Tracing Quotations
Ernest Hemingway? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Questions about creative influence and artistic appropriation are often fraught with rivalry and controversy. I recall an extreme remark from the prominent writer Ernest Hemingway in which he asserted that the entire purpose of one artist might be to provide a single phrase or sentence to another artist. Is …
Continue reading “Some Writers Are Only Born to Help Another Writer to Write One Sentence”
Ralph Waldo Emerson? Elbert Hubbard? Sarah S. B. Yule? John R. Paxton? Orison Swett Marden? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: A remarkably popular adage about innovation highlights mousetraps and celebrity: Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door. The origin of this saying was complex, and the topic has been …
Continue reading “If You Build a Better Mousetrap the World Will Beat a Path to Your Door”
Edgar Allan Poe? Poe? Anne D. Danielewski? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Edgar Allan Poe authored groundbreaking tales in three different genres: horror, mystery, and science fiction. Numerous websites attribute the following emotion-laden passage to the literary master: Sometimes I’m terrified of my heart; of its constant hunger for whatever it is it wants; the way …
Dwight Morrow? Harold Nicolson? Harold Nicholson? William Nevins? Tryon Edwards? Edward Wigglesworth? Stephen R. Covey? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a pervasive problem in human psychology of a self-serving double-standard that can be stated as follows: We judge ourselves by our ideals, but we judge others by their actions. This remark has been attributed to …
Continue reading “We Are Too Prone to Judge Ourselves by Our Ideals and Other People by Their Acts”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow? William Nevins? Stephen M. R. Covey? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: The way we judge ourselves often differs markedly from the way others judge us. We tend to evaluate ourselves based on what we are capable of doing, or what we intend to do, or what we say we will do. However, no …
Mary Pettibone Poole? W. E. Nesom? George F. Worts? H. L. Mencken? Joe Laurie Jr.? Franklin P. Adams? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a famous proverb that asserts the last person to laugh is the person who laughs the best or the longest. I am interested in a cleverly modified statement emphasizing the connection …
Bette Davis? Richard Branson? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: In 2014 Richard Branson, the billionaire founder of the Virgin Group, wrote an essay discussing some of his favorite quotations. One motivational remark about creating and fulfilling a dream was attributed to the Hollywood star Bette Davis.[1]Website: Virgin Group, Article title: My three favourite quotes on imagination, …
Will Rogers? J. J. Swartz? Owen Davis? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: The enormously popular American humorist Will Rogers had some ancestors who were Cherokee Indians, and apparently one of his jokes was about his forebears and the early European colonists who arrived on the Mayflower. Are you familiar with this quip? Was it really spoken …
Tallulah Bankhead? Herb Stein? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: You have previously examined a quotation attributed to the movie star Tallulah Bankhead. Perhaps you would be willing to look at another quip. Here are two versions: 1) Only good girls keep diaries. Bad girls don’t have time. 2) It’s the good girls who keep diaries; the …
Continue reading “Good Girls Keep Diaries; Bad Girls Don’t Have the Time”
John Lennon? Pablo Picasso? Carleton Noyes? Percy Mackaye? Dudley Crafts Watson? Agnes Snyder? Ricky Gervais? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: When a child is supplied with paint, clay, paper, and scissors he or she will experiment and construct images and figures. The artistic impulse is strong in the early years of life, but sadly it is …