Category: Paul Samuelson

I Do Not Know What I Think Until I Read What I’m Writing

Flannery O’Connor? Graham Wallas? E. M. Forster? Inger Stevens? August Heckscher? Paul Samuelson? Shirley MacLaine? Joan Didion? E. L. Doctorow? John Gregory Dunne? Edward Albee? Wendy Wasserstein? William Faulkner? Virginia Hamilton Adair? Stephen King?

Question for Quote Investigator: The process of writing helps to clarify thoughts and ideas. For example, some novelists do not outline their plots in advance; instead, they spontaneously construct story arcs while writing. Here are two versions of a pertinent comment:

(1) I write to find out what I think.
(2) I don’t know what I think until I read what I write.

This remark has a humorous edge because thoughts are usually formulated before they are written down. This notion has been attributed to prominent short story writer and novelist Flannery O’Connor and to horror master Stephen King. Would you please explore this topic?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The full version of this article is available on the Medium website which is available by clicking here. This article provides an overview.

In 1948 Flannery O’Connor wrote a letter to her literary agent, and she included an instance of the saying. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:[1]1979, The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor, Edited by Sally Fitzgerald, Part I: Up North and Getting Home 1948-1952, Letter to: Literary agent Elizabeth McKee, Letter date: July 21, … Continue reading

What you say about the novel, Rinehart, advances, etc. sounds very good to me, but I must tell you how I work. I don’t have my novel outlined and I have to write to discover what I am doing. Like the old lady, I don’t know so well what I think until I see what I say; then I have to say it over again.

O’Connor’s mention of an “old lady” indicated that she was referencing an earlier cluster of similar remarks. Here are two of the earliest instances:

1926: How can I know what I think till I see what I say? (Attributed to unnamed little girl by educator Graham Wallas)[2]1926 Copyright, The Art of Thought by Graham Wallas (Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of London), Chapter 4: Stages of Control, Quote Page 106, Harcourt, Brace and Company, … Continue reading

1927: How can I tell what I think till I see what I say? (Attributed to an unnamed old lady by novelist E. M. Forster)[3] 1927 Copyright, Aspects Of The Novel by E. M. Forster, Chapter 5: The Plot, Quote Page 152, Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York. (Verified with scans)

The two quotations above were about speaking instead of writing. A separate QI article about the family of sayings centered on oral expression is available here: How Can I Know What I Think Till I See What I Say?

This article will center on sayings about written expression. Below is an overview of this family of remarks.

1948 Jul 21: I don’t have my novel outlined and I have to write to discover what I am doing. Like the old lady, I don’t know so well what I think until I see what I say; then I have to say it over again. (Writer Flannery O’Connor)

1959 May 7: I have been writing down my thoughts about things—not for publication, but to find out what I’m thinking about. (Actress Inger Stevens)

1963: I did not really know what I thought until I read what I had written the next day. (Attributed to Journalist August Heckscher)

1969 Jan: How do I know what I really think until I read what my pen is writing? (Economist Paul Samuelson)

1976 Nov 18: Half the time I write to find out what I mean. (Actress and Author Shirley MacLaine)

1976 Dec 5: I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking. (Writer Joan Didion)

1981 Mar 31: You write to find out what it is that you’re writing. (Novelist E. L. Doctorow)

1982 May 3: I think you write to find out what you think. (Screenwriter John Gregory Dunne)

1983 Jun: I write the plays down to find out what I’m thinking about. (Playwright Edward Albee)

1985 Mar 17: I often write to find out what I’m thinking. (Playwright Wendy Wasserstein)

1989: I don’t know what I think until I read what I said. (Attributed to William Faulkner by Warren Bennis)

1994: I never know what I think about something until I read what I’ve written on it. (Attributed to William Faulkner by Tom Morris)

1995: I never know what I think until I read it in one of my poems. (Poet Virginia Hamilton Adair)

2005: I write to find out what I think. (Horror writer Stephen King)

Additional detailed information is available in the Quote Investigator article on the Medium website which is available by clicking here.

References

References
↑1 1979, The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor, Edited by Sally Fitzgerald, Part I: Up North and Getting Home 1948-1952, Letter to: Literary agent Elizabeth McKee, Letter date: July 21, 1948, Start Page 5, Quote Page 5, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, New York. (Verified with scans)
↑2 1926 Copyright, The Art of Thought by Graham Wallas (Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of London), Chapter 4: Stages of Control, Quote Page 106, Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York. (Verified with scans)
↑3 1927 Copyright, Aspects Of The Novel by E. M. Forster, Chapter 5: The Plot, Quote Page 152, Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York. (Verified with scans)

I Don’t Care Who Writes a Nation’s Laws . . . If I Can Write Its Economic Textbooks

Paul Samuelson? Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun? Percy Bysshe Shelley? Mary Shelley? Sylvia Nasar?

