Quote Investigator® – Page 139

Quote Origin: There Is Less in This Than Meets the Eye

Tallulah Bankhead? Dorothy Parker? Robert Benchley? James Boswell? Richard Burke? William Hazlitt?

Question for Quote Investigator: The actress Tallulah Bankhead was watching an ostentatious play, and she whispered to her companion a hilarious line based on an inverted cliché:

There is less in this than meets the eye.

This quip has also been attributed to two other witty people: Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley. Would you please explore this topic?

Reply from Quote Investigator: QI has located no substantive support for ascribing the comment to Parker or Benchley.

In 1922 the theater critic Alexander Woollcott invited Tallulah Bankhead to join him at a performance of Maurice Maeterlinck’s drama “Aglavaine and Selysette”. The following day Woollcott’s hostile review of the production in “The New York Times” credited the remark to a “beautiful lady”:¹

The civility of the spectators was really extraordinary. There was not so much as a snicker, for instance, when William Raymond, as Meleander, cried out anxiously: “What shall I be doing next year?” Not a ripple when Clare Eames, gazing severely at the audience, said: “It is sometimes better not to rouse those who slumber.” It is, it is, indeed. But after all the matinee was best summed up by the beautiful lady in the back row, who said: “There is less in this than meets the eye.”

Later in 1922 Woollcott published the book “Shouts and Murmurs: Echoes of a Thousand and One First Nights”. He discussed Maeterlinck’s play in a chapter called “Capsule Criticism” and credited the statement to Bankhead:²

Two gifted young actresses and a considerable bit of scenery were involved, and much pretentious rumbling of voice and wafting of gesture had gone into the enterprise. Miss Bankhead, fearful, apparently, lest she be struck dead for impiety, became desperate enough to whisper, “There is less in this than meets the eye.”

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Science Is the Refusal To Believe on the Basis of Hope

C. P. Snow? Carrie Snow? Barrington Moore Jr.?

Question for Quote Investigator: Scientific theories should be constructed from carefully gathered facts and data. The empirical process requires the subordination of credulous wishes and desires. Succinctly stated:

Science is the refusal to believe on the basis of hope.

This statement has been ascribed to C. P. Snow (Charles Percy Snow) who famously spoke about the divide between the sciences and the humanities in his lecture on “The Two Cultures”. The comedian Carrie Snow has also received credit as has the American sociologist Barrington Moore Jr. Would you please explore this topic?

Reply from Quote Investigator: QI believes that the ascriptions to C. P. Snow and Carrie Snow are mistaken, and QI will present conjectures about what caused these fallacious linkages.

The earliest instance known to QI appeared in an essay with a 1965 copyright date titled “Tolerance and the Scientific Outlook” by Barrington Moore Jr. The following excerpt mentioned C. P Snow, but did not credit him with the expression:¹

To pose the issue in terms of Sir Charles Snow’s “two cultures” seems to me to miss the main point, since both technicist science and academic humanism seem to me fundamentally similar ways of dodging the big problems and encapsulating the intellect in a cocoon of professional esteem. The conception of science used here will be a broad one: whatever is established by sound reasoning and evidence may belong to science. Insights from literature and philosophy become part of science as they become established. Their gropings and explorations are part of the whole rational enterprise. Only when such thinkers refuse to submit themselves to verification do they separate themselves from science. For the essence of science, I would suggest, is simply the refusal to believe on the basis of hope.

The phrase “I would suggest” signaled that Moore crafted the quotation under examination. The phrasing has been streamlined over time.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: If I Could Remember the Names of These Particles, I Would Have Been a Botanist

Albert Einstein? Enrico Fermi? Leon M. Lederman? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: During the twentieth century the field of physics advanced astonishingly quickly. Researchers discovered a large number of elementary particles. A prominent physicist quipped:

If I could remember the names of all those particles, I’d be a botanist.

Did Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, or somebody else say this?

Reply from Quote Investigator: There is no substantive evidence that Einstein made this statement. The remark appeared in a section called “Probably Not By Einstein” within the comprehensive reference “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein” from Princeton University Press.

