Nothing Is Ever Really Lost To Us As Long As We Remember It

Lucy Maud Montgomery? Adelaide Anne Procter? Walt Whitman? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The popular Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery is best known for the children’s novel “Anne of Green Gables”. Apparently, she once made a powerful statement about transience, mortality, and memory: Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it. …

Keep Your Face Always Towards the Sunshine, and the Shadows Will Fall Behind You

Helen Keller? Walt Whitman? Charles Swain? Celia Burleigh? Lydia G. Worth? Edmund Cooke? M. B. Whitman? Maori Proverb? Dear Quote Investigator: A popular metaphorical framework equates sunlight to positive situations and shadow to unfavorable conditions. Here are two instances of an adage about maintaining an optimistic perspective: This notion has been credited to prominent poet …

The Dirtiest Book in All the World Is the Expurgated Book

Walt Whitman? Horace Traubel? Morris L. Ernst? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Walt Whitman’s landmark poetry collection “Leaves of Grass” was shocking to some of his contemporaries, and he was told by publishers, critics, and attorneys that his work required expurgation. Whitman consented to this censorship initially, but he became increasingly unhappy and angry with this …