Tracing Quotations
Tom Sims? Edgar Allan Poe? Mary Margaret McBride? Sidney K. Bennett? Clayton Rawson? George Stracke? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: A commonplace warning states that you should not believe everything you hear. But the following extreme version of this caution embodies even greater skepticism: Don’t believe everything you think. I once saw this statement on …
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Friedrich Nietzsche? Claudia Crawford? Walter Kaufmann? Karl Jaspers? Roland Barthes? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: In Greek mythology, the Cretan princess Ariadne helped the hero Theseus slay the Minotaur and escape from the labyrinth. Ariadne gave Daedalus a ball of thread so he could successfully navigate through the deadly maze. While contemplating this myth, the …
Robert Blatchford? Arthur Bugs Baer? Roy K. Moulton? Robert de Saint-Jean? Ford Madox Ford? Georges Clemenceau? P. L. Garvin? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: The nature of modern warfare is changing rapidly with new weaponry based on drones and machine learning. Yet, military planners are immersed in studying past battles. Here are two versions of …
Continue reading “Proverb Origin: Generals Always Prepare to Fight the Last War”
Mel Brooks? Carl Reiner? Betty Brainerd? Joey Bishop? Kenneth Tynan? S. Sylvan Simon? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: What makes something funny? Why do so many people find pratfalls humorous? The difference between comedy and tragedy has been described in a comically cynical remark with a tincture of cruelty: Tragedy is when I get a …
Charles de Gaulle? Leonardo Da Vinci? André Maurois? Gerard Hopkins? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: A pithy speech is more powerful than a long-winded oration. Concision amplifies potency. Here are two versions of this idea: Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.Nothing enhances authority more than silence. This statement has been credited to the French …
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Vernor Vinge? Hans Moravec? Irving John Good? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The creation of entities with superhuman intelligence would mark a new epoch in human history. Systems which outperform humans in tasks such determining 3D protein structures or playing the boardgame Go already exist. But these AI systems display narrow expertise. The advent of …
Carol Mangiaracina? R. S. Bond? T. J. Ruddy? George Korber? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: The following humorous proverb encourages a person to remain silent: A fish wouldn’t get caught if it kept its mouth shut. Would you please explore the provenance of this saying? Reply from Quote Investigator: This saying is difficult to trace …
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George Washington? Philip M. Crane? W. Cleon Skousen? Paul Broun? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The following statement about armaments has been attributed to one of the Founding Fathers of the United States: A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a …
T. S. Eliot? Samuel Beckett? W. H. Auden? Vladimir Nabokov? Gloria Goddard? Clement Wood? J. L. Thompson? Tom Congdon? Alan Bennett? Question for Quote Investigator: The name of the major literary figure T. S. Eliot has inspired entertaining wordplay. A bookseller who visited the London headquarters of Eliot’s publisher, Faber and Faber, supposedly emerged with …
Continue reading “Palindrome Origin: Was It Eliot’s Toilet I Saw?”
Mulla Nasreddin? Khodshah? Khoja Nasr ed-Dîn Effendi? Harry Charles Lukach? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: In the past you have examined a family of humorous anecdotes about credulousness. The punchline of these tales was: Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes? There is another anecdote of this type which seems to be older: …
Continue reading “Anecdote Origin: “I Can Hear the Donkey Bray” “Do You Believe Me or the Donkey?””