Tracing Quotations
Dorothy Parker? Alexander Woollcott? Israel Zangwill? Oscar Wilde? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The body and the soul separate at the time of death according to many religious systems. Hence, the idiom “keep body and soul together” refers to maintaining life, i.e., earning enough money to maintain health and activity. A quipster once reversed this formula …
Continue reading “Salary Is No Object; I Want Only Enough To Keep Body and Soul Apart”
Margaret Atwood? David? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The North American fur trade between First Nations and Europeans began in the 16th century. In the 19th century millions of beaver pelts were sold in Europe. The importance of this trade has been summarized with the following blunt statement: Canada was built on dead beavers. The …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Canada Was Built On Dead Beavers”
Voltaire? Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan? Desmond MacCarthy? Sissela Bok? Joseph Wood Krutch? Norman L. Torrey? Marvin Lowenthal? Henry Hazlitt? Richard Dawkins? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: A system that forces people to embrace absurd beliefs causes damage to their processes of rational thought. These impaired people are more likely to act illogically and destructively. With encouragement they …
Hugh Garner? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: A Canadian author once praised the writing profession because it “interfered less with my drinking”. Would you please help me to identify this author and find a citation? Quote Investigator: Writer Hugh Garner is best known for the Depression-era novel “Cabbagetown”. He won the Governor General’s Award of Canada …
Continue reading “There Is No Other Career . . . Which Would Have Interfered Less With My Drinking”
Benjamin Franklin? George S. Patton? G. E. Marchand? Gertrude Nelson Andrews? Nicholas Murray Butler? George Lawton? Peter McWilliams? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Living fully during each day of one’s allotted time in this world is an admirable goal, yet few achieve this objective. Here are two versions of a humorous and melancholy comment often credited …
Continue reading “Many People Die at Twenty-Five and Aren’t Buried Until They Are Seventy-Five”
Niels Bohr? Hans Bohr? Werner Heisenberg? Oscar Wilde? Emilio Segrè? Carl Sagan? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: A famous scientist once asserted something like this: The opposite of a deep truth is another deep truth. Would you please help me to find a citation and the correct phrasing? Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1949 the …
Oscar Wilde? Niels Bohr? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Sometimes a narrow logical analysis is not enough to understand a topic. In the realm of art, the negation of a truth may yield another truth. The famous wit Oscar Wilde once made a claim of this type. Would you please help me to find a citation. …
Continue reading “A Truth in Art Is That Whose Contradictory Is Also True”
Mark Zuckerberg? Neal Stephenson? William Gibson? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Recently, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that his company was changing its name to Meta (full name Meta Platforms). Zuckerberg spoke about an immersive internet called the metaverse. I think some science fiction (SF) author coined the term metaverse. Would you please explore this …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: In the Lingo, This Imaginary Place Is Known as the Metaverse”
Will Rogers? Charles F. Kettering? Max Denney? Thomas Jefferson? Robert Heinlein? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Many complain about the burdensome taxes collected by some governments. Many also complain about the counter-productive and wasteful actions taken by those governments. These criticisms have been combined to produce the following comical remark: Thank heavens we don’t get all …
Continue reading “Thank Goodness We Don’t Get As Much Government As We Pay For”
Edward H. Eulenberg? Arnold A. Dornfeld? Rolfe Neill? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Journalism is a difficult profession. Major stories are often complex and ill-defined. Witnesses and experts may be self-interested and unreliable. The following motto for reporters highlights the need to double-check every bit of information: If your mother tells you she loves you, check …
Continue reading “If Your Mother Says She Loves You, Check On It”