Question for Quote Investigator: The cultural impact of economic thought has been enormous. Apparently, a famous economist once said something like this:

I don’t care who writes a nation’s laws if I can write its economic textbooks.

Would you please help me to identify this economist and find a citation?

Reply from Quote Investigator: Nobel-Prize winning economist Paul Samuelson published the perennially popular textbook “Economics” beginning in 1948. Twenty editions have appeared during subsequent decades.

In 1990 Samuelson wrote the foreword to “The Principles of Economics Course: A Handbook for Instructors”, and he employed the quotation. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:[1]1990, The Principles of Economics Course: A Handbook for Instructors, Edited by Phillip Saunders and William B. Walstad, Section: Foreword by Paul A Samuelson, Date: October 1988, Quote Page ix, … Continue reading

“Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the World.” It was a poet who said that, exercising occupational license. Some sage, it may have been I, declared in similar vein: “I don’t care who writes a nation’s laws—or crafts its advanced treaties—if I can write its economic textbooks.” The first lick is the privileged one, impinging on the beginner’s tabula rasa at its most impressionable state.

Paul Samuelson’s phrasing was humorously tentative, but QI believes that he deserves credit for the remark under examination. When Samuelson crafted his remark he was deliberately alluding to a family of previous remarks about the powerful cultural influence of music and poetry.

In 1704 Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun published “An Account of a Conversation Concerning a Right Regulation of Governments for the Common Good of Mankind”, and he attributed a pertinent remark about music to an anonymous wise man. This remark used the same template as Samuelson’s comment:[2]1704, An Account of a Conversation Concerning a Right Regulation of Governments for the Common Good of Mankind: In a Letter to the Marquiss of Montrose, the Earls of Rothes, Roxburg, and Hadington, … Continue reading

. . . a very wise man . . . believed if a man were permitted to make all the Ballads, he need not care who should make the Laws of a Nation. And we find that most of the antient Legislators thought they could not well reform the manners of any City without the help of a Lyric, and sometimes of a Dramatic Poet.

Additional detailed information is available in the Quote Investigator article on the Medium website which is available here.

References

References
↑1 1990, The Principles of Economics Course: A Handbook for Instructors, Edited by Phillip Saunders and William B. Walstad, Section: Foreword by Paul A Samuelson, Date: October 1988, Quote Page ix, McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, New York. (Verified with scans)
↑2 1704, An Account of a Conversation Concerning a Right Regulation of Governments for the Common Good of Mankind: In a Letter to the Marquiss of Montrose, the Earls of Rothes, Roxburg, and Hadington, from London the 1st of December, 1703, Author: Andrew Fletcher, Quote Page 10, Printed in the Year 1704 in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Google Books Full View) link

The Eighth Wonder of the World Is Compound Interest

Albert Einstein? Napoleon Bonaparte? Baron Rothschild? Paul Samuelson? John D. Rockefeller? Advertising Copy Writer? Apocryphal?

Dear Quote Investigator: Salespeople and advertisers invoke the name of the scientific genius Albert Einstein when they wish to impress gullible individuals. The following grandiose statement has been attributed to Einstein:

Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world.

Sometimes the remark is credited to financial luminaries such as Baron Rothschild or John D. Rockefeller. Would you please explore this topic?

Quote Investigator: The saying appeared in a section titled “Probably Not By Einstein” in the authoritative volume “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein” from Princeton University Press.[1] 2010, The Ultimate Quotable Einstein, Edited by Alice Calaprice, Section: Probably Not By Einstein, Quote Page 481, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. (Verified on paper)

The earliest close match located by QI appeared in an advertisement for The Equity Savings & Loan Company published in the “Cleveland Plain Dealer” of Ohio in 1925. No attribution was specified. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:[2] 1925 April 27, Cleveland Plain Dealer, (Advertisement for The Equity Savings & Loan Co., 5701 Euclid Ave.) Quote Page 26, Column 6, Cleveland, Ohio. (GenealogyBank)

The Eighth Wonder of the World—is compound interest. It does things to money. At the Equity it doubles your money every 14 years, but here is an even greater wonder of it—

Deposit five dollars a week for twenty years, say, and let the interest accumulate. You will have actually put away only $5,200, but you will have $8,876.80. The difference of $3,676.80 is what 5% compound interest has done for you.

