Tracing Quotations
Oscar Wilde? G. K. Chesterton? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: I saw the following remark on the webpage of an educator: Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace. The phrase was attributed to Oscar Wilde, but I have not been able to find it in his oeuvre. It was listed on websites like Goodreads …
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Robert H. Schuller? Regina Dugan? Sebastian Thrun? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: There is a saying in self-help books that presents encouragement in the form of a question with a trace of wistfulness: What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail? This statement was highlighted in a TED talk by …
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Erica Jong? Oscar Wilde? Robert Webster Jones? H. L. Mencken? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: As a single person I enjoy the following joke about bigamy. Here are two versions: (1) Bigamy is having one husband too many. Monogamy is the same. (2) Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same. The …
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Mark Twain? Jonathan Swift? Thomas Francklin? Fisher Ames? Thomas Jefferson? John Randolph? Charles Haddon Spurgeon? Winston Churchill? Terry Pratchett? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: An insightful remark about the rapid transmission of lies is often attributed to Mark Twain and Winston Churchill. Here are two versions: (1) A lie travels around the globe while the truth …
Maurice Chevalier? Olin Miller? Harry Oliver? Louis Calhern? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: The following piece of humorous proverbial wisdom has been attributed to the film star Maurice Chevalier. Here are four versions of the joke: (1) Old age isn’t so bad when you consider the alternative.(2) Growing old isn’t so terrible — when you …
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Winston Churchill? Leo C. Rosten? Walter Winchell? Herman J. Mankiewicz? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Winston Churchill had an unhappy experience negotiating with a politician who held a very high opinion of himself. Afterward Churchill reportedly concocted the perfect remark for deflating the pretensions of an egomaniac: There, but for the grace of God, goes …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: There But for the Grace of God, Goes God”
John Bradford? George Whitfield? John Newton? Sherlock Holmes? Philip Neri? Dwight Moody? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: A deeply religious individual once saw a man being led to the gallows and said: There but for the grace of God, go I. In modern times, this proverbial phrase is used to express empathetic compassion and a sense of …
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Dorothy Parker? Wilson Mizner? Apocryphal? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Calvin Coolidge was the 30th President of the United States, and his highly reserved character in social settings led to the nickname “Silent Cal”. A few years after his death in 1933 two similar anecdotes began to circulate about the spoken reaction to the news …
Continue reading “Dialogue Origin: “He Is Dead.” “How Can They Tell?””
Henry Kissinger? M. Z. Remsburg? James Thurber? Ann Landers? Robert Orben? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: There is a joke about the uneasy relationship between the sexes that has been told for decades: Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There’s too much fraternizing with the enemy. In the 1970s this statement was …
Ambrose Bierce? H. L. Mencken? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: There is a comically acerbic remark about elections that is often attributed to the famous cynic Ambrose Bierce: An election is nothing more than the advanced auction of stolen goods. Several of my friends have told me that these are actually the words of the …
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