Tracing Quotations
Immanuel Kant? Herbert Spencer? Will Durant? Raoul Jossett? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: There is a fascinating two-part adage about science and wisdom that is commonly attributed to the influential 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant: Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life. I have attempted to find a convincing citation for this saying, but …
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Immanuel Kant? Herbert Spencer? Thomas Henry Huxley? R. Strachey? Question for Quote Investigator: The following two part adage is usually attributed to the famous 18th century German philosopher Immanuel Kant: Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life. I have not seen any citation in German or English showing that Kant ever wrote or said …
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Will Rogers? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: We live in an age of free apps, free ebooks, and free online services, but that does not restrain criticism. The popular humorist Will Rogers once spoke about the inability to please some individuals who receive material for free. I haven’t been able to precisely locate this quotation. …
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William A. Spooner? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The funniest reproach aimed at a student that I have ever heard was spoken by Reverend William A. Spooner who was the Warden of New College, Oxford. The clergyman was famous for jumbling the letters and sounds of words when he spoke. His castigation of the student …
Continue reading “Origin of Spoonerism: You Have Hissed All My Mystery Lectures”
William A. Spooner? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: I love spoonerisms, humorous phrases in which the initial sounds or letters of words are swapped. According to a popular anecdote William A. Spooner who was the Warden of New College, Oxford was late to church services one day and found that a woman was sitting in …
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Ernest Rutherford? John Desmond Bernal? Richard Feynman? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Recently, while reading about the discovery of a new species of frog I marveled at the remarkable diversity of the biosphere. But, I was also reminded of the following humorous and barbed assertion: All science is either physics or stamp collecting. This statement …
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Fyodor Dostoyevsky? Leo Tolstoy? Mary Morris? John Gardner? David Long? Ernest Hemingway? Deepak Chopra? Question for Quote Investigator: A provocative remark about stories has been attributed to Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy, John Gardner, and others: There are only two plots in all of literature: 1) A person goes on a journey. 2) A stranger comes …
Billy Wilder? Ernst Lubitsch? Ted Elliott? Terry Rossio? Ray Bradbury? Vince Gilligan? Andrew Stanton? Question for Quote Investigator: On the commentary track of a video I once heard a screenwriter discuss the requirement to engage the audience’s cognitive powers while spinning a tale: Give the audience two plus two, and let them come up with …
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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? Question for Quote Investigator: Samuel Goldwyn and Yogi Berra were both famous for constructing humorous …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: If George Washington Were Alive Today He’d Turn Over in His Grave”
Ayn Rand? Henry F. Cope? Josiah Stamp? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Here are two versions of an expression attributed to the influential and controversial novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand: A student would like to use Rand’s words as a quotation for the high school yearbook, but the editors have asked for a proper source. …