Quote Investigator® – Page 115

Quote Origin: A Good Teacher Is Like a Candle that Consumes Itself While Lighting the Way for Others

Giovanni Ruffini? Mustafa Kemal Atatürk? Charles Wiseman? Edward Bulwer-Lytton? Emir Abdelkader? Henry Ward Beecher? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: Being a teacher is wonderfully fulfilling, but it is also exhausting. The following astute simile reflects this tension:

A teacher is like a candle that consumes itself to light the way for others.

This saying has been credited to the Italian poet Giovanni Ruffini and the Turkish statesman Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. What do you think?

Reply from Quote Investigator: This saying is difficult to trace because it can be expressed in many ways. The earliest close match located by QI appeared in a 1764 book titled “A Complete English Grammar on a New Plan” by Charles Wiseman. While discussing figurative language Wiseman presented a collection of example similes; four are shown below. Interestingly, a candle was likened to an “author” instead of a “teacher”; both may serve an educational role. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

Like snow that melts away on the ground as it falls, i.e. words
Like a candle which lights others, and burns out itself, i.e. an author, or
Like a dog in a wheel that toils to roast meat for others eating, i.e. an author
Like a bucket at the bottom of a deep well, he must labour hard that will draw it up, i.e. truth

Wiseman presented thirty-two similes in this textbook section, and QI conjectures that most of them were already in circulation; thus, he may be credited with popularizing the candle simile but not constructing it.

Giovanni Ruffini was born in 1807, and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was born in 1881; hence, neither crafted this simile.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Genius Is Seeing Things Others Don’t See. Or Rather the Invisible Links Between Things

Quotation: “What do you call ‘genius’?”
“Well, seeing things others don’t see. Or rather the invisible links between things.”

Creator: Vladimir Nabokov, author of “Pale Fire”, “Lolita”, and “Speak, Memory”

Context: The lines excerpted above show two characters talking from the 1974 novel “Look at the Harlequins!” by Nabokov.¹ These two lines are often compressed to yield the following statement: Genius is finding the invisible link between things. However, assigning this compressed remark to Nabokov is inaccurate.

Acknowledgement: Thanks to Brad Davies who asked about this quotation. Thanks also to Athel Cornish-Bowden who led QI to add the link to the “Related Article” when he pointed out the conceptual connection.

Update History: On April 11, 2025 the format of the bibliographical notes was updated.

1990 (1974 Copyright), Look at the Harlequins! by Vladimir Nabokov, Quote Page 40, (Originally published in 1974 by McGraw-Hill International) Vintage international: A Division of Random House, New York. (Google Books Preview) ↩︎

Quote Origin: If Anything Can Go Wrong, Fix It! (To Hell With Murphy!)

Quotation: If anything can go wrong, fix it! (To hell with Murphy!)

Creator: Peter H. Diamandis, founder and chairman of the X Prize Foundation; bestselling author; cofounder of Singularity University

Context: In 2015 Diamandis published “Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World”. He described an episode that occurred shortly after he founded and began working at the International Space University. He shared an office with a colleague who placed a copy of Murphy’s Law on the wall which stated: “If anything can go wrong, it will”. Diamandis greatly disliked the sign. Boldface has been added to this excerpt:¹

There’s an old saying in business: You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with. The same is true for ideas. . . Thus, a week into Murphy’s mental assault, I went to the whiteboard behind my desk and wrote: “If anything can go wrong, fix it! (To hell with Murphy!)” Then above the quote I wrote, “Peter’s Law.”

Update History: On April 11, 2025 the format of the bibliographical notes was updated.

2015, Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler, Quote Page 108, Simon & Schuster, New York. (Google Books Preview) ↩︎

Quote Origin: What Has Posterity Ever Done for Us?

Groucho Marx? John Stuart Mill? Joseph Addison? Thomas Stafford? Boyle Roche? Adam Neale? Samuel Goldwyn? Bill Nye?

Question for Quote Investigator: Making sacrifices now for the people and environment of the future is difficult. This challenge has been encapsulated with a humorous remark. Here are two versions:

Why should I care about posterity? What’s posterity ever done for me?
Why should I care about future generations? What have they ever done for me?

Groucho Marx often receives credit for this quip, but I have been unable to find a proper citation. Would you please explore the provenance of this statement?

