Samuel Goldwyn? Roger Miller? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: I noticed that the Wikiquote website lists one of my favorite funny sayings attributed to Samuel Goldwyn, the famous film producer [WSG]. In the version of the story I heard, a friend told Goldwyn that he wanted to honor the studio head by naming his son after …
Author Archives: quoteresearch
Quote Origin: The Hardest Thing in the World to Understand Is Income Taxes
Albert Einstein? Leo Mattersdorf? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: I have been struggling trying to figure out how much I owe to the Internal Revenue Service this year. The quote I would like you to explore does not sound very extraordinary. What makes it funny and outrageous is the identity of the person who supposedly …
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Why Should Any Man Be Allowed to Buy a Printing Press and Disseminate Pernicious Opinions?
Vladimir Lenin? Winston Churchill? George Riddell? H. L. Mencken? Fictional? Dear Quote Investigator: I was thumbing through The Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations to try and find a good saying about freedom of the press and I was stunned to see this hostile sentence [OPQ]: As to freedom of the press, why should any man …
Capitalism: The Nastiest of Men for the Nastiest of Motives Will Somehow Work for the Benefit of All
John Maynard Keynes? E. A. G. Robinson? Fictional? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Many times I have seen the following quote attributed to John Maynard Keynes: Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone. I cannot find a source. Also, …
Gift Book: A Book Which You Wouldn’t Take on Any Other Terms
Dorothy Parker? Walter Winchell? Fictional? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Recently, I gave a close friend a book as a gift, and on the accompanying card I included a quotation that Dorothy Parker once used in a book review: This must be a gift book. That is to say, a book which you wouldn’t take on …
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I Never Smoked Astroturf
Tug McGraw? Joe Namath? Charles Edward Greene? Bill Lee? Fictional? Dear Quote Investigator: I laughed out loud when I read the answer given by Major League Baseball star Tug McGraw when he was asked whether he preferred grass or Astroturf: I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf. This quote appeared in a newspaper article last …
Darwinism: Let Us Hope It is Not True, But If It is, Let Us Pray It Does Not Become Widely Known
Wife of the Bishop of Worcester? Wife of the Bishop of Birmingham? Wife of Samuel Wilberforce? Wife of an English Canon? A Decorous Spinster? Fictional? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a remarkable quotation that dramatically highlights the controversial intersection between science and religion in the nineteenth century. The words were attributed to a Bishop’s wife …
You Have Reached the Pinnacle of Success as Soon as You Become Uninterested in Money, Compliments, or Publicity
Thomas Wolfe? Orlando Aloysius Battista? Eddie Rickenbacker? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: While searching for quotations about success I found the following: You have reached the pinnacle of success as soon as you become uninterested in money, compliments, or publicity. Several web pages credit this saying to the famous writer Thomas Wolfe, but I’ve read “Look …
What You Do Speaks So Loudly that I Cannot Hear What You Say
John F. Kennedy? Ralph Waldo Emerson? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: In 1960 President John F. Kennedy spoke at that Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, Utah and used a quotation that he attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson [JKU]: What we are speaks louder than what we say, as Emerson said. I was surprised when I …
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I Did It For My Own Pleasure. Then I Did It For My Friends. Now I Do It For Money
Virginia Woolf? Molière? Ferenc Molnár? Philippe Halsman? Ad Reinhardt? Dear Quote Investigator: Recently I was invited to conduct a workshop about writing and creativity. While reviewing materials on this topic I repeatedly came across a humorous quotation that pertains to commercialism. Here is one version: Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, …
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