Tracing Quotations
Sydney Smith? Punch? Evan Esar? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: A disagreement between two people is sometimes caused by a difference in underlying assumptions. Two individuals arguing from different premises are likely to reach different conclusions. This notion can be comically transformed via a pun on the word “premises” which can mean “assumptions” or “residences”. …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: They Will Never Agree. They Argue from Different Premises”
Edmund Burke? Sydney Smith? Bob Geldof? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Trying to solve an enormous problem can be demoralizing. Each action can only achieve a small amount of progress. The following saying is designed to help maintain morale: Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a …
Sydney J. Harris? Sydney Smith? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Different types of regret may be experienced when you do something and when you refrain from doing something. A statement on this topic has been attributed to two disparate Sydneys: the English wit Sydney Smith and the U.S. columnist Sydney J. Harris. Would you please determine …
Oscar Wilde? Richard Le Gallienne? Reverend Sydney Smith? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: One of the more outrageous remarks attributed to the famous wit Oscar Wilde concerned missionaries, cannibals, and the supply of food. Did Wilde really make this facetious remark? Reply from Quote Investigator: Oscar Wilde died in 1900, and the earliest evidence located …
Jonathan Swift? Fisher Ames? Lyman Beecher? Jonathan Farr? Samuel Hanson Cox? Sydney Smith? Sidney Smith? Ben Goldacre? Question for Quote Investigator: Jonathan Swift was a prominent literary figure who authored “Gulliver’s Travels” and “A Modest Proposal”. He has been credited with an elegant thought about the limitations of persuasion via logical argument: You cannot reason …