Tracing Quotations
Mohandas Gandhi? Jean Cocteau? Robbie Williams? Julian Beck? Earl B. Morgan? Tony Benn? Peter D. Jones? Louis Agassiz? Arthur Schopenhauer? Dear Quote Investigator: Mahatma Gandhi famously employed nonviolent strategies during the struggle for Indian independence. A quotation often attributed to him asserts that popular movements pass through four stages: First they ignore you. Then they …
Continue reading “First They Ignore You, Then They Laugh at You, Then They Attack You, Then You Win”
J. B. S. Haldane? Louis Agassiz? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The British geneticist J. B. S. Haldane stated that interesting new truths were resisted, and acceptance required traversal through a series of four stages. During the first stage the new fact or theory was rejected as nonsense. Are you familiar with Haldane’s quotation on this …
Continue reading “I Suppose the Process of Acceptance Will Pass through the Usual Four Stages”
Louis Agassiz? William Boyd Dawkins? Charles Lyell? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Groundbreaking ideas face an intimidating multistage gauntlet of resistance. Several popular quotations elaborate on this notion. The prominent Swiss-American geologist and biologist Louis Agassiz apparently crafted a pungent and humorous saying that outlined three stages. Would you please examine that quotation? Quote Investigator: Researchers …