Tracing Quotations
Samuel Johnson? Robert Gordis? Francis Bacon? Morris Raphael Cohen? Mordecai M. Kaplan? Benjamin Jowett? Question for Quote Investigator: While I was a student a few decades ago I came across a remarkable metaphysical expression that was similar to the following: The search for knowledge will lead a person away from God, and then back toward …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: It Is Not Quite the Same God to Which One Returns”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe? Thomas Carlyle? Mary Shelley? Percy Bysshe Shelley? Thomas S. Monson? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: There is a family of sayings ascribed to the prominent German literary figure Goethe. Here are two instances in the family: If you treat people as they are, they will become worse. If you treat them …
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe? Haim G. Ginott? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The major German literary figure Goethe has received credit for a passage that begins: I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. I have not found any solid ascriptions …
Robert Overton? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: The question and answer of the following exasperating riddle appear to be nonsensical: Question: Why is a mouse when it spins?Answer: The higher, the fewer. Would you please examine the provenance of this conundrum? Reply from Quote Investigator: Robert Overton published “Ten Minutes: Holiday Yarns and Recitations” as …
Edmund Wilson? Agatha Christie? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The following acerbic remark has been used to dismiss the entire mystery genre as trivial and uninteresting: Who cares who killed Roger Ackroyd? Would you please help me to find a citation for this remark? Reply from Quote Investigator: This interrogative statement is the title of …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?”
Rebecca West? Virginia Woolf? Nelson Goodman? Noam Chomsky? Vita Sackville-West? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Quantum mechanics has an interpretation that envisions many worlds. Also, modal logic has a semantics that features many possible worlds. Yet, the expansive idea of many universes or worlds has waggish detractors. One comical response to this plenteous philosophy states: …
Mary McCarthy? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Some writers carefully map out the full plot of a novel before putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. Other writers begin a story relying on an incomplete character sketch and a theme. The prominent novelist and critic Mary McCarthy said she felt suspense while writing and …
Agatha Christie? James Beasley Simpson? Joe Bushkin? Leonard Lyons? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Successful collaboration is difficult to achieve for many creators. The outstanding mystery writer Agatha Christie once referred to the difficulty of splitting royalties while explaining why she did not have coauthors. Would you please help me to find her remark? Reply …
Lord Byron? William Drummond? Marguerite Gardiner? Andrew Carnegie? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: My favorite quotation is a brilliant tripartite observation about rationality. Here are two versions: (1) Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves. (2) He, who will not reason, is a …
Bertrand Russell? Sheldon? John Ruskin? Woods Hutchinson? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Cantankerous individuals who believe they are surrounded by an ignorant and unthinking public sometimes proclaim: This statement has been enhanced with a funny addition that reinvigorates the cliché. Here are two versions: The influential British intellectual Bertrand Russell has received credit for this …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Most People Would Die Sooner Than Think—In Fact, They Do So”