Quote Investigator® – Page 136

Quote Origin: Good Ideology; Wrong Species

Edward O. Wilson? Bert Hölldobler? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: Social insects are famous for exhibiting a division of labor and a willingness to act for the overall good of the colony. The preeminent biologist Edward O. Wilson whose specialty is the study of ants was once asked about human politics, and he replied with a comment similar to the following regarding socialism:

Wonderful idea. Wrong species.

Would you please help me to find a citation?

Reply from Quote Investigator: In October 1994 the “Los Angeles Times” published a profile of Edward O. Wilson which included an interview. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

On another morning, he compares human beings to ants. Consider man’s selfishness and ambition versus the insects’ drive to help their community. They’ll sacrifice their lives for the common good, if need be.

Biology doesn’t get more basic than this, and Wilson ends the lesson amid gales of laughter by raising the subject of Marxism. Why did it fail?

“Good ideology,” he says dryly. “Wrong species.”

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: It’s Nice To Be Important, But More Important To Be Nice

Roger Federer? John Templeton? Walter Winchell? Kay Dangerfield? James H. Lane? Tony Curtis? Bob Olin? Sidney Blackmer? Joe Franklin? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: Antimetabole is a clever literary technique in which a phrase is repeated, but key words are reversed. For example:

It is nice to be important, but more important to be nice.

This line has been attributed to the tennis superstar Roger Federer and the renowned investor and philanthropist John Templeton. Would you please explore its provenance?

Reply from Quote Investigator: QI conjectures that this statement evolved from an adage composed by the powerful widely-syndicated columnist Walter Winchell. Yet, many years before Winchell’s brainstorm an interesting precursor appeared in the “Trenton Times” of Trenton, New Jersey in 1905. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

“If it is important to be nice, it is nearly as important to look nice. You may be full of kindness and desire to make others happy, but if you cannot cross a room without knocking down a chair or two, or answer a question without turning crimson and glaring at the floor, people will never really believe in your good intentions.”

The statement above contained two very similar repeated phrases, but the key words were not reordered; hence, antimetabole was not employed. In addition, the overall meaning differed substantially from the expression under examination.

In April 1937 Walter Winchell concluded his column with a remark he had sent via telegram. Winchell used the slang word “swell” which corresponded to “nice” in that time period:²

In reply to the wire of Jeff L. Kammen, of Chicago: The last line was: “Your New York Correspondent, who wishes to remind celebrities that it is swell to be important—but more important to be swell!”

QI hypothesizes that someone during the following decade exchanged “swell” and “nice” to produce the popular modern saying from Winchell’s adage.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: We Are Confronted by an Insurmountable Opportunity

Walt Kelly? Don Mitchell? Fred W. Bewley? Leon Shimkin? A. C. Monteith? W. Willard Wirtz? Hubert Humphrey? Howard J. Samuels? George H. W. Bush? W. C. Fields? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: Walt Kelly authored the magnificent comic strip “Pogo” featuring hilarious wordplay. He has been credited with the following oxymoronic phrase:

Our problem is an insurmountable opportunity.

I have been unable to find a solid citation, and now I am unsure about this ascription. Would you please help?

Reply from Quote Investigator: QI has not found this saying in Walt Kelly’s oeuvre, and based on current evidence QI would not credit Kelly. However, the comic strip text has not been fully digitized, and this judgment is not definitive.

The earliest match for this joke located by QI appeared in the proceedings of a conference on advertising in 1956. Don Mitchell of the Creative Education Foundation in Buffalo, New York delivered the line while conversing with a staff member of the General Electric Company. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

Mr. Mitchell: Thank you, Ed, very much. You talked about GE having opportunities. I think we ought to tell the folks that GE call their problems opportunities, but there are quite a few people who feel there are some insurmountable opportunities around.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: If a Book Is Well Written, I Always Find It Too Short

Jane Austen? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: The famous novelist Jane Austen wrote that when she was reading an enjoyable book she always found that it was too short. Would you please help me to locate this quotation?

Reply from Quote Investigator: Jane Austen was born in 1775, and she began to work on a novel called “Catharine or the Bower” when she was still in her teens in 1792. The incomplete work is part of her juvenilia.