Reply from Quote Investigator: Groucho Marx died in 1977, and an instance of this jest was ascribed to him near the end of his life in 1975, but the quip can be traced back to the 1700s.

A close variant appeared in “The Spectator” magazine in 1714. Joseph Addison and Richard Steele founded and operated the magazine, and both were significant literary and political figures. The passage below was reprinted in the works of Addison. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

I know when a man talks of posterity in matters of this nature he is looked upon with an eye of ridicule by the cunning and selfish part of mankind. Most people are of the humour of an old fellow of a colledge, who when he was pressed by the society to come into something that might redound to the good of their successors, grew very peevish, We are always doing, says he, something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something for us.

Addison disclaimed credit for the joke which he attributed to an “old fellow of a colledge”. The most likely candidate is Oxford scholar Thomas Stafford.

The Oxford Historical Society has published material from the papers of Thomas Hearne, an English diarist and antiquarian. An entry dated February 27, 1722/3 stated that on that day a great bell was sounded at Magdalen College, Oxford to honor Thomas Stafford, Fellow of the College, who had died that morning. Hearne then presented an anecdote from Stafford’s past:²

He was a Man that lov’d to get Money, but was, however, very kind to his poor Relations. There is this Story going of him, that some of the College talking once of doing something by way of Benevolence or Generosity, upon some publick Account, & he asking for what reason, it was answered, to do good to Posterity. Posterity, says the Dr., What good will Posterity do for us?

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Always Do What You Are Afraid To Do

Quotation: Always do what you are afraid to do.

Popularizer: Ralph Waldo Emerson (He did not create the adage.)

Context: In 1841 Emerson published the essay “Heroism”, and he recommended a simple maxim to readers for overcoming trepidation. Some fears are justified, and the guidance does not encourage foolish or self-destructive actions. Emerson disclaimed credit for the saying with the phrase “I once heard”:¹

Be true to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant, and broken the monotony of a decorous age. It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, “Always do what you are afraid to do.”

Related Article 01: Do One Thing Every Day That Scares You
Related Article 02: Make It a Point To Do Something Every Day That You Don’t Want To Do

Update History: On April 11, 2025 the format of the bibliographical notes was updated.

1841, Essays by R. W. Emerson (Ralph Waldo Emerson), Essay VIII: Heroism, Start Page 247, Quote Page 262, James Fraser, London. (Google Books full view) link ↩︎

Quote Origin: Within Thirty Years, We Will Have the Technological Means To Create Superhuman Intelligence. Shortly After, the Human Era Will Be Ended

Quotation: Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.

Creator: Vernor Vinge, prize-winning science fiction author; retired professor of computer science at San Diego State University

Context: In 1993 NASA sponsored a symposium titled “Vision 21: Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering in the Era of Cyberspace”. Vernor Vinge introduced the term “technological singularity” and predicted a cataclysmic change in human society resulting from the construction of superintelligent agents by 2023:¹

Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.

Is such progress avoidable? If not to be avoided, can events be guided so that we may survive? These questions are investigated. Some possible answers (and some further dangers) are presented.

Vinge outlined four pathways that lead toward surpassing human intelligence:

The development of computers that are “awake” and superhumanly intelligent. (To date, most controversy in the area of AI relates to whether we can create human equivalence in a machine. But if the answer is “yes, we can”, then there is little doubt that beings more intelligent can be constructed shortly thereafter.
Large computer networks (and their associated users) may “wake up” as a superhumanly intelligent entity.
Computer/human interfaces may become so intimate that users may reasonably be considered superhumanly intelligent.
Biological science may find ways to improve upon the natural human intellect.

Update History: On April 11, 2025 the format of the bibliographical notes was updated.

1993, Proceedings of Symposium Vision 21, Held in Westlake, Ohio on March 30-31, 1993, Cosponsored by the NASA Lewis Research Center and the Ohio Aerospace Institute, NASA Conference Publication 10129, Article: The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era by Vernor Vinge (San Diego State University), Section: Abstract, Quote Page 11, Published by NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Office of Management, Scientific and Technical Information Program. (Accessed May 7 2018 via archive at ntrs.nasa.gov) ↩︎

Quote Origin: Part of the Inhumanity of the Computer Is That Once It Is Competently Programmed and Working Smoothly—It Is Completely Honest

Quotation: Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that once it is competently programmed and working smoothly—it is completely honest.

