Tracing Quotations
W. H. Auden? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The following evocative statement has been attributed to the prominent poet W. H. Auden: A false enchantment can all too easily last a lifetime. I find it so frustrating that people post and repost this quote without pointing to its precise source. Would you please help? Reply …
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Oscar Wilde? G. K. Chesterton? H. L. Mencken? Sebastian Melmoth? Question for Quote Investigator: The following cryptic paradox has been attributed to the famous wit Oscar Wilde: Life is too important to be taken seriously. Yet, I have not found this statement in Wilde’s plays or essays. Would you please examine its provenance? Reply from …
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Voltaire? Spider-Man? Winston Churchill? Theodore Roosevelt? Franklin D. Roosevelt? Lord Melbourne? John Cumming? Hercules G. R. Robinson? Henry W. Haynes? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: There is a popular saying about the relationship between ascendancy and obligation: With great power comes great responsibility. This expression has been attributed to two very different sources: Voltaire and …
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Samuel Goldwyn? William Pine? William Thomas? Louis B. Mayer? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Some recent Hollywood action movies begin with an explosion and follow with a series of frenetic semi-coherent set pieces. The script writers seem to be channeling the late movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn’s funny advice for creating a blockbuster: We need a …
Mark Twain? Bill Nye? Mr. Walkup? Eli Perkin? Anonymous? Question for 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: A gold mine is a hole in the ground with a liar standing on …
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Ralph Waldo Emerson? Harrison Emmerson? Harrington Emerson? Anonymous? Question for 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: …
Mark Twain? Lord Byron? G. K. Chesterton? Edward Bellamy? Humphrey Bogart? Leo Rosten? Tom Clancy? Question for 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 …
Herman Melville? Apocryphal? Question for 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 …
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Jonathan Swift? Fisher Ames? Lyman Beecher? Jonathan Farr? Samuel Hanson Cox? Sydney Smith? Sidney Smith? Ben Goldacre? Question for 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 …
John Locke? Lu Xun? Anonymous? Question for 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. …
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