QI hypothesizes that the statement was crafted by an unknown advertising copy writer. Over the years it has been reassigned to famous people to make the comment sound more impressive and to encourage individuals to open bank accounts or purchase interest-bearing securities.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Continue reading The Eighth Wonder of the World Is Compound Interest

References

References
↑1 2010, The Ultimate Quotable Einstein, Edited by Alice Calaprice, Section: Probably Not By Einstein, Quote Page 481, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. (Verified on paper)
↑2 1925 April 27, Cleveland Plain Dealer, (Advertisement for The Equity Savings & Loan Co., 5701 Euclid Ave.) Quote Page 26, Column 6, Cleveland, Ohio. (GenealogyBank)

The Plural of Anecdote Is Not Data

Kenneth Kernaghan? P.K. Kuruvilla? Paul Samuelson? Edith Greene? Irwin S. Bernstein? Anonymous?

Dear Quote Investigator: Each datum in a collection of data may be considered a story. Yet, it is often difficult to make rigorous conclusions based on a motley collection of anecdotes. Scientific data should be collected in a methodical manner according to a well-specified protocol. This viewpoint is concisely stated as follows:

The plural of anecdote is not data.

Would you please explore the history of this statement?

Quote Investigator: The earliest strong match known to QI appeared in an article by Kenneth Kernaghan and P. K. Kuruvilla in the journal “Canadian Public Administration” in 1982. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:[1]2012, The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs, Compiled by Charles Clay Doyle, Wolfgang Mieder, and Fred R. Shapiro, Quote Page 202, Yale University Press, New Haven. (Verified in Dictionary of Modern … Continue reading

In that the plural of the word anecdote is not data, it is difficult to provide hard information on selection problems.

The citation above is listed in the valuable reference “The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs” from Yale University Press.

Interestingly, the same expression without the negation is also an adage which has been explored by QI in a separate article here.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Continue reading The Plural of Anecdote Is Not Data

References

References
↑1 2012, The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs, Compiled by Charles Clay Doyle, Wolfgang Mieder, and Fred R. Shapiro, Quote Page 202, Yale University Press, New Haven. (Verified in Dictionary of Modern Proverbs) (Citation for adage – not yet verified by QI: 1982 Kenneth Kernaghan, “Merit and Motivation: Public Personnel Management in Canada,” Canadian Public Administration 25: 703; text is visible in a snippet from the Google Books database)

Science Makes Progress Funeral by Funeral

Paul A. Samuelson? Max Planck? Thomas S. Kuhn? Henri Poincaré? Anonymous?

Dear Quote Investigator: Resistance to revolutionary scientific theories is intransigent. Progress only occurs when the prestigious detractors from a previous generation die out. Here are four versions of a maxim eloquently stating this viewpoint:

Science advances funeral by funeral.
Science advances one funeral at a time.
Science progresses funeral by funeral.
Knowledge advances funeral by funeral.

Who should receive credit for this provocative remark?

Quote Investigator: The influential economist Paul A. Samuelson employed multiple versions of this saying containing the distinctive phrase: “funeral by funeral”. For example, in 1975 Samuelson published a “Newsweek” magazine column with the following passage. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:[1] Date: 1975 June 16, Periodical: Newsweek, Article: Alvin H. Hansen, 1887-1975, Author: Paul A. Samuelson, Quote Page 72, Publisher: Newsweek, Inc., New York. (Verified on microfilm)

As the great Max Planck, himself the originator of the quantum theory in physics, has said, science makes progress funeral by funeral: the old are never converted by the new doctrines, they simply are replaced by a new generation.

Samuelson credited Planck, and it is true that the Nobel-Prize winning physicist articulated the same point, but his phrasing was not compact. Planck’s book “Wissenschaftliche Selbstbiographie” appeared in German in 1948, the year after his death. A translation by Frank Gaynor titled “A Scientific Autobiography” appeared in 1949. Planck discussed the opposition to novel scientific theories:[2]1968 (Copyright 1949), Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers by Max Planck (Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck), Translated from German by Frank Gaynor, Section: A Scientific Autobiography, Start Page … Continue reading

This experience gave me also an opportunity to learn a fact-a remarkable one, in my opinion: A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.

QI believes that Samuelson should receive credit for the concise formulation with the phrase “funeral by funeral”, and Planck should receive credit for the longer statement and underlying idea.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Continue reading Science Makes Progress Funeral by Funeral

References

References
↑1 Date: 1975 June 16, Periodical: Newsweek, Article: Alvin H. Hansen, 1887-1975, Author: Paul A. Samuelson, Quote Page 72, Publisher: Newsweek, Inc., New York. (Verified on microfilm)
↑2 1968 (Copyright 1949), Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers by Max Planck (Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck), Translated from German by Frank Gaynor, Section: A Scientific Autobiography, Start Page 13, Quote Page 33 and 34, Greenwood Press Publishers, Westport, Connecticut. (Verified with hardcopy)

When the Facts Change, I Change My Mind. What Do You Do, Sir?

John Maynard Keynes? Paul Samuelson? Winston Churchill? Joan Robinson? Apocryphal?

Dear Quote Investigator: John Maynard Keynes was an enormously influential economist, but some of his detractors complained that the opinions he expressed tended to change over the years. Once during a high-profile government hearing a critic accused him of being inconsistent, and Keynes reportedly answered with one of the following:

When events change, I change my mind. What do you do?

When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?

When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir?

When someone persuades me that I am wrong, I change my mind. What do you do?

Because there are so many different versions of this rejoinder I was hoping you might determine if any of them is real. Is there any truth to this anecdote?

Quote Investigator: In 1924 John Maynard Keynes published an essay titled “Investment Policy for Insurance Companies” in “The Nation and Athenaeum” of London. Keynes contended that an insurance company must employ an active investment policy. The company must maintain constant vigilance and revise preconceived ideas in response to changes in external situations.

Keynes penned a statement that partially matched the expression under examination. He suggested that a successful investor must be willing change an opinion when facts and circumstances change. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:[1]1924 May 17, The Nation and Athenaeum, Investment Policy for Insurance Companies by J. M. Keynes (John Maynard Keynes), Start Page 226, Quote Page 226, Column 2, Publisher of The Nation and … Continue reading

Unfortunately, it is not possible to make oneself permanently secure by any policy of inaction whatever. The idea which some people seem to entertain that an active policy involves taking more risks than an inactive policy is exactly the opposite of the truth. The inactive investor who takes up an obstinate attitude about his holdings and refuses to change his opinion merely because facts and circumstances have changed is the one who in the long run comes to grievous loss.

Thus, Keynes expressed a similar idea, and he used comparable vocabulary, but his phrasing differed significantly. The existence of this passage highlights the possibility that there might be a closer match from Keynes that remains undiscovered.

QI thanks economist Dr. Neil Smith who located the citation above.

The earliest strong match found by QI was not from Keynes but from another prominent individual in the same field, Paul Samuelson who was awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in economics. He was well-known to students for creating a best-selling economics textbook.

On December 20, 1970 he was interviewed by a panel on the television program “Meet the Press.” The transcript of the show was published the next day in the “Daily Labor Report” from the Bureau of National Affairs, Washington. Austin Kiplinger of Kiplinger Publications asked Samuelson about inflation. Boldface has been added to excerpts:[2]1970 December 21, Daily Labor Report, Number 246, Page X-3, Column 1 and 2, Full Text Section, [Transcript of “Meet The Press”: NBC Radio and Television Program; December 20, 1970; … Continue reading

KIPLINGER: Returning to this matter of how much inflation we can absorb effectively, you may remember that Dr. Sumner Schlicter at Harvard shocked, I guess, the American Public after World War II when he said some inflation was not only inevitable but perhaps also desirable to promote growth. My question is do you agree with that general assessment and if so, how much should we have and how much is acceptable?

DR. SAMUELSON: I do agree with it and I suffer for expressing my agreement. Different editions of my textbook have been quoted. In the first edition I said a five percent rate is tolerable. Then I worked it down to three percent and then down to two percent and the AP carried a wire “Author Should Make Up His Mind.” Well when events change, I change my mind. What do you do?

Intriguingly, in 1978 Samuelson used a version of this expression again, and this time he credited the words to Keynes. His statement was reported in “The Wall Street Journal” in an article by Lindley H. Clark Jr.:[3] 1978 October 13, Wall Street Journal, U.S. Monetary Troubles by Lindley H. Clark Jr., Page 22, New York. (ProQuest)

Paul Samuelson, the Nobel laureate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, recalled that John Maynard Keynes once was challenged for altering his position on some economic issue. “When my information changes,” he remembered that Keynes had said, “I change my mind. What do you do?”

Apparently, Samuelson in 1970 and 1978 was echoing a thought from Keynes. Perhaps Samuelson encountered the 1924 passage in his readings. QI does not know.

Here are some additional selected citations in chronological order.

Continue reading When the Facts Change, I Change My Mind. What Do You Do, Sir?

References

References
↑1 1924 May 17, The Nation and Athenaeum, Investment Policy for Insurance Companies by J. M. Keynes (John Maynard Keynes), Start Page 226, Quote Page 226, Column 2, Publisher of The Nation and Athenaeum, London. (Google Books Full View) link
↑2 1970 December 21, Daily Labor Report, Number 246, Page X-3, Column 1 and 2, Full Text Section, [Transcript of “Meet The Press”: NBC Radio and Television Program; December 20, 1970; Interview with Professor Paul A. Samuelson], Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.: Washington, D.C., Alexandria, Virginia. (Verified using scanned images from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Special thanks to the wonderfully helpful librarian at UA)
↑3 1978 October 13, Wall Street Journal, U.S. Monetary Troubles by Lindley H. Clark Jr., Page 22, New York. (ProQuest)