Quote Investigator® – Page 136

Anecdote Origin: Knowing Where To Tap

A Fired Machinist? Charles R. Wiers? Hubert N. Alyea? Charles Proteus Steinmetz? Henry Ford? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: A popular anecdote highlights the extraordinary value of properly applying specialized knowledge. A top-expert is hired to fix a gigantic complicated machine suffering from an intractable problem. The adroit practitioner repairs the contraption with a simple action such as a hammer tap or a bolt twist, but the bill for services rendered is quite large. Many titles have been used for this tale:

The old engineer and the hammer
The ship repairman story
The parable of the ship mechanic
Knowing where to tap
Handyman’s invoice

Would you please explore its provenance?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest instance located by QI appeared in “The Journal of the Society of Estate Clerks of Works” of Winchester, England in 1908. The bill below was denominated in pounds and shillings. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

A MORAL WITH AN ENDING.

He was the best machinist in the district, and it was for that reason that the manager had overlooked his private delinquencies. But at last even his patience was exhausted, and he was told to go, and another man reigned in his stead at the end of the room.

And then the machine, as though in protest, refused to budge an inch, and all the factory hands were idle. Everyone who knew the difference between a machine and a turnip tried his hand at the inert mass of iron. But the machine, metaphorically speaking, laughed at them, and the manager sent for the discharged employee. And he left the comfort of the “Bull” parlour and came.

He looked at the machine for some moments, and talked to it as a man talks to a horse, and then climbed into its vitals and called for a hammer. There was the sound of a “tap-tap-tap,” and in a moment the wheels were spinning, and the man was returning to the “Bull” parlour.

And in the course of time the mill-owner had a bill:–“To mending machine, £10. 10s.” And the owner of the works, being as owners go, a poor man, sent a polite note to the man, in which he asked him if he thought tapping a machine with a hammer worth ten guineas. And then he had another bill:—“To tapping machine with hammer, 10s.; to knowing where to tap it, £10; total, £10. 10s.”

And the man was reinstated in his position, and was so grateful that he turned teetotaller and lived a great and virtuous old age. And the moral is that a little knowledge is worth a deal of labour.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Sure, We’ll Have Fascism in This Country, and We’ll Call It Anti-Fascism

Huey Long? Winston Churchill? Bruce Bliven? H. L. Mencken? Lawrence Dennis? Jimmy Street? Robert Cantwell? Lawrence Dennis? Halford Luccock

Question for Quote Investigator: The famous populist Huey Long and British leader Winston Churchill have both been credited with a bold prediction about political deception. Here are two versions:

When the United States gets fascism, it will call it anti-fascism.
The fascists of the future will be called anti-fascists.

Would you please investigate?

Reply from Quote Investigator: QI has found no substantive evidence supporting the ascription to Winston Churchill.

Huey Long died on September 10, 1935. The earliest strong match located by QI appeared in an article with the byline “J. F. McD.” published on February 22, 1936 in “The Cincinnati Enquirer” of Cincinnati, Ohio. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

Norman Thomas said recently in a speech made in Cincinnati “Fascism is coming in the United States most probably, but it will not come under that name.” In this statement he was repeating the words of the late Huey Long, but Huey added: “Of course we’ll have it. We’ll have it under the guise of anti-fascism.”

The ascription to Long is popular but the phrasing has been highly-variable, Also, QI has not yet found direct instances in Long’s writings, speeches, or interviews. This article presents a snapshot of current incomplete knowledge.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Creativity Is Intelligence Having Fun

Albert Einstein? George Scialabba? Joey Reiman? John C. Maxwell? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: An invigorating comment about creativity is often credited to the universally recognized scientific genius Albert Einstein:

Creativity is intelligence having fun.

Are these really the words of Einstein?

Reply from Quote Investigator: There is no substantive evidence that Einstein who died in 1955 made this remark. The most comprehensive reference about the physicist’s pronouncements is the 2010 book “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein” from Princeton University Press, and the expression is absent.¹

QI hypothesizes that the saying evolved from the concluding sentence of a March 1984 article titled “Mindplay” in “Harvard Magazine”, an alumni publication. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:²

Perhaps imagination is only intelligence having fun.

The article author was George Scialabba who graduated from the prestigious university with the class of 1969. Later he joined the staff and began writing essays and book reviews for a wide variety of periodicals.

