Tracing Quotations
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.? Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.? Virgil? Apocryphal? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: The personification of Death has been employed in artworks to highlight mortality. We must attempt to achieve a full and worthwhile life during our brief period passing through this earthly realm. Here is a pertinent quotation: Death plucks my ear …
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Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.? Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.? Albert Einstein? Ralph Waldo Emerson? Question for Quote Investigator: Encountering a novel idea or sensation causes changes that permanently alter one’s intellect. This notion can be expressed as follows: A mind that is stretched by a new idea or experience can never shrink back to its old …
Barry Commoner? Gotthold Ephraim Lessing? Leonardo da Vinci? Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.? John Muir? Jean Piaget? Daniel Patrick Moynihan? Solomon Short? David Gerrold? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: The universe reflects a pervasive interconnectedness. Here are two versions of a pertinent adage: Everything is connected to everything else.Everything connects to everything else. Ecological thinkers have …
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Ernest Hemingway? Mark Twain? Luke McLuke? Lydia DeVilbiss? Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.? Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.? Frederick B. Wilcox? Abigail Van Buren? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: While searching the twitter database I encountered the following two similar jokes: (1) Humans need two years to learn to speak and sixty years to learn to shut …
Hyman Rickover? Martin Vanbee? Eleanor Roosevelt? Harry Myers? Laurence J. Peter? Sam Levenson? Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.? Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: These two simple adages have a long history: Some wit crafted a hilarious addendum for the second adage: This construction has been attributed to U.S. Navy Admiral Hyman G. …
Eleanor Roosevelt? Confucius? Chinese Proverb? William L. Watkinson? E. Pomeroy Cutler? James Keller? Oliver Wendell Holmes? Adlai Stevenson? John F. Kennedy? Charles Schulz? William Appleton Lawrence? Question for Quote Investigator: I love the emphasis on constructive action in the following saying: It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. These words …
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Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle? Samuel Rogers? Walter Besant? Helmuth von Moltke the Elder? Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.? Georges Clemenceau? Question for Quote Investigator: An amusing remark about longevity and libido has been ascribed to septuagenarians, octogenarians, nonagenarians, and centenarians. A venerable gentleman was sitting on a park bench with a friend, and he gazed …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Ah, Would That I Were Only 80 Years Old!”
Plotinus? Herodotus? Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Many are familiar with the ancient Latin injunction of the poet Horace: “Carpe diem” or “Seize the day”. The following thematically similar statement has been attributed to other figures of the ancient world: the philosopher Plotinus and the historian Herodotus: Not to be involved …
Judge Dowdall? William Pickford? Lord Sterndale? Anonymous? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Some lawyers take pride in their use of rigorous logical and legal reasoning. I once heard a hilarious remark about the body of law accumulated over the centuries. I do not remember the exact wording, but it was something like this: The entire …
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.? Vermont Legislature? Albert Bushnell Hart? IRS Building? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: It is tax time in the U.S., and I have a question about the inscription engraved on the exterior of the IRS Building in Washington D.C.: Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society The IRS website credited …
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