Oscar Wilde? Alfred Hitchcock? Joseph Wood Krutch? Margo Coleman? Bennett Cerf? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Anyone who has grown tired of reading idealized and overly sentimental visions of nature will enjoy the following skewed definition: Nature is where the birds fly around uncooked. These words are credited to Oscar Wilde, but I haven’t found …
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Quote Origin: Science Makes Progress Funeral by Funeral
Paul A. Samuelson? Max Planck? Thomas S. Kuhn? Henri Poincaré? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Resistance to revolutionary scientific theories is intransigent. Progress only occurs when the prestigious detractors from a previous generation die out. Here are four versions of a maxim eloquently stating this viewpoint: Science advances funeral by funeral. Science advances one funeral …
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Quote Origin: We Must Expand Life Beyond Our Little Blue Mud Ball—or Go Extinct
Elon Musk? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Controversial and path-breaking entrepreneur Elon Musk started the rocket company SpaceX because he is passionate about traveling to Mars. He said something like: If mankind does not get off of this mud ball then it will go extinct. Would you please help me to find a citation? Reply …
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Quote Origin: Some People Are Troubled by the Things in the Bible They Can’t Understand. The Things That Trouble Me Are the Things I Can Understand
Mark Twain? Hugh Elmer Brown? Joseph Fort Newton? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The following quotation is often attributed to Mark Twain, but I do not know whether it is accurate: It ain’t the parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand. Would you …
Quote Origin: Novelty is Mistaken for Progress
Frank Lloyd Wright? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright was critical of the new buildings he saw in cities. Apparently, he said: Novelty is mistaken for Progress. Would you please help me to find a citation? Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1955 Frank Lloyd Wright published an essay titled “The …
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Quote Origin: Thirty Years from Now the Big University Campuses Will Be Relics. Universities Won’t Survive
Peter Drucker? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The famous management guru Peter Drucker apparently made a provocative prediction about education: Universities won’t survive. Is this quotation accurate? Would you please help me to find a citation? Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1997 “Forbes” published an interview with Peter F. Drucker under the title “Seeing things …
Quote Origin: There is No Reason for Any Individual To Have a Computer in Their Home
Ken Olsen? David H. Ahl? Gordon Bell? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: I was looking through a collection of woefully inaccurate pronouncements delivered by experts, and I saw a remark attributed to Ken Olsen, a prominent computer industry pioneer who founded the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) which built minicomputers. DEC was perfectly positioned to create …
Quote Origin: To Be Glamourous Just Stand Still and Look Stupid
Hedy Lamarr? Hedda Hopper? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The Hollywood star Hedy Lamarr was famous for her beauty and intelligence. In the 1940s she and a co-author were granted a patent for a futuristic frequency-hopping communication system whose importance emerged two decades later. Her attitude towards glamor was summarized with a hilarious quotation: Why, …
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Quote Origin: I Spent a Good Part of Last Evening Laughing at a Very Bad Play
Walter Kerr? Groucho Marx? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Comedies rarely win prestigious awards. Critics are unaccountably hostile to works that make them guffaw. Groucho Marx once described a critic who laughed heartily and repeatedly during the performance of a play, yet crafted and published an excoriating newspaper review the next day using the barbed …
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Quote Origin: You Are Never Too Old To Set Another Goal or To Dream a New Dream
C. S. Lewis? Les Brown? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: The famous fantasy author C. S. Lewis has been credited with an encouraging statement aimed at seniors: You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. I haven’t been able to find a citation. Is this ascription accurate? Reply …
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