The earliest instance located by QI occurred in a 1963 lecture by the experimental physicist Leon M. Lederman delivered at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

In introducing the elementary particles to a wide audience like this one, I always remember the statement of the great Enrico Fermi who said, “If I could remember the names of these particles, I would have been a botanist.” I will therefore restrict myself to a small fraction of the particles in order to keep the discussion simple. Probably the proton, the neutron, and the electron are familiar to all of you — you may even own some.

Fermi died almost a decade earlier in 1954, but he is the leading candidate. The phrasing of the expression is variable.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: You’re Not the Customer; You’re the Product

Richard Serra? Carlota Fay Schoolman? Steve Atkins? Tom Johnson? Claire Wolfe? Andrew Lewis? blue_beetle? Tim O’Reilly?

Question for Quote Investigator: For decades the most powerful mass medium has been television. The internet has dramatically shifted our access to information. Nowadays, society reflects upon itself by using internet search engines. Yet, both of these fundamental channels of communication, access, and synthesis are primarily supported by advertising. A pithy expression explicates the resultant skewed perspective:

You’re not the customer; you’re the product.

Would you please explore the history of this saying?

Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1973 the artists Richard Serra and Carlota Fay Schoolman broadcast a short video titled “Television Delivers People”. An anodyne soundtrack played while sentences in white text on a blue background slowly scrolled upward. The messages displayed thematically matched the saying under exploration. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

Commercial television delivers 20 million people a minute.
In commercial broadcasting the viewer pays for the privilege of having himself sold.
It is the consumer who is consumed.
You are the product of t.v.
You are delivered to the advertiser who is the customer.
He consumes you.
The viewer is not responsible for programming——
You are the end product.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: The Worm Was Punished for Early Rising

John Godfrey Saxe? Frederick Locker-Lampson? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: “The early bird catches the worm” has become an irritating cliché. I love this entertaining comical response:

But the worm was punished for getting up early.

Do you know who crafted this rejoinder?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The work “Early Rising” appeared in the 1876 collection “The Poems of John Godfrey Saxe”. The stanza below expressed the unhappiness of the author with leaving his bed early in the morning:¹

Yes — bless the man who first invented sleep
(I really can’t avoid the iteration);
But blast the man, with curses loud and deep,
Whate’er the rascal’s name, or age, or station,
Who first invented, and went round advising,
That artificial cut-off, — Early Rising!

The final stanza of the poem contained the quip. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:

So let us sleep, and give the Maker praise.
I like the lad who, when his father thought
To clip his morning nap by hackneyed phrase
Of vagrant worm by early songster caught,
Cried, “Served him right! — it’s not at all surprising;
The worm was punished, sir, for early rising!”

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: The Early Bird Catcheth the Worme

William Camden? Thomas Fuller? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: People who enjoy waking up early in the morning and going to work cite the following adage:

The early bird gets the worm.

Would you please explore the history of this expression?

Reply from Quote Investigator: English historian William Camden published “Remaines Concerning Britaine” in the 17th century, and this adage appeared in the fifth edition in 1636. Here is a contiguous sampling from the list of proverbs. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

Thoughts be free from toll.
Trust is the Mother of deceit.
The gray Mare is the better horse.
The lame tongue gets nothing.
The early bird catcheth the worme.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: The Enormous Multiplication of Books in Every Branch of Knowledge is One of the Greatest Evils of This Age

Edgar Allan Poe? Alfred Smee? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: The number of new books has increased vertiginously in recent years, but even in the nineteenth century critics lamented an oversupply. Did the major literary figure Edgar Allan Poe complain that the proliferation of books was “one of the greatest evils” of his age?

Reply from Quote Investigator: Edgar Allan Poe was an early employee of the “Southern Literary Messenger” of Richmond, Virginia. In 1836 he wrote a review of a legal tome titled “Reports of Cases Decided in the High Court of Chancery of Maryland”, and his first sentence provided a harsh assessment:¹

We cannot perceive any sufficient reason for the publication of this book.

