Tracing Quotations
Ira Hayes? James Bradley? John Bradley? Rene Gagnon? Fictionalized? Dear Quote Investigator: One of the men who appeared in the famous flag-raising photograph taken on Iwo Jima during WWII was invited to the White House when he returned to the United States. The following 2005 news article describes a heart-rending comment that was supposedly said …
Continue reading “How Could I Feel Like a Hero When Only Five Men in My Platoon of 45 Survived?”
James Michener? Zen Buddhist saying? L.P. Jacks? Dear Quote Investigator: I have been deeply moved by an inspirational passage that I thought was written by a Zen Buddhist master: The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, …
Dorothy Parker? Robert Benchley? Frank Sullivan? Dear Quote Investigator: The writer Dorothy Parker was famous for her clever and barbed witticisms. Her remarks were often aimed at others, but sometimes she laughed at herself with a self-deprecating comment. I particularly enjoy the statement she made when asked about her fame: Yes, I once was the …
Continue reading “I was the Toast of Two Continents: Greenland and Australia”
Gary Player? Arnold Palmer? Jerry Barber? Jack Youngblood? Lee Trevino? Ethel Merman? L. Frank Baum? Dear Quote Investigator: I am a fan of the golfing legend Gary Player, and the Wikipedia article about him says he: “Coined one of the most quoted aphorisms of post-War sport”: The harder you practice, the luckier you get. Is …
Enrico Fermi? Bernt Øksendal? Earl C. Kelley? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: My favorite quotation should resonate with anyone who has tried to master a difficult subject: We have not succeeded in answering all our problems. The answers we have found only serve to raise a whole set of new questions. In some ways we …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Confused on a Higher Level and About More Important Things”
Otto von Bismarck? John Godfrey Saxe? Claudius O. Johnson? Dear Quote Investigator: The quotation of Otto von Bismarck about laws and sausages has been a favorite of mine for years. I found several versions using Google, and here are two: Laws are like sausages. It’s better not to see them being made. To retain respect …
Continue reading “Laws are Like Sausages. Better Not to See Them Being Made”
Napoleon Bonaparte? Haley Barbour? Woodrow Wilson? Question for Quote Investigator: I saw Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi on television recently and he recited a quotation that he attributed to Napoleon: You know, Napoleon said ‘Never interfere with an enemy while he’s in the process of destroying himself.’ Is this an accurate quote? Could you investigate …
Continue reading “Never Interfere With an Enemy While He’s in the Process of Destroying Himself”
Carl Sandburg? Alan Dershowitz? Jerome Michael? Jacob J. Rosenblum? Oliver Wendell Holmes? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: A few years ago I saw a famous quotation about legal strategy attributed to a celebrity professor:[1] 2007 March 4, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Pounding the Table About Border Episode by Ruben Navarrette Jr., Page E3, Section: Weekly Review, Fort …
Continue reading “Legal Advice: Pound the Facts, Pound the Law, Pound the Table”
Plato? Philo of Alexandria? Ian MacLaren? John Watson? This blog post is based on a question that was posed at the wonderful blog used by the quotation expert Fred Shapiro who is the editor of one of the best reference works in this area: The Yale Book of Quotations. Fred Shapiro’s posts appear on the …
Continue reading “Be Kind; Everyone You Meet is Fighting a Hard Battle”
Mark Twain? Nyrum Reynolds? Hiram Runnels? Andrew Jackson? Dear Quote Investigator: I sometimes have difficulty spelling words correctly. But I take comfort in the magnificent statement attributed to Mark Twain: I don’t give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way. Actually, I used to take comfort in those words, …
Continue reading “No Respect for a Man Who Can Spell a Word Only One Way”