The main character Catharine (Kitty) Percival has a friend named Camilla Stanley. The omniscient narrator states that Kitty is a “great reader, tho’ perhaps not a very deep one”. The judgment of Stanley is considerably harsher:

She professed a love of books without reading, was lively without wit, and generally good humoured without merit.

The pair discusses two novels: “Emmeline” and “Ethelinde” by a popular contemporary author. The following dialog begins with a question from Kitty and has a satirical edge. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

‘And which do you prefer of them?’ ‘Oh! dear, I think there is no comparison between them—Emmeline is so much better than any of the others—’ ‘Many people think so, I know; but there does not appear so great a disproportion in their merits to me; do you think it is better written?’

‘Oh! I do not know anything about that—but it is better in every thing—Besides, Ethelinde is so long—’That is a very common objection I believe,’ said Kitty, ‘but for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.‘ ‘So do I, only I get tired of it before it is finished.’ ‘But did not you find the story of Ethelinde very interesting? And the descriptions of Grasmere, are not they Beautiful?’ ‘Oh! I missed them all, because I was in such a hurry to know the end of it’—.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: He Got His Good Looks from His Mother. She’s a Plastic Surgeon

Groucho Marx? Frank Parker? Marty Allen? Steve Rossi? Dorothy Shay? Ed Reed? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: The comedian Groucho Marx apparently crafted a witty twist on beauty and inheritance. Here are two versions:

He got his good looks from his mother. She’s a plastic surgeon.
She got her good looks from her father. He’s a plastic surgeon.

Would you please explore the provenance of this quip?

Reply from Quote Investigator: Groucho Marx who died in 1977 received credit for this joke by 1968, but it has a very long evolutionary history. A precursor in 1898 implied aesthetic enhancement via makeup instead of plastic surgery:¹

Ella—Where does Belle get her good looks from—her father or her mother?
Stella—From her father; he keeps a drug store.—New York Journal.

The above item from “The Times-Visitor” of Raleigh, North Carolina appeared in multiple newspapers with occasional small modifications. For example, “The McPherson Daily Republican” of McPherson, Kansas referred to “Bella” instead of “Belle” and acknowledged “Stray Stories” instead of “New York Journal”.²

In 1904 a newspaper in Winston-Salem, North Carolina printed a variant that referred to an uncle:³

Gossip No. 1.—Did Miss Hanson get her good looks from her father or her mother?
Gossip No. 2.—From her uncle; he keeps a drug store.—Princeton Tiger.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: The Young Sow Wild Oats. The Old Grow Sage

Winston Churchill? Stephen Fry? Henry James Byron? W. Davenport Adams? Aubrey Stewart? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: The recent memoir by English comedian and actor Stephen Fry contains the following intriguing remark:¹

‘Young men sow wild oats, old men grow sage,’ Churchill is reputed to have said. It almost never is Churchill. In fact collectors of quotations call such laziness in attribution ‘Churchillian creep’.

Was this wordplay created by Winston Churchill?

Reply from Quote Investigator: There is some evidence that Churchill employed this quip on his 77th birthday, but it was circulating before he was born.

The earliest appearance located by QI was in a play titled “The Pilgrim of Love! A Fairy Romance” by Henry James Byron which was first performed in 1860. In the following passage a character was afraid that he was losing control of a young person he was responsible for mentoring. Emphasis added by QI:²

I’m getting on, and so, as his majority
Approaches, I observe that my authority
Declines—but youth, we know, will have its fling,
And there’s a period for everything.
This gardener’s rule applies to youth and age,
When young sow wild oats, but when old grow sage.

Regarding Stephen Fry’s phrase ‘Churchillian creep’, it was probably inspired by the term ‘Churchillian drift’ coined by top quotation researcher Nigel Rees.³

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: There Is in This World No Such Force as the Force of a Man Determined To Rise. The Human Soul Cannot Be Permanently Chained

W. E. B. Du Bois? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: W. E. B. Du Bois was a prominent sociologist, historian, and civil rights activist. He spoke about the unstoppable force of a person resolved to rise, and he said:

The human soul cannot be permanently chained.