Creator: Isaac Asimov, bestselling author of science fiction and science books

Context: The book “Change! Seventy-One Glimpses of the Future” contained a series of short speculative essays detailing Isaac Asimov’s visions of the future. The piece “Who Needs Money?” discussed a cashless economy based on computerized electronic money. Asimov believed that the precise tracking of transactions via computer would reduce duplicity:¹

Abuses? They might actually decrease as dishonest dealing and tax evasion became more difficult. Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that once it is competently programmed and working smoothly—it is completely honest.

Acknowledgement: Thanks to Luigi Muzii who requested a verified citation for this quotation.

Update History: On April 11, 2025 the format of the bibliographical notes was updated.

1981, Change! Seventy-One Glimpses of the Future by Isaac Asimov, Chapter 6: Who Needs Money?, Start Page 15, Quote Page 17, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, Massachusetts. (Verified with scans) ↩︎

Quote Origin: It Is Not the Clear-Sighted Who Lead the World. Great Achievements Are Accomplished in a Blessed, Warm, Mental Fog

Joseph Conrad? Edgar Ansel Mowrer? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: Great attainments are normally thought to require superior mental acuity, but the brilliant novelist Joseph Conrad apparently contended that a “warm mental fog” was necessary. Would you please help me to find a citation?

Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1915 Joseph Conrad published “Victory: An Island Story” in “Munsey’s Magazine”. The narrator described a young impressionable man who was taught by his father to profoundly mistrust life. The result was detrimental. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

It is not the clear-sighted who lead the world. Great achievements are accomplished in a blessed, warm, mental fog, which the pitiless cold blasts of the father’s analysis had blown away from the son.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Nothing Is More Responsible for the Good Old Days than a Bad Memory

Franklin P. Adams? Franklin P. Jones? H. B. Meyers? Sylvia Strum Bremer? Loring Smith? Mike Connolly? Steven Pinker?

Question for Quote Investigator: Public intellectual Steven Pinker recently published the bestselling book “Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress” which includes an entertaining quotation about nostalgia attributed to a prominent newspaper columnist:¹

As the columnist Franklin Pierce Adams pointed out, “Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory.”

I have been unable to find a solid citation. Would you please help?

Reply from Quote Investigator: This saying was attributed to Franklin Pierce Adams in 1964 by the prominent publisher and quotation collector Bennett Cerf, but Adams had died in 1960, and Cerf is occasionally unreliable.

More than a decade before Adams received credit, the remark was ascribed to a columnist with a similar name, Franklin P. Jones. So Cerf may have confused the two names. Interestingly, the initial evidence found by QI occurred even earlier, and the saying appears to have evolved over time.

The May 1913 issue of “The American Food Journal” contained a prolix match within an editorial. H. B. Meyers was the editor, managing editor, and publisher of the journal. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:²

“THE GOOD OLD DAYS.”

A certain class of people are fond of talking about “the good old days,” but they are for the most part individuals without imagination and with a very poor memory. As a matter of fact, there never was a time in the history of the world when the days were as good as they are right now in this year of our Lord 1913.

In 1950 a columnist in an Iowa newspaper, Sylvia Strum Bremer, presented a more concise version of the sentiment:³

Everybody is always talking about “the good old days,” and a lot of the nostalgia expressed is simply the result of poor memory.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: I Want to Be What I Was When I Wanted To Be What I Now Am

Marlon Brando? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: We are unable to anticipate the full consequences of the changes we make to ourselves. The following wistful and convoluted expression reflects this unease:

I want to be who I was when I wanted to become who I am now.

While listening to the radio I heard this attributed to the famous actor Marlon Brando, but I cannot find any citations. Would you please help?

Reply from Quote Investigator: QI has found no substantive evidence linking this expression to Marlon Brando.

The earliest close match located by QI appeared in an article published in the journal “Christianity Today” in July 1967 about the rebellious young generation. The words were printed as a slogan on a button, and no ascription was provided. Emphasis added to excerpts:¹

When it comes to expressing their views on life, they say by button: “I Want to Be What I Was When I Wanted To Be What I Now Am,” or “Neuroses Are Red, Melancholy Is Blue, I’m Schizophrenic, What Are You?,” or “End Poverty, Give Me $10.” They further advise: “Reality Is Good Sometimes for Kicks But Don’t Let It Get You Down,” and “Even Paranoids Have Real Enemies.”

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.