Tracing Quotations
Mark Twain? Bill Nye? Mr. Walkup? Eli Perkin? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Recently, a business website published an article about investing in gold and mining equities. The columnist began with a very funny and facetious remark attributed to Mark Twain:[ref] Website: Bloomberg View, Article title: Are Shares of Gold Miners a ‘Buy’?, Author: Barry Ritholtz, …
Continue reading “A Gold Mine Is a Hole in the Ground with a Liar at the Top”
Ralph Waldo Emerson? Harrison Emmerson? Harrington Emerson? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: It is always possible to attempt to solve a problem by clumsily trying a variety of methods, but it is better to select an appropriate technique based on principled understanding. The following statement has been attributed to the famous philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson: The …
Continue reading “The Man Who Tries Methods, Ignoring Principles, Is Sure to Have Trouble”
Mark Twain? Lord Byron? G. K. Chesterton? Edward Bellamy? Humphrey Bogart? Leo Rosten? Tom Clancy? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a wonderful quotation by Mark Twain about the implausibility of truth versus fiction. Here are four versions: 1) Why shouldn’t truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. 2) It’s no …
Herman Melville? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The major literary figure Herman Melville was famous for envisioning an archetypal beast and a fateful battle in “Moby-Dick; or, The Whale” published in 1851. Reportedly, Melville wrote an article that extolled creativity with the following assertion: It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation. …
Continue reading “Better To Fail in Originality than To Succeed in Imitation”
Jonathan Swift? Fisher Ames? Lyman Beecher? Jonathan Farr? Samuel Hanson Cox? Sydney Smith? Sidney Smith? Ben Goldacre? Dear Quote Investigator: Jonathan Swift was a prominent literary figure who authored “Gulliver’s Travels” and “A Modest Proposal”. He has been credited with an elegant thought about the limitations of persuasion via logical argument: You cannot reason someone …
Continue reading “You Cannot Reason People Out of Something They Were Not Reasoned Into”
John Locke? Lu Xun? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: The following statement appears on many websites: As people are walking all the time, in the same spot, a path appears. The words are usually attributed to the English philosopher John Locke or the Chinese writer Lu Xun. I have been unable to find a citation. Would …
Continue reading “As People Walk This Way Again and Again, a Path Appears”
Tallulah Bankhead? Lillian Hellman? Dashiell Hammett? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The most obtuse quotation I know of was uttered by the actress Tallulah Bankhead whose erratic behavior caused Dashiell Hammett, the well-known author of popular detective novels, to complain about her drug use. Bankhead reportedly defended herself with the following parodic remark: I tell you …
Continue reading “Cocaine Isn’t Habit-Forming. I Should Know. I’ve Been Using It for Years”
Arthur Schopenhauer? Albert Szent-Györgyi? Erwin Schrödinger? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a brilliant remark about scientific, artistic, and intellectual progress. Here are four versions: Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and think what nobody has thought. Genius is seeing what everyone else sees and thinking what no one else has thought. …
Continue reading “Research Is to See What Everybody Else Has Seen and Think What Nobody Has Thought”
Thomas Edison? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Thomas Edison and his laboratory researchers helped to develop a wide range of important inventions. Apparently, he was once asked to name his favorite invention, and he replied with a statement similar to the following: Of all my inventions, I liked the phonograph best. I have not been able …
Continue reading “Greatest Invention? I Like the Phonograph Best”
William James? Scott Jurek? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The following statement about endurance is popular with long-distance runners and others who face demanding situations: Beyond the very extreme of fatigue and distress, we may find amounts of ease and power we never dreamed ourselves to own; sources of strength never taxed at all because we …
Continue reading “Beyond the Very Extremity of Fatigue Distress”