Tracing Quotations
Ralph Waldo Emerson? Lynn H. Hough? Aerosmith? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Ralph Waldo Emerson is often credited with the following: Life is a journey, not a destination. I’ve searched the RWE.org database without luck and did a text search through over 1100 pages of his essays. I believe this is a misattribution. Any insight you …
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Mark Twain? William Allen White? Franklin P. Adams? Brock Pemberton? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: I’ve been quoting an editor-friend’s advice for years, and suddenly tonight I see it online attributed to Mark Twain: Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very’; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as …
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Edna St. Vincent Millay? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: A recent controversial article about critics and criticism in the New York Times contained a refreshingly blunt two-part quotation: To writers, Edna St. Vincent Millay offered the wisest counsel. It rings down the decades. “A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with …
Top language columnist Ben Zimmer has written a great article for the Boston Globe about YOLO. He referenced QI (a.k.a. Garson O’Toole) and some of the research that was posted on this website. Zimmer is the executive producer of VisualThesaurus.com and Vocabulary.com. He also writes for the New York Times. Newspapers are shrinking, and the …
Ingrid Bergman? Evan Esar? Paul H. Gilbert? Hal Boyle? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: One of my favorite websites recently presented a collection of “Ten Favorite Quotations about Words”. Number one was about osculation: A kiss is a lovely trick, designed by nature, to stop speech when words become superfluous. These words were attributed to …
Paul Eldridge? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: I noticed that the QI website has an entry for the following expression: You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him. I believe a similar statement containing the phrase “to retaliate or to reciprocate” was printed …
Ann Landers? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Many years ago I read a poem I greatly enjoyed in a newspaper column by Ann Landers. Unfortunately, I only remember a few fragments: What will you give one small boy? … a tinker toy? No, give him a day he can call his own. Can you find …
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Helen Gurley Brown? Lawrence Johnstone? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Helen Gurley Brown was a pioneering and controversial editor at Cosmopolitan magazine. One of her most famous lines was: Good girls go to heaven. Bad girls go everywhere. I saw this quote in two of her recent obituary notices, but I have not seen a …
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Mark Twain? Edwin E. Slosson? Harry Lloyd Miller? Professor Rathburn? Mortimer J. Adler? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Mark Twain is credited with a very funny description of college lectures. For some teachers and students I think this quotation is accurate: College is a place where a professor’s lecture notes go straight to the students’ …
Thomas Edison? Henry Dodd? Isaiah Hale? Paul Larmer? Lila Kroppmann? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: The following quote is credited to Thomas Edison: Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. Do you know when he said this and to whom? Reply from Quote Investigator: Both QI …