Poe’s piece included a provocative general statement on this topic. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:

Now, the enormous multiplication of books in every branch of knowledge is one of the greatest evils of this age; since it presents one of the most serious obstacles to the acquisition of correct information, by throwing in the reader’s way piles of lumber, in which he must painfully grope for the scraps of useful matter, peradventure interspersed. In no department have the complaints of this evil been louder or more just, than in the law.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Never Attempt To Teach a Pig To Sing; It Wastes Your Time and Annoys the Pig

Mark Twain? Robert Heinlein? Paul Dickson? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: Teaching a pig to sing is a futile task that aggravates the porcine student according to a popular saying. Luminary Mark Twain and science fiction author Robert Heinlein have received credit for this adage. Would you please determine the accurate ascription and the original context?

Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1973 Robert Heinlein published “Time Enough for Love” featuring a main character, Lazarus Long, who appeared in several other novels by the author. Long was a colorful individualist who had been genetically selected to live for centuries. He delivered the adage during a discussion of avarice and deceit. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

I have never swindled a man. At most I kept quiet and let him swindle himself. This does no harm, as a fool cannot be protected from his folly. If you attempt to do so, you will not only arouse his animosity but also you will be attempting to deprive him of whatever benefit he is capable of deriving from experience. Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

Thus, the context was the difficulty and pointlessness of communicating a lesson that an individual is unwilling or unready to learn.

The implausible ascription to Mark Twain occurred in recent decades and is unsupported.

A different saying with a distinct meaning is sometimes confused with this adage. QI has a separate article on this topic: Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Never Wrestle with a Pig. You Both Get Dirty and the Pig Likes It

George Bernard Shaw? Mark Twain? Abraham Lincoln? Cyrus Stuart Ching? J. Frank Condon? Richard P. Calhoon? N. H. Eagle? Cale Yarborough? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: A popular metaphorical adage warns individuals not to engage with disreputable critics. Here are two versions:

Don’t wrestle with pigs. You both get filthy and the pig likes it.
Never wrestle with a pig. You just get dirty and the pig enjoys it.

This saying has been credited to a triumvirate of quotation superstars: Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln, and George Bernard Shaw. I doubt these ascriptions because I haven’t seen any solid citations. Would you please investigate?

Reply from Quote Investigator: QI has located no substantive evidence that Twain, Lincoln, or Shaw crafted this saying. Each was given credit only many years after death.

The adage evolved in a multistep multi-decade process. An interesting precursor was in circulation by 1776. QI has a separate article about that saying: Don’t wrestle with a chimney sweep or you will get covered with grime.

In 1872 a partial match using “hog” instead of “pig” appeared within a letter by J. Frank Condon published in an Ebensburg, Pennsylvania newspaper. Condon was responding to a previous verbal fusillade. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

It has been remarked by a wise man that he who wrestles with a hog must expect to be spattered with filth, whether he is vanquished or not. This maxim I have long known and appreciated; nevertheless, there are occasions when it must be disregarded. A man may be attacked in such a way that he is compelled to flagellate his hogship, even at the risk of being contaminated by the unclean beast.

The label “maxim” and the phrase “long known” signaled that the saying was not constructed for the letter; instead, it was already in circulation. This simpler adage differed from the modern version because it did not mention the contentment of the swine.

The earliest strong match for the modern saying located by QI appeared in the January 3, 1948 issue of “The Saturday Evening Post” within a profile of Cyrus Stuart Ching who was the head of the U.S. Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. The ellipsis is in the original text:²

A man in the audience began heckling him with a long series of nasty and irrelevant questions. For a while Ching answered patiently. Finally he held up his big paw and waggled it gently.

“My friend,” he said, “I’m not going to answer any more of your questions. I hope you won’t take this personally, but I am reminded of something my old uncle told me, long ago, back on the farm. He said. ‘What’s the sense of wrestling with a pig? You both get all over muddy . . . and the pig likes it.'”

Ching did not claim coinage; instead, he credited an unnamed uncle who may have been relaying a pre-existing item of folk wisdom. Oddly, another later citation shows Ching crediting his grandfather. Whatever the source, Ching did help to popularize the expression.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Don’t Wrestle with a Chimney Sweep or You Will Get Covered with Grime

William Adams? James Boswell? Walter Scott? Jonah Barrington? Viscount Bolingbroke? Henry Van Dyