Tracing Quotations
Mohandas Gandhi? Arleen Lorrance? Ernest Troutner? Diane Kennedy Pike? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Often you cannot convince someone via speech alone to constructively alter a behavior, but you can provide a model for emulation by changing your own behavior. Here are three versions of this notion: This saying has been attributed to the famous …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Be the Change You Wish To See in the World”
William Petty? Henry Fielding? Adam Smith? Camillo Benso? James Wolcott? Marshall McLuhan? Roger Jones? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: The winners of a recent lottery jackpot split more than one billion dollars. Yet the probability of a lucky lottery strike is smaller than an unlucky lightning strike. Economists, mathematicians, and wits have made sardonic remarks like …
Continue reading “A Lottery Is a Taxation Upon All the Fools in Creation”
Winston Churchill? James Reston? Edward M. Kennedy? Clark M. Clifford? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The massive arsenals of the nuclear nations have been poised like the Sword of Damocles to fall upon the head of mankind for decades. Statesman Winston Churchill reportedly was critical of excessive weaponry and said: If you go on with this …
Samuel Taylor Coleridge? Jeremiah Seed? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Advice that is shouted as a command is often ignored. A different approach is more successful: Advice is like snow – the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind. The prominent English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge has …
Napoleon Bonaparte? Frederick the Great? Thomas Carlyle? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Proper logistics are crucial to any successful military campaign. The importance of food supply is highlighted in a well-known aphorism. Here are four versions: An army marches on its stomach. An army marches on its belly. An army travels on its stomach. An army …
Sinclair Lewis? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Whenever I hear someone attempting to diagnose the problems of the world I am reminded of the following amusingly recursive remark: The trouble with this country is that there are too many people saying, “The trouble with this country is…” Although I roughly remember the quotation I do not …
Carolyn Wells? Bruce Porter? Gelett Burgess? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: The following well-known adage concisely states a controversial moral principle: Of two evils, choose the lesser. I’ve heard these cynical variants: Of two evils, choose the one you haven’t tried before. Of two evils, a journalist will write about the one that gets the most …
Clarence Darrow? George Sand? Charles Paul de Kock? Henry Monnier? Eddie Drake? Heywood Broun? Irvin S. Cobb? Steven Pinker? Anonymous? Disliked Food: Spinach? Carp Head? Eels? Oysters? Lobster? Lettuce? Green Peas? Beets? Dear Quote Investigator: The famous defense lawyer Clarence Darrow apparently had a very low opinion of the vegetable favored by the cartoon character …
Art Buchwald? Henry James Lee? Mrs. Kenneth Clarke? Linda Godeau? Laurence J. Peter? Anonymous? Dear Quote investigator: A popular modern adage de-emphasizes materialism: The best things in life aren’t things. This phrase has been attributed to the humorist Art Buchwald and the quotation collector Laurence J. Peter. What do you think? Quote investigator: This saying …
Leo Tolstoy? Edwin H. Stuart? Elinor Glyn? Henry Traphagen? Art Buchwald? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: While I am working hard on a complex project my desk usually becomes messy, but I take comfort in the following sayings: A cluttered desk is the mark of a genius. A messy desk is the sign of a creative …