium platform which is located here.
Image Notes: Illustration of a person meditating from geralt at Pixabay. The image has been cropped and resized.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Ian Grattidge and Eccles whose twitter thread on this topic led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration. Grattidge highlighted the connection to Cammaerts. Also, thanks to Nigel Rees for his helpful entry about this quotation in the “Cassell Companion to Quotations”. Additional thanks to The Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton. Their website at chesterton.org contains an insightful essay about this saying titled “When Man Ceases to Worship God” which lists several germane citations.
[1] 1937, The Laughing Prophet: The Seven Virtues and G. K. Chesterton by Émile Cammaerts, Quote Page 211, Published by Methuen & Co. Ltd., London. (Verified on paper)
[2] 1953, Ciano’s Hidden Diary: 1937-1938, Translation and Notes by Andreas Mayor, Section: Introduction by Malcolm Muggeridge, Start Page vii, Quote Page ix, E. P. Dutton & Company, New York. (Verified with scans)
Albert Einstein? Henry Miller? Gerald W. Marshall? Bill Glass? Epcot Slogan? Apocryphal?
Question for Quote Investigator: A dynamic imagination is vital because it helps us to envision future possibilities. This notion has been expressed as follows:
Imagination is everything. It is the preview of coming attractions.
This statement has been attributed to the famous physicist Albert Einstein, but I am decidedly skeptical because I have never seen a proper citation. Would you please explore this topic?
Reply from Quote Investigator: There is no substantive evidence that Albert Einstein wrote or spoke this statement. It is not listed in the comprehensive reference “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein” from Princeton University Press.1
Einstein died in 1955. The earliest close matches known to QI appeared in two books in 1981. The self-help book “Reaching Your Possibilities Through Commitment” by Gerald W. Marshall contained the following:2
It has often been said that we are only one generation from heathenism. Perhaps we are only one generation from the Dark Ages as well if we don’t have big ideas. We need vivid imagination to create new ideas for success. Albert Einstein once said, “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of coming attractions.”
Also, in 1981 Bill Glass published the motivational book “Expect To Win” which printed a slightly longer version of the saying using the word “life’s”:3
Albert Einstein said, “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.” And this works both positively and negatively.
Both 1981 books credited Einstein, and QI hypothesizes an earlier instance exists, but there is no compelling reason to believe that Albert Einstein used the expression.
Additional details and citations are available in the article on the Medium platform which is located here.
Image Notes: Picture of a collection of colored pencils from Leohoho at Unsplash. The image has been cropped.
Acknowledgements: Great thanks to Joseph Dowdy and David Taylor-Klaus whose inquiries led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration. Special thanks to the anonymous editors of Wikiquote. On the Wikiquote Talk webpage for Einstein, participant Hypnosifl expressed skepticism about the attribution and pointed to the earliest match in the book “Expect to Win”. Thanks also to Barry Popik for his pioneering research. He located helpful citations including the match in the book “Reaching Your Possibilities through Commitment”.
[1] 2010, The Ultimate Quotable Einstein, Edited by Alice Calaprice, (The phrase “coming attractions” is absent), Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. (Verified on paper)
[2] 1981 Copyright, Reaching Your Possibilities Through Commitment by Gerald W. Marshall, Chapter 2: Aspiring and Desiring, Quote Page 24, Regal Books: A Division of G/L Publications, Ventura, California. (Verified with scans)
[3] 1984 (1981 Copyright), Expect To Win by Bill Glass, Chapter 1: Think Right Thoughts, Quote Page 20, Word Books, Waco, Texas. (Verified with hardcopy in 1984 reprint)
