Quotation: Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that once it is competently programmed and working smoothly—it is completely honest. Creator: Isaac Asimov, bestselling author of science fiction and science books Context: The book “Change! Seventy-One Glimpses of the Future” contained a series of short speculative essays detailing Isaac Asimov’s visions of the future. …
Author Archives: quoteresearch
Quote Origin: It Is Not the Clear-Sighted Who Lead the World. Great Achievements Are Accomplished in a Blessed, Warm, Mental Fog
Joseph Conrad? Edgar Ansel Mowrer? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Great attainments are normally thought to require superior mental acuity, but the brilliant novelist Joseph Conrad apparently contended that a “warm mental fog” was necessary. Would you please help me to find a citation? Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1915 Joseph Conrad published “Victory: An …
Quote Origin: Nothing Is More Responsible for the Good Old Days than a Bad Memory
Franklin P. Adams? Franklin P. Jones? H. B. Meyers? Sylvia Strum Bremer? Loring Smith? Mike Connolly? Steven Pinker? Question for Quote Investigator: Public intellectual Steven Pinker recently published the bestselling book “Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress” which includes an entertaining quotation about nostalgia attributed to a prominent newspaper columnist: As …
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Quote Origin: I Want to Be What I Was When I Wanted To Be What I Now Am
Marlon Brando? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: We are unable to anticipate the full consequences of the changes we make to ourselves. The following wistful and convoluted expression reflects this unease: I want to be who I was when I wanted to become who I am now. While listening to the radio I heard this …
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Quote Origin: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
Clare Boothe Luce? Oscar Wilde? Walter Map? Marie Belloc Lowndes? James Agate? Leo Pavia? Walter Winchell? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: For centuries moral philosophers have propounded a conventional viewpoint about the rewards and punishments delivered by a deity. Here is an example from the “Summa Theologica” by Saint Thomas Aquinas who lived during the …
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Quote Origin: If Something Cannot Go On Forever It Will Stop
Herbert Stein? Paul Krugman? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Economic trends are sometimes unsettling. For example, political commentators in countries that develop large foreign trade deficits often complain that the situation is untenable. A prominent economist responded to this fretting with a tautology. Here are four versions: Would you please help me to identify the …
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Quote Origin: Without Magic, There Is No Art. Without Art, There Is No Idealism
Raymond Chandler? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Raymond Chandler wrote influential detective novels such as “The Big Sleep” and “The Long Goodbye”. He moved to Hollywood and co-wrote the screenplay for the film noir classic “Double Indemnity”, but Chandler grew to dislike the heavy hand of producers, directors, and censorship boards on the writing process. …
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Quote Origin: I Never Argue with a Man Who Buys Ink by the Barrel
Roger Branigin? Mark Twain? Charles Brownson? Irving Leibowitz? William I. Greener Jr.? H. L. Mencken? Benjamin Franklin? Question for Quote Investigator: If a newspaper editor or publisher dislikes a viewpoint you are advocating then you may have to endure a long series of negative articles. The following three statements express this notion: Many famous wordsmiths …
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Quote Origin: Life Is a Shipwreck, But We Must Not Forget To Sing in the Lifeboats
Voltaire? Peter Gay? William F. Bottiglia? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Many dubious quotations have been ascribed to the preeminent French satirist and philosopher Voltaire. One popular saying depicts life as a metaphorical shipwreck. The survivors are exhorted to sing while sitting in the lifeboats. Is this saccharine guidance really from the acrid pen of …
Quote Origin: Long Enough to Cover the Subject and Short Enough to Create Interest
Winston Churchill? Ronald Knox? Gerald K. Rudulph? C. H. McNider? Richard N. Elliott? Louis Sobol? Frances Langford? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: The famous statesman and orator Winston Churchill was asked about the length of an ideal address, and he supposedly said: A speech should be like a woman’s skirt: long enough to cover the …