Tracing Quotations
Mark Twain? Steven Wright? Senator Sorghum? Philander Chase Johnson? Neal O’Hara? Felix Nieto del Rio? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: A morally upright individual strives to maintain a clear conscience. Yet, satisfying this goal is not always praiseworthy: Often a person with a clear conscience merely has a poor memory. This quip has been credited …
Continue reading “Joke Origin: A Clear Conscience Is Usually a Sign of a Bad Memory”
Albert Einstein? Steven Wright? Earl Wilson? Robert Orben? Gary Apple? Bo McLeod? Brian Williams? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The speed of light is a crucial value in the theory of relativity. Perhaps that is why the following joke has been credited to Albert Einstein: Light travels faster than sound. That’s why some people appear …
Steven Wright? Kurt Vonnegut? Emo Philips? Rich Siegel? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: A speaker will typically ask audience members to raise their hands to signal an affirmative answer to a question. A humorist constructed a funny remark based on a transformation of this scenario: If you believe in psychokinetic powers, please raise my hand. …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: How Many People Here Tonight Are Telekinetic? Raise My Hand”
Stephen Wright? Ernst Berg? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: I am trying to discover where the following maxim comes from: The second mouse gets the cheese. Sometimes this phrase appears as part of a longer saying: The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. Your help would be greatly appreciated. …
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Wilson Mizner? Steven Wright? Wallace Notestein? Ralph Foss? Joseph Cummings Chase? Asa George Baker? Leslie Henson? Tom Lehrer? Bob Oliver? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Some of the websites I come across seem to produce their content by using cut and paste. They do not even bother to collect information from multiple sources. I am …