Quote Investigator® – Page 131

Quote Origin: My Life Depended on 150,000 Pieces of Equipment – Each Bought from the Lowest Bidder

Walter Schirra? Alan Shepard? John Glenn? Wernher von Braun? Gus Grissom? Gordon Cooper? Edward R. Annis? Apocryphal?

**Astronaut Alan Shepard in a pressure suit test in 1961 (NASA picture)**

Question for Quote Investigator: : A U.S. astronaut was asked how he felt while sitting in a space capsule while preparing for launch from Earth into orbit. He replied with a trenchant comment about equipment and contracts. Here are two versions:

(1) Everything that makes this thing go was supplied by the lowest bidder.
(2) My life depended on 150,000 pieces of equipment – each bought from the lowest bidder.

Would you please explore the provenance of this family of remarks?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest match found by QI appeared on November 26, 1962 within the trade journal “Purchasing Week” of New York which printed an anecdote from Edward R. Annis who was the incoming president of the American Medical Association. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:¹

Annis says he was being shown through Cape Canaveral last summer during the countdown for astronaut Walter Schirra’s six-circuit orbit of the earth. The medical team introduced Annis to Schirra, and the doctor asked the astronaut what concerned him most. After a moment’s thought, Annis says, Schirra replied: “Every time I climb up on the couch I say to myself—just think, Wally, everything that makes this thing go was supplied by the lowest bidder.”

On the same day an article with an identical quotation ascribed to Schirra from Annis appeared in the trade journal “Electrical Merchandising Week” of New York.²

On December 1, 1962 “The Saturday Review” printed a piece by Cleveland Amory who attended the recent convention of the Public Relations Society of America held in Boston. Amory heard the anecdote told by Annis during the convention. The phrasing of the quotation was a bit different:³

Dr. Annis also told us of visiting Astronaut Walter Schirra, Jr., shortly after his orbital flight at Cape Canaveral. What, he asked Schirra, was he thinking at the exact moment of blast-off? “Well,” replied Schirra, “I was looking down at all that machinery and equipment and rockets and things under me, and I thought, ‘Just think—all that power was assembled by the lowest bidder.'”

Walter Schirra is the leading candidate for founder of this family of sayings. Several other astronauts have received credit for remarks in this family, and QI conjectures that colleagues in the space program shared the quip with one another.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: We Cannot Direct the Wind, But We Can Adjust the Sails

Cora L. V. Hatch? Thomas Sheridan? George Whyte-Melville? A. B. Kendig? Ella Wheeler Wilcox? Bertha Calloway? Jimmy Dean? Dolly Parton? Thomas S. Monson?

Question for Quote Investigator: We are buffeted by events that are beyond our control, but we can still react constructively. A popular adage highlights this flexibility:

We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.

This saying has been credited to Dolly Parton, Thomas S, Monson, Bertha Calloway, Jimmy Dean, and several others. What do you think?

Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1859 the well-known spiritualist Cora L. V. Hatch delivered a lecture at the Cooper Institute while in a trance as reported in “The Cleveland Plain Dealer”. Hatch employed a version of the expression:¹

You could not prevent a thunderstorm, but you could use the electricity; you could not direct the wind, but you could trim your sail so as to propel your vessel as you pleased, no matter which way the wind blew.

This was the earliest close match known to QI. Other oft-mentioned candidates for crafters of this adage were born after it was in circulation.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Believe Nothing You Hear, and Only One Half That You See

Edgar Allan Poe? Samuel Johnson? William Johnson Neale? Dinah Craik? Apocryphal?

**Picture of three wise monkeys from Unsplash**

Question for Quote Investigator: The following hyperbolic proverb encouraging skepticism has been credited to the master of mystery and the macabre Edgar Allan Poe:

Believe half of what you see and nothing of what you hear.

