Tracing Quotations
Yogi Berra? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Would you please explore another Yogiism? The following comical remark is attributed to the celebrated baseball player: Never answer an anonymous letter. If the letter contains no information about the sender then, of course, it is impossible to reply. That is the humorous interpretation. But Yogi Berra once …
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Ayn Rand? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The Newsfeed section of the Time magazine website recently wrote about a successful fashion retailer which was selling a shirt called an “Unstoppable Muscle Tee” that displayed a quotation attributed to a top-selling author and controversial philosopher: “The question isn’t who is going to let me, it’s who …
Niels Bohr? Albert Einstein? Carl Alfred Meier? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: There is popular anecdote about a journalist or friend who visited the home of a prominent physicist. The visitor was surprised to find a horseshoe above the front doorway of the scientist’s abode. Tradition asserts that a horseshoe acts as a talisman of …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: I Understand It Brings You Luck, Whether You Believe in It or Not”
Yogi Berra? Jim Prior? Clifford Terry? John Anders? Tish Baldrige? Anonymous? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Déjà vu is the eerie and intense sensation that something you are experiencing has happened before. This feeling is often illusory because the event being experienced is genuinely novel. The term déjà vu can also be used to simply …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: It’s Déjà Vu All Over Again”
Mark Twain? Thomas Jefferson? Martin Farquhar Tupper? Seneca? Winston Churchill? James A. Garfield? Thomas Dixon? Michel de Montaigne? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Everyone faces difficulties in life; however, the worry-filled anticipation of possible setbacks pointlessly magnifies dangers. A comical statement illuminating this theme has been attributed to both Mark Twain and Winston Churchill: I …
Groucho Marx? George Carlin? John Charteris? Theodor Reik? Doctor Who? Shirley Hazzard? Niall MacDermot? Sam Ervin? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: The famous comedians Groucho Marx and George Carlin are both credited with a joke that can be expressed in many ways. Here are some examples: Military Intelligence is an oxymoron.Military Intelligence is a contradiction …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Military Intelligence is a Contradiction in Terms or an Oxymoron”
Mark Twain? George Roemisch? Sophia May Eckley? Ella A. Giles? Elizabeth Reeves Humphreys? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The following evocative metaphorical definition of forgiveness is often attributed to Mark Twain: Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it. But I have seen the quotation below credited to …
John Pierpont Morgan? John D. Rockefeller? William Rockefeller? Jay Gould? Jesse Livermore? Question for Quote Investigator: The best-known prediction for investors is also the most humorously vacuous. According to legend a young person approached one of the top businessmen in the U.S. and asked with an undertone of desperation for guidance in the stock market. …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: I Believe the Market Is Going to Fluctuate”
Dorothy Parker? Katharine Hepburn? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: There is a famously severe criticism that was aimed at an inexpressive theater performer or movie star in the 1930s. Here are two prototypes: This performer ran the gamut of human emotion all the way from A to B. This thespian runs the gamut of emotions …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: She Runs the Gamut of Human Emotion from A to B”
Robert Browning? Johann Paul Friedrich Richter? Jakob Böhme? Johann Gottlieb Fichte? Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel? Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The popular play “The Barretts of Wimpole Street” dramatized the compelling love story between the poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning. The work was first performed in the 1930s and was later …