Barbara W. Tuchman? Denys Arthur Winstanley? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: The popular historian Barbara W. Tuchman suggested that it was unfair to “judge men of the past by the ideas of the present”. She credited this interesting stance to an unnamed English historian. Yet, I have been unable to determine the identity of this …
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Quote Origin: A Shortage of Sand in the Sahara
Milton Friedman? William F. Buckley Jr.? French Sage? Alfred E. Kahn? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: The well-known economist Milton Friedman was often critical of governmental power. The following saying has been attributed to him: If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there’d be a shortage of …
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Quote Origin: It Is the Artists of This World, the Feelers and Thinkers, Who Will Ultimately Save Us
Leonard Bernstein? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The late 1960s and early 1970s were a time of societal upheaval and uncertainty in the United States. The prominent conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein who was well-known for crafting the music of “West Side Story” delivered a speech during which he asserted that only the artists of …
Quote Origin: Give the People What They Want and They’ll Come
Humorist: Red Skelton? George Jessel? Goodman Ace? Groucho Marx? Bert Lahr? James Bacon? Funeral: Harry Cohn? Louis B. Mayer? Question for Quote Investigator: A show business platitude states that success at the box office is achievable by simply giving the people what they want. A harsh comical anecdote about a funeral reinterpreted this saying. The …
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Quote Origin: Duty Comes Before Pleasure, But Only in the Dictionary
Harold L. Spence? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: You examined an adage about success and work that cleverly referred to their alphabetical order. I’ve seen a different joke about duty and pleasure: Duty comes before pleasure, but only in the dictionary. Would you please explore this saying? Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest instance of …
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Quote Origin: Animal Rights and Beings from Another Planet
George Bernard Shaw? John Harris? Brigid Brophy? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: George Bernard Shaw was a strong advocate of vegetarianism who was greatly concerned with animal welfare. The following statement attributed to Shaw encouraged the reader to embrace an abstract extraplanetary perspective and asked the reader to condemn the instrumental use of animals for …
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Quote Origin: The Purpose of Life Is Not To Be Happy But To Matter
Ralph Waldo Emerson? Leo Rosten? Thomas Carlyle? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: On Facebook and the web the following quotation has been circulating widely: The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and …
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Quote Origin: The Most Dangerous Phrase Is: “We’ve Always Done It That Way”
Grace Murray Hopper? Apocryphal? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Grace Murray Hopper was a pioneering computer scientist whose work was central to the development of COBOL, one of the foundational high-level programming languages. She worked in a very fast moving technological domain where simply attempting to repeat previously successful strategies was sometimes disastrous. I am …
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Quote Origin: Laughter Is an Instant Vacation
Milton Berle? Bob Hope? Eugene P. Bertin? Connie Nelson? Robert Zwickey? Dale Turner? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: The comedian Milton Berle was a major star for decades on radio and then on television. The following insightful adage has been attributed to him: Laughter is an instant vacation. I have also seen these words credited …
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Quote Origin: Relativity: A Hot Stove and A Pretty Girl
Albert Einstein? Helen Dukas? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Albert Einstein was asked to explain the abstruse theory of relativity so many times that he reportedly created a comical illustration involving a hot stove and a pretty girl. Would you please explore the provenance of this tale? Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest evidence located …
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