Tracing Quotations
World War I? World War II? Apocryphal? Question for 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 …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Military Command: Send Three and Fourpence. We’re Going to a Dance”
Carl Gustav Jung? John William Gardner? A Wise Man? My Friend’s Pillow? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: I run a daily email quote list, and I try to do a quick Google search to see if I’ve got the correct attribution. I came across your site and thank you for the help. Here is a …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Creative Minds Are Rarely Tidy”
Oscar Wilde? Irishmen? Australian? Scot? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The prominent English actor and author Stephen Fry once said something about Oscar Wilde that I found fascinating: Oscar Wilde, and there have been few greater and more complete lords of language in the past thousand years, once included with a manuscript he was delivering …
Winston Churchill? W. C. Fields? Mr. Robinson? Dr. Tanner? Apocryphal? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: There is a famous anecdote featuring Winston Churchill and the British politician Bessie Braddock that might be fictional. Supposedly Braddock encountered an intoxicated Churchill, and she expressed her displeasure. The rejoinder was harsh: “Sir, you are drunk.” “And you, Bessie, …
Sigmund Freud? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, was famous for interpreting symbols with special emphasis on the imagery in dreams. In photos he was often shown smoking a cigar, and that is why I always found the following quotation attributed to him very amusing: Sometimes a cigar is just …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Sometimes a Cigar Is Just a Cigar”
John Maynard Keynes? A. Gary Shilling? Harold R. Evensky? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The gyrations of financial markets can be startling. You may have unassailable information indicating that a stock is overpriced or underpriced, but you can still lose money because the market price may not accurately reflect the underlying verities for years. Here …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: The Market Can Remain Irrational Longer Than You Can Remain Solvent”
John Maynard Keynes? Milton Friedman? A. Gary Shilling? Albert J. Hettinger, Jr.? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The Forbes magazine website previously had a fascinating searchable database called “Thoughts On The Business of Life” which contained more than 10,000 quotes. The following saying appeared in the database: There is nothing so disastrous as a rational …
Thomas Friedman? Dan Montano? Arthur M. Blank? Sue Tabor? Herb Caen? Christopher McDougall? Roger Bannister? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Last year I saw a motivational poster with a portrait of a lion. The text was a fable about lions and gazelles, and the title was something like the “The Key to Survival.” Paraphrasing: To …
Winston Churchill? Woodrow Wilson? George Curzon? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Friends know I am an avid golfer and recently a book of quotations about the sport was given to me as a present. This quote from Winston Churchill captures the exasperation I feel when attempting to chip my ball near to the pin: Golf …
Henry Ford? Edward Menge? Lewis Mumford? Sedgewick Seti? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The preeminent automotive industrialist Henry Ford is credited with a saying that has become very popular in the business literature. Here are two versions: But I can find no good evidence that Ford ever said this. It’s a great line, and I …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: My Customers Would Have Asked For a Faster Horse”