Hans Moravec? Timothy Leary? Vince Rause? Grant Fjermedal? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The creation of the first living beings on planet Earth was an epochal change. The prominent roboticist Hans Moravec has stated that the advent of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) will be a change comparable to the transition from non-life to life. Would …
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Quote Origin: He Is the Only Genius with an IQ of 85
Gore Vidal? Andy Warhol? Peter Conrad? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: A U.S. intellectual once offered the following remarkably harsh assessment of a famous pop-artist: He is the only genius with an IQ of 60. Reportedly, the verbal sharpshooter was Gore Vidal, and the visual artist was Andy Warhol. The precise number specified for the …
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Quote Origin: Books Will Not Exist in About Five Years
Nicholas Negroponte? M. G. Siegler? William Deresiewicz? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Predicting the technological future is extremely difficult. More than a decade ago Nicholas Negroponte, the head of the MIT Media Lab, predicted that books would not exist in about five years. He meant that the popularity of paper books would decline, and ebooks …
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Quote Origin: No One Needs a Vacation So Much as the Person Who Has Just Had One
Elbert Hubbard? Mary Sargent Hopkins? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Vacations with full itineraries can be exciting and exhausting. Here are two versions of a pertinent quip: (1) One never needs a vacation so much as the day after returning from one.(2) The man who most needs a vacation is the man who has just …
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Quote Origin: A Bore Is a Person Who Deprives You of Solitude Without Providing You with Company
Oscar Wilde? Gian Vincenzo Gravina? John D. MacDonald? Roger Ebert? Paul Gibson? Marcel Proust? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: A clever person constructed the following definition: A bore is a person who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company. This remark has been attributed to Irish wit Oscar Wilde, Italian man of letters …
Quote Origin: Love Is the Crowning Grace of Humanity, the Holiest Right of the Soul, the Golden Link Which Binds Us to Duty and Truth
Francis Petrarch? Plutarch? Henry Theodore Tuckerman? Frederick Saunders? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The following ornate passage about love has been attributed to Francis Petrarch, a prominent poet of the Italian Renaissance: Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth. …
Quote Origin: Being Powerful Is Like Being a Lady. If You Have To Tell People You Are, You Aren’t
Jesse Carr? Margaret Thatcher? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Positive self-descriptions are sometimes inaccurate. Here are three versions of a saying which illustrates this insight: (1) Power is like being a lady—if you have to tell them you are, you ain’t. (2) Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people …
Quote Origin: Sure, He Was Great, But Don’t Forget That Ginger Rogers Did Everything He Did Backwards and in High Heels
Ginger Rogers? Ann Richards? Bob Thaves? Ronald Reagan? Faith Whittlesey? Liz Carpenter? Question for Quote Investigator: The U.S. entertainer Fred Astaire won high praise as a magnificent dancer. Astaire’s partner Ginger Rogers also achieved acclaim, but she did not achieve the same level of celebrity. A humorous feminist line compares the capabilities of the two: …
Quip Origin: Nothing Is Impossible for the Person Who Doesn’t Have To Do It Himself
A. H. Weiler? Earl Wilson? Mitch Miller? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Grandiose managers brag of the monumental tasks they can accomplish. This unrealistic attitude is reflected in a quip: Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn’t have to do it himself. Newspaper editor A. H. Weiler has received credit for this joke, but …
Quote Origin: It Is Questionable If All the Mechanical Inventions Yet Made Have Lightened the Day’s Toil of Any Human Being
John Stuart Mill? Henry George? Herbert Vincent Mills? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Numerous labor-saving machines were designed and built in the nineteenth century, but a prominent political economist was unimpressed. He doubted whether these inventions had lessened the toil of anyone by even a single day. This notion has been attributed to John Stuart …