Did Poe craft this saying?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The short story “The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether” by Edgar Allan Poe appeared in the November 1845 issue of “Graham’s Magazine”. The tale was set in a private hospital for the mentally ill, and the adage was spoken by the nominal head of the institution. Emphasis added by QI:¹

“You are young yet, my friend,” replied my host, “but the time will arrive when you will learn to judge for yourself of what is going on in the world, without trusting to the gossip of others. Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.

Thus, Edgar Allan Poe helped to popularize this expression, but he was not the first to use it. In 1831 William Johnson Neale published the novel “Cavendish: Or The Patrician at Sea” in which a character who was a naval officer employed the adage:²

“The rule with us is, believe nothing you hear, and but half you see.”

Hence, William Johnson Neale is a candidate for creator of the adage; however, QI believes the saying was probably already in circulation in the Royal Navy.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: If We’re Lucky, Robots Might Decide To Keep Us as Pets

Isaac Asimov? Marvin Minsky? Paul Saffo? Edward Fredkin? Bruce Sterling?

Question for Quote Investigator: Reportedly, a top researcher in artificial intelligence once said something like:

Humans will be lucky if superintelligent robots treat them as pets.

At some point a grim elaboration was appended:

If humans are unlucky, they will be treated as food.

Would you please explore this topic?

Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1970 “LIFE” magazine journalist Brad Darrach wrote an article about Shakey the Robot, an early mobile robot built at the Stanford Research Institute. The primitive device was grandly called the “first electronic person” within the article title. Darrach interviewed Marvin Minsky, a leading researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), who was quoted making a startling prediction:¹

In from three to eight years we will have a machine with the general intelligence of an average human being. I mean a machine that will be able to read Shakespeare, grease a car, play office politics, tell a joke, have a fight. At that point the machine will begin to educate itself with fantastic speed. In a few months it will be at genius level and a few months after that its powers will be incalculable.

Minsky and a colleague warned that intelligent computers should not be put in control of indispensable systems; instead, they must be carefully controlled. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:

The problem of computer control will have to be solved, Minsky and Papert believe, before computers are put in charge of systems essential to society’s survival. If a computer directing the nation’s economy or its nuclear defenses ever rated its own efficiency above its ethical obligation, it could destroy man’s social order—or destroy man. “Once the computers got control,” says Minsky, “we might never get it back. We would survive at their sufferance. If we’re lucky, they might decide to keep us as pets.”

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order including a 1985 passage asserting that Minsky denied making the statement about pets.

Quote Origin: Never Go to Bed Mad—Stay Up and Fight

Phyllis Diller? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: Newlyweds are sometimes given the following thoughtful relationship advice:

Never go to bed while angry with your partner.

The prominent comedian Phyllis Diller twisted this expression to yield a very funny line. Would you please help me to find a citation?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The quip appeared in her 1966 book “Phyllis Diller’s Housekeeping Hints”. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

Never Go to Bed Mad—Stay Up and Fight

Just the other day I said to Fang, “Don’t you think we’ve got a storybook romance?” and he said, “Yes, and every page is ripped.”

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Patriotism Means To Stand by the Country. It Does Not Mean To Stand by the President or Any Other Public Official

Theodore Roosevelt? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: There is a spirited disagreement on Facebook about whether the following statement can be ascribed to Theodore Roosevelt:

Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President.

Would you please help?

Reply from Quote Investigator: Several U.S. presidential administrations have been greeted by critics who have cited this expression. In May 1918 Theodore Roosevelt published an article titled “Lincoln and Free Speech” in “Metropolitan Magazine” which began with the following paragraph. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

PATRIOTISM means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him in so far as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth—whether about the President or about anyone else—save in the rare cases where this would make known to the enemy information of military value which would otherwise be unknown to him.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Please Do Not Shoot the Pianist. He Is Doing His Best

Oscar Wilde? Sign in Leadville? Minister in Pooleville, Arkansas?

Question for Quote Investigator: When Oscar Wilde was touring the United States he apparently saw a sign in a saloon requesting goodwill for the keyboardist. Here are three versions:

Please do not shoot the piano player; he is doing his best.
Please don’t shoot at the pianist; he’s doing his best.
It is requested that you will not shoot at the organist. He does his best.

