Tracing Quotations
Milton Friedman? William Aberhart? Walter Augustus Wyckoff? Unemployed Worker? Businessman in China? UK Minister of Agriculture? Question for Quote Investigator:: In 2011 an editorial in the Wall Street Journal mentioned a quotation that apparently is well-known: The famous Milton Friedman line about government ordering people to dig with spoons to employ more people comes to …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: If You Want Jobs Then Give These Workers Spoons Instead of Shovels”
Woody Hayes? Darrell Royal? Bernie Moore? Dear Quote Investigator: It’s football season and I received an email from a friend with a collection of quotations from coaches and players. One of the sayings about passing the ball is credited to Woody Hayes, but I think it should probably be attributed to Darrell Royal, coach of …
Continue reading “Three Things Can Happen When You Pass and Two of Them Are Bad”
Mark Twain? H. Jackson Brown? Sarah Frances Brown? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The Virgin Galactic company of Richard Branson plans to offer suborbital spaceflights for tourists. The organization put together a beautiful brochure containing the following quotation credited to Mark Twain:[ref] Virgin Galactic website at virgingalactic.com, Link on homepage for Downloadable Brochure describing suborbital space …
Jack London? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: I belong to a great group for writers in Florida, and a recent announcement message on our mailing list included a motivational quotation attributed to the author and journalist Jack London: You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. Since London died in …
Continue reading “You Can’t Wait for Inspiration. You Have To Go After It With a Club”
Peter De Vries? Philip Larkin? C. E. Lombardi? Larry Gelbart? Avi’s Young Reader? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: When faced with the difficult task of writing effectively some people insist on a guaranteed formula. As a confirmed scribbler I am convinced that there is no formula, but I laughed when I heard this: A story consists …
Continue reading “A Story Should Have a Beginning, a Muddle and an End”
Thomas Wolfe? Red Smith? Paul Gallico? Friedrich Nietzsche? Ernest Hemingway? Gene Fowler? Jeff MacNelly? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Whenever I have trouble writing I am reminded of a family of sayings which employ a gruesomely expressive metaphor to describe the difficult process of composition. Here are three instances: (1) Writing is easy. You just …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Writing Is Easy; You Just Open a Vein and Bleed”
Bill Gates? James E. Fawcette? Nancy Andrews? Jerry Pournelle? InfoWorld? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Bill Gates is the one of the richest men in the world, but that does not mean that he correctly foresaw the future. In the early days of the personal computer industry Gates supposedly said the following about the IBM PC: …
Continue reading “Computer Memory: 640K Ought to be Enough for Anyone”
Albert Einstein? William Bruce Cameron? Hilliard Jason? Stephen Ross? Lord Platt? George Pickering? Quote Investigator: QI has updated the entry about a popular quotation attributed to Einstein. The saying combines two distinct but related phrases: Not everything that can be counted counts. Not everything that counts can be counted. The entry now presents earlier evidence …
Continue reading “Update: Not Everything That Counts Can be Counted”
Charles Kingsford-Smith? Ernest K. Gann? TWA Captain? Yachtsman? Apocryphal? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: In the aviation world there is an axiom that avers: The only time an aircraft has too much fuel on board is when it is on fire. This pearl of wisdom is commonly attributed to the pioneer Australian aviator Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith, …
Continue reading “The Only Time an Aircraft Has Too Much Fuel On Board Is When It Is On Fire”
World War I? World War II? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Years ago some military orders had to be sent via a series of radio relays. Each radio operator would listen to a command and then repeat it to the next operator in a series. If you have ever played the game “broken telephone” or “Chinese …
Continue reading “Military Command: Send Three and Fourpence. We’re Going to a Dance”