Would you please help me to find a citation?

Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1910 W. E. Burghardt Du Bois was a Professor of Sociology at Atlanta University, and he published an essay titled “The Economic Aspects of Race Prejudice” in which he decried an attitude of bigotry and stated the following. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

And when a group, a nation or a world assumes this attitude, it is handling dynamite. There is in this world no such force as the force of a man determined to rise. The human soul can not be permanently chained.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: We Should All Be Concerned About the Future Because We Will Have To Spend the Rest of Our Lives There

Charles F. Kettering? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: Charles F. Kettering was a prolific inventor and the head of research for General Motors for many years. During an interview he apparently uttered a line about the future that was simultaneously humorous and insightful:

We should all be concerned about the future because we will have to spend the rest of our lives there.

I am having trouble finding a solid citation. Would you please help?

Reply from Quote Investigator: Charles F. Kettering discussed this theme several times, and his remarks were refined over time. In 1938 he addressed a testimonial dinner of the Chamber of Commerce held in Lansing, Michigan. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

“Tomorrow will be exactly what you think it ought to be and the accomplishments of the future depend entirely on the amount of imagination we have got, the amount of industry we have got in pursuing them, and when we think they are worth while.

“I am not worried about the future at all. In fact I think it is the most wonderful future I ever had. I have got to spend all the rest of my life in that future, and I don’t want to run it down. It is going to be a wonderful place to live, I think,” Mr. Kettering concluded.

In July 1939 Kettering spoke at a joint luncheon held by the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the Advertising Club. He employed a compact version of the saying based on “I” instead of “we”:²

“You know,” the speaker remarked with a serious face, “I am interested in the future because I expect to spend the rest of my life in the future.”

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: I Am Always Doing What I Can’t Do Yet in Order To Learn How To Do It

Pablo Picasso? Vincent van Gogh? Fred Beerstein?

Question for Quote Investigator: You have the following inspirational saying on the website:

Only one who attempts the absurd is capable of achieving the impossible.

The above remark reminded me of a statement that has been attributed to two very different painters: Pablo Picasso and Vincent van Gogh:

I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.

Can you tell me which artist really deserves the credit?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest match known to QI appeared in a letter sent in 1885 to painter Anthon van Rappard from Vincent van Gogh who was immersed in the creation of the landmark canvas “The Potato Eaters”. The following English text based on the Dutch original was provided by the Van Gogh Museum. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

The work in question, painting the peasants, is such laborious work that the extremely weak would never even embark on it. And I have at least embarked on it and have laid certain foundations, which isn’t exactly the easiest part of the job! And I’ve grasped some solid and useful things in drawing and in painting, more firmly than you think, my dear friend. But I keep on making what I can’t do yet in order to learn to be able to do it.

A somewhat different translation of the key sentence appeared in volume three of “The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh” which was reviewed in “The New York Times” in 1979:²

His own description of his work is best: “I am always doing what I can’t do yet in order to learn how to do it.” Getting along with people was something else he could not do yet. “Madness,” he wrote, “is salutary in that one becomes less exclusive.” Another way of saying that when the need for human contact is terrible enough, anyone will do.

An instance was attributed to Pablo Picasso by 1995, but his death had occurred more than two decades earlier in 1973.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: I Don’t Believe in Astrology; I’m a Sagittarian and We’re Skeptical

Arthur C. Clarke? Bob Thaves? Evan Esar? Jonah Peretti? Paul Heskett? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: The famous science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke was once asked whether he believed in astrology, and he gave a facetious self-contradictory answer. I have not been able to find a solid citation. Would you please help?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest evidence linking the quip to Clarke known to QI appeared in the April 1997 issue of the U.K. magazine “Astronomy Now”. A letter from Paul Heskett of Somerset, England sympathetically suggested that astrology addressed social needs that were not treated by astronomy. Heskett stated that he heard the remark from Clarke. The variant spelling “sceptical” for “skeptical” was used in the magazine. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

This is a point that all of us would do well to bear in mind; as perhaps, is that made by Arthur Clarke when he told me “I don’t believe in astrology; I’m a Sagittarian and we’re sceptical.”

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.