Would you please explore the provenance of this appeal?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest instance of this comical and plaintive request located by QI appeared in a newspaper in Northamptonshire, England in August 1879. The short item referred to a religious service in faraway Arkansas. The instrument was an organ instead of a piano, and the entreaty was spoken instead of written. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

The minister, during a service at Pooleville, Arkansas, some years ago, said: “I have again to apologise for the absence of the newly-engaged tenor for the choir. He is expected on the next train, however, and will be at his post next Sunday without fail. And while I think of it, I would suggest that the present practice of shooting at the organist during the service be discontinued. It is a ridiculous habit, and annoys the congregation by filling the church with smoke. The poor man has his faults, but he does the best he can. Besides, it chips the new organ.”

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: It Is the Customary Fate of New Truths to Begin as Heresies and to End as Superstitions

Thomas Henry Huxley? George Bernard Shaw? Garrett Hardin? Caryl P. Haskins? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: An influential idea passes through three stages:

1) Begins as heresy
2) Turns into orthodoxy,
3) Ends up as superstition.

I cannot remember who said this. Can you help?

Reply from Quote Investigator: There are several different quotations that describe the reception of new ideas via a series of stages. A partial match with two stages instead of three was spoken by the scientist Thomas Henry Huxley during a lecture delivered at The Royal Institution of Great Britain. Today Huxley is best known as “Darwin’s bulldog” because of his vigorous defense of the theory of evolution. Huxley’s speech was printed in the journal “Nature” in 1880. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

History warns us, however, that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions; and, as matters now stand, it is hardly rash to anticipate that, in another twenty years, the new generation, educated under the influences of the present day, will be in danger of accepting the main doctrines of the Origin of Species with as little reflection, and it may be with as little justification, as so many of our contemporaries, twenty years ago, rejected them.

In 1961 Huxley received credit for a version with heresy, orthodoxy, and superstition, but QI has not yet found substantive evidence that he actually employed a tripartite expression.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: I Suppose the Process of Acceptance Will Pass through the Usual Four Stages

J. B. S. Haldane? Louis Agassiz? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: The British geneticist J. B. S. Haldane stated that interesting new truths were resisted, and acceptance required traversal through a series of four stages. During the first stage the new fact or theory was rejected as nonsense. Are you familiar with Haldane’s quotation on this topic?

Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1963 J. B. S. Haldane reviewed a book filled with tables of statistics describing human longevity. The tables revealed that humans were living much longer than insurance companies were commonly calculating. Haldane thought that there was a financial incentive for companies selling life insurance to overestimate the probability of death when setting prices. He also thought that the new data would initially be rejected. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:¹

This will create a resistance. I suppose the process of acceptance will pass through the usual four stages:

1. This is worthless nonsense,
2. This is an interesting, but perverse, point of view,
3. This is true, but quite unimportant,
4. I always said so.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: The Best Minds of My Generation Are Thinking About How To Make People Click Ads

Jeff Hammerbacher? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: The famous poem “Howl” by Beat Generation poet Allen Ginsberg begins with a despairing cri de cœur:¹

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked…

A very different mordant message was delivered by a Millennial who worried that his cohort was enmeshed in online advertising, and the most gifted were trying to convince people to click on advertisements. Would you please help me to find a citation?

Reply from Quote Investigator: In April 2011 “Bloomberg Businessweek” published a profile of Jeff Hammerbacher, an early employee of Facebook who gathered data about the behavior, relationships, and desires of the users of that quickly growing social network. Ultimately, the data allowed the precise targeting of advertisements, but Hammerbacher developed misgivings. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:²

After a couple years at Facebook, Hammerbacher grew restless. He figured that much of the groundbreaking computer science had been done. Something else gnawed at him. Hammerbacher looked around Silicon Valley at companies like his own, Google (GOOG), and Twitter, and saw his peers wasting their talents. “The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads,” he says. “That sucks.”

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.