Tracing Quotations
Groucho Marx? Ernest Bevin? George S. Kaufman? Cotton Ed Smith? Franklin P. Adams? Alan Hale? Walter F. George? Oscar Levant? Question for Quote Investigator: A comment which acknowledges criticism has been coupled with a harshly comical riposte. Here are three examples: Would you please explore the provenance of this type of exchange? Reply from Quote …
Continue reading “Dialogue Origin: “I Am My Own Worst Enemy” “Not While I’m Alive””
Robert Benchley? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: When you hear your own words from the past recited to you as a quotation the result is sometimes profound embarrassment. The humorist Robert Benchley apparently said that you could make a monkey out of a person by simply employing their own quotations. Would you please help me to …
Continue reading “The Surest Way to Make a Monkey of a Man Is to Quote Him”
Daniel Webster? Herbert Hoover? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Extraordinary care should be taken whenever one plans to etch a quotation into a granite monument. That is why I am asking you about the accuracy of the following patriotic statement attributed to U.S. statesman and orator Daniel Webster: May the sun in his course visit no …
George S. Kaufman? Scott Meredith? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Bright remarks are often misattributed to famously witty individuals such as Dorothy Parker. An exasperated fellow humorist once said: Everything I’ve ever said will be credited to Dorothy Parker. Would you please help me to locate a citation and tell me who said this? Quote investigator: …
Continue reading “Everything I’ve Ever Said Will Be Credited To Dorothy Parker”
Dorothy Parker? Oscar Wilde? Mike Porter? Arch Ward? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Composing poetry is rarely a lucrative occupation. A traditional moralistic adage has been transformed into a comical warning for versifiers: Crime does not pay. Rhyme does not pay. This word play has been credited to the prominent wit Dorothy Parker who published multiple …
Thomas Mann? H. T. Lowe-Porter? Franz Leppmann? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Writing is an agonizing process requiring multiple drafts for some of its most skilled practitioners. Here are three versions of a pertinent quip: (1) The writer is a person who has a hard time writing. (2) A writer is a one who finds writing …
Continue reading “A Writer Is One To Whom Writing Comes Harder Than To Anybody Else”
Michel de Montaigne? Charles Cotton? M. A. Screech? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Overconfidence is one of the great faults of humankind. Gaining mastery of a topic is often quite difficult. Here is a pertinent remark: There is a plague on Man: his opinion that he knows something. The prominent French philosopher Michel de Montaigne has …
Continue reading “There Is a Plague on Man: His Opinion That He Knows Something”
Aeschylus? Philip Snowden? Ethel Annakin? Samuel Johnson? Anne MacVicar Grant? E. D. Morel? W. T. Foster? Agnes Maude Royden? Hiram Johnson? Arthur Ponsonby? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: The participants in a violent conflict often engage in crude propaganda and advocacy. Here are four versions of a pertinent saying: This adage has been credited to …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Truth Is the First Casualty in War”
Miguel de Cervantes? Don Quixote? Sancho Panza? Euripides? Lord Chesterfield? Johann Wolfgang von Goethe? Joseph Hordern? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: If you are attempting to assess the character of an individual you can do it indirectly by identifying his or her friends and assessing their proclivities. Here are three versions of a pertinent saying: Show …
Continue reading “Tell Me What Company You Keep, and I Will Tell You What You Are”
Abraham Lincoln? Henry Clay Whitney? Elliott Anthony? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: A verbose speaker employing overblown rhetoric reportedly inspired a humorous observation from U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. Here are two versions: That feller can crowd the most words into the fewest ideas of anyone I ever saw. He can concentrate the most words into the …
Continue reading “He Can Compress the Most Words In the Fewest Ideas of Anyone I Ever Knew”