After publication the expression was disseminated and streamlined; in addition, the word “imagination” was replaced by “creativity” as shown in the chronologically ordered selected citations below.

Quote Origin: I Owe All My Success in Life to Having Been Always a Quarter of an Hour Before My Time

Horatio Nelson? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: Horatio Nelson was a famous British naval hero who died at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Apparently, he believed that advance readiness was crucial to his success. He said that he owed everything to always being fifteen or twenty minutes early. Would you please help me to find a citation for this remark?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest evidence located by QI appeared in “The Hermit in London: Or, Sketches of English Manners” by Felix M’Donogh in 1819. Horatio Nelson delivered the line while conversing with a tradesman. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

. . . I commend and highly esteem the principle and plan of the late immortal Lord Nelson, who held promptitude of measures and exactness as to time as most valuable qualities, and who, when he recommended a tradesman to send off some articles for him so early as 6 A.M., on the man’s saying “Yes, my Lord, I will be on the spot myself by six o’clock,” mildly touched him on the shoulder, and with a very significant look added, “Mr. —–, a quarter of an hour before, if you please.” The tradesman seemed astonished; but stammered out, “Surely, my Lord, if you wish it; yes, a quarter before six; yes, a quarter before, instead of six!” “Right,” said his Lordship, “it is to that quarter before the time that I owe all the good I ever did.”

This anecdote above was recounted fourteen years after the death of Lord Nelson reducing its credibility. Nevertheless, the saying and its attribution achieved popularity during the ensuing decades. Perhaps an earlier citation will be discovered by future researchers.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Friendship Itself Will Not Stand the Strain of Very Much Good Advice for Very Long

Robert Wilson Lynd? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: Providing copious assertive advice to a friend can jeopardize the relationship especially when the advice has not been solicited. The Irish journalist and essayist Robert Lynd crafted a remark about these strains with a humorous edge. Would you please help me to find a citation?

Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1924 Robert Wilson Lynd published a collection of essays called “The Peal of Bells”. The title essay appeared first in the book and contained the following guidance:¹

I often long to direct them with good advice, and refrain only because I know that friendship itself will not stand the strain of very much good advice for very long. And so, while I am inwardly aching to preach to my errant fellow-creatures, I find myself talking to them instead about diet, diseases, cinemas, Bernard Shaw, and the day on which I backed three winning horses at Ascot.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Good Judgment Depends Mostly on Experience and Experience Usually Comes from Poor Judgment

Rita Mae Brown? Will Rogers? Fred Rose? C. H. White? Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr.? Uncle Zeke? Barry LePatner? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: Good judgement is rooted in experience, but a humorous addendum notes that the crucible of experience is poor judgment. This notion has been credited to humorist Will Rogers and activist Rita Mae Brown. Would you please explore its origin?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest match located by QI appeared in “The Muncie Evening Press” of Muncie, Indiana in 1932. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

Fred Rose quoted this comment at the Rotary Club-Central Senior Class meeting Tuesday: “Good Judgment depends mostly on experience and experience usually comes from poor judgment.”

The phrasing signaled that the saying was anonymous, and Rose was not asserting coinage. This article presents a snapshot of current knowledge, and earlier citations may be discovered in the future. Rita Mae Brown used the expression in 2001 after it had been circulating for decades.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Write Something, Even If It’s Just a Suicide Note

Gore Vidal? Lucinda Ebersole? Rand B. Lee? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: Aspiring authors are typically told to set aside enough time to make writing into a daily habit. The provocative author Gore Vidal apparently employed an extreme version of this injunction:

Write something, even if it’s just a suicide note.

Did Vidal coin this astringently comical remark?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest match known to QI appeared in “The Fitzhenry & Whiteside Book of Quotations” in 1986:¹

Write something, even if it’s just a suicide note. Anon.

The creator was unidentified and no citation was provided. An identical entry appeared in the 1987 successor volume “Barnes & Noble Book of Quotations” from the same editor Robert I. Fitzhenry.²

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order including evidence that Gore Vidal did use the expression.

Quote Origin: There’s Damn Few Girls as Well Shaped as a Fine Horse

Hannah Arendt? Christopher Morley? Kitty Foyle? Rosey Rittenhouse?

Question for Quote Investigator: While looking through a compilation of quotations about horses I came across the following:

Few girls are as well shaped as a good horse.

Inexplicably, the words were ascribed to the political theorist Hannah Arendt who wrote about the Nazi Adolf Eichmann and popularized the phrase “the banality of evil”. I doubt she wrote about horses very often. The saying appears on a large number of webpages. Would you please explore its provenance?

Reply from Quote Investigator: Christopher Morley was a magazine editor, newspaper columnist, and novelist. In 1939 he published the best-seller “Kitty Foyle” which was later made into a prize-winning movie. The title character was the primary narrator of the book, but the remark about horses was attributed to a minor male character named Rosey Rittenhouse. Interestingly, the original phrasing was slightly different. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

As a matter of fact I agree with Rosey Rittenhouse, there’s damn few girls as well shaped as a fine horse. It’s a great piece of kidding Nature put over on men to give them the idea that females are so beautiful; but it’s mighty satisfying to hear it said.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Pogo Comic on Extraterrestrials: A Mighty Soberin’ Thought

Pogo? Porky Pine? Walt Kelly? Timothy Ferris? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: The comic strip “Pogo” by Walt Kelly combined beautiful artwork with entertaining wordplay and satire. Kelly also expressed a delightful sense of wonder as in the following supposed remark about the possibility of extraterrestrial life:

Thar’s only two possibilities: Thar is life out there in the universe which is smarter than we are, or we’re the most intelligent life in the universe. Either way, it’s a mighty sobering thought.

I have been unable to find a strip containing this text. The word “thar” does not accord with the speech patterns of the denizens of Okefenokee Swamp. Would you please help?

Reply from Quote Investigator: This was a difficult question because QI knows of no comprehensive databases containing the text of Walt Kelly’s oeuvre. Also, the computer algorithms that convert the dialog in daily comic strip bubbles into searchable text do not work well. Nevertheless, QI has located the most likely origin of this quotation.

On June 20, 1959 the syndicated “Pogo” strip published three panels showing the characters Porky Pine and Pogo the Possum. Porky Pine speculated about beings on other planets:¹

Porky Pine: I BEEN READIN’ ‘BOUT HOW MAYBE THEY IS PLANETS PEOPLED BY FOLKS WITH AD-VANCED BRAINS.

Pogo: UM

Porky Pine: ON THE OTHER HAND, MAYBE WE GOT THE MOST BRAINS…MAYBE OUR INTELLECTS IS THE UNIVERSE’S MOST AD-VANCED.

Porky Pine: EITHER WAY, IT’S A MIGHTY SOBERIN’ THOUGHT.

The overall semantics and the punchline matched the modern statement, and QI conjectures that a flawed memory of Porky Pine’s monologue led to the creation of a misquotation.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Put All Your Eggs in One Basket, and Then Watch That Basket

Mark Twain? Andrew Carnegie? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: Proverbial wisdom tells us never to put all our eggs in one basket, but an inversion of that advice has been ascribed to the renowned humorist Mark Twain and the business titan Andrew Carnegie. Who should receive credit?

Reply from Quote Investigator: On June 23, 1885 Andrew Carnegie addressed the students of Curry Commercial College of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He gave pungent guidance to the learners which included a repudiation of the traditional adage about baskets and eggs. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

The concerns which fail are those which have scattered their capital, which means that they have scattered their brains also. They have investments in this, or that, or the other, here, there and everywhere. “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” is all wrong. I tell you “put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket.” Look round you and take notice; men who do that do not often fail. It is easy to watch and carry the one basket. It is trying to carry too many baskets that breaks most eggs in this country. He who carries three baskets must put one on his head, which is apt to tumble and trip him up. One fault of the American business man is lack of concentration.

The text above was from a collection of speeches and essays published by Carnegie in 1902. The date and location of the speech were specified in the book. Contemporaneous news accounts also mentioned the event. For example, on August 19, 1885 “The Yonkers Statesman” of Yonkers, New York described the talk under the title “Success in Business”. The phrasing varied: “I tell you” versus “We tell you”, but the adage was identical:²

“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” is all wrong. We tell you “put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket.”

Mark Twain heard about Carnegie’s remark, and he was intrigued enough to record it in one of his notebooks. Later, he employed the reversed adage as a chapter epigraph in his tale titled “Pudd’nhead Wilson”. Below are additional selected citations in chronological order including detailed citations for Twain.