Tracing Quotations
Who made the remark? Samuel Goldwyn? Yogi Berra? William Cuffe? George Arliss? Corey Ford? Gerald Ford? Who was turning? Richard Cobden? Aunt Harriet? Jules Verne? Franklin D. Roosevelt? George Washington? Abraham Lincoln? Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky? John Foster Dulles? Casey Stengel? Dear Quote Investigator: Samuel Goldwyn and Yogi Berra were both famous for constructing humorous phrases. …
Continue reading “If George Washington Were Alive Today He’d Turn Over in His Grave”
Ayn Rand? Henry F. Cope? Josiah Stamp? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Here are two versions of an expression attributed to the influential and controversial novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand: You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality. We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality. …
Continue reading “You Can Avoid Reality, But You Cannot Avoid the Consequences of Avoiding Reality”
W. C. Fields? Great Lester? Fred Allen? Anonymous Vaudevillian? Dear Quote Investigator: I have been trying to trace the following gag: I’d rather have two girls at 21 each than one girl at 42. This line is usually attributed to the famous comedian W. C. Fields who played cantankerous and henpecked characters in movies. Would …
Continue reading “I Would Rather Have Two Girls at 21 Each Than One At 42”
Lord Rochester? John Wilmot? James A. Magner? Mrs. John McLauchlan? Leonard Lyons? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: A very funny comment about child-rearing has implausibly been attributed to John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester: Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children and no theories. Wilmot died …
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George Patton? T. W. H. Crosland? Edmund Kozalla? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: General George S. Patton made the most incisive remark about war that I have ever heard. He was rallying Allied troops who were attempting to defeat the Axis Powers during World War II. His assertion about the two-edged sword of patriotism was cloaked …
Continue reading “No Bastard Ever Won a War by Dying for His Country”
Arnold Palmer? John Sutton? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: The following statement about overcoming obstacles is attributed to the famous golfer Arnold Palmer: The most rewarding things you do in life are often the ones that look like they cannot be done. I am graduating soon and would like to use this as my yearbook quotation. …
Albert Einstein? Théophile Gautier? Alexis de Valon? Samuel Taylor Coleridge? Helena Blavatsky? Dr. Paul F.? Heidi Quade? Bonnie Farmer? Charlotte C. Taylor? Doris Lessing? Nicolas Chamfort? Horace Walpole? Dear Quote Investigator: The following statement is attributed to the brilliant physicist Albert Einstein: Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous. I have been unable to find …
Continue reading “Chance, Coincidence, Miracles, Pseudonyms, and God”
Dorothy Parker? Mark Twain? Samuel Johnson? Sidney Skolsky? Margaret Case Harriman? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: The scintillating wit Dorothy Parker once listened to an enumeration of the many positive attributes of a person she disliked. Below is the final statement of praise together with Parker’s acerbic response: “She is always kind to her inferiors.” “And …
Continue reading ““She Is Always Kind to Her Inferiors” “But Where Does She Find Them?””
Nicolas Chamfort? Horace Walpole? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: The relationships between chance, luck, fate, and providence are often disputed. One viewpoint holds that no event occurs at random; instead, there is an underlying purpose or design though it may be hidden or opaque. Here is an adage encapsulating that thought: Chance is the nickname of …
Joyce Kilmer? Ogden Nash? Confucious? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: April is National Poetry Month in the U. S., and Arbor Day also occurs in this month. A famous poem by Joyce Kilmer begins with the following couplet:[ref] Date: 1913 October, Periodical: Boys’ Life, Poem title: Trees, Poem author: Joyce Kilmer, Quote Page 2, Publisher: Boy …
Continue reading “I Think that I Shall Never See a Billboard Lovely as a Tree”