Tracing Quotations
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 …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: A Camel Is a Horse That Was Designed by a Committee”
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 …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: A Donkey Is a Horse Translated Into Dutch”
Lance Morrow? Tomima Edmark? Anonymous? 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 …
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 …
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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 …
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 …
Dwight D. Eisenhower? William Safire? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Historically, the censorship impulse has been enormously powerful and nearly universal. Interestingly, the nature of the repressed material has been highly variable. It has included sexual, ideological, religious, cultural, and military topics. The opposition to censorship has also been forcefully expressed. Apparently, a U.S. President …
Herbert Marcuse? Bryan Magee? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: It is tempting to view the world through the prism of an all-encompassing sociocultural stance, e.g., Marxism, Freudianism, or existentialism. However, this distorted vision reduces one’s life to a didactic parable. Here is a humorous remark about this obsessive reductionism: Not every problem someone has with …
Chris Rock? Michael Cavna? Garry Trudeau? David Frost? Aaron McGruder? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Satire can puncture pomposity and direct laughter at the powerful. The results of U.S. presidential elections have been swayed by satire. The 1960 contest between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon was close. The barbs directed at Nixon were effective …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Kennedy Didn’t Beat Nixon. Satire Beat Nixon”
Mark Twain? Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.? Alexandre Dumas fils? Lady Mary Wortley Montagu? Ellen Osborn? Manley H. Pike? Ben Johnson? Benjamin Disraeli? Alexander Chase? Roger O’Mara? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Making sweeping statements about the universe is difficult to resist, but exceptions seem to be unavoidable. The following comically paradoxical statement is popular. Here …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: No Generalization Is Wholly True—Not Even This One”