Tracing Quotations
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 concerning …
Continue reading “Update: Not Everything That Counts Can be Counted”
Charles Kingsford-Smith? Ernest K. Gann? TWA Captain? Yachtsman? Apocryphal? Anonymous? Question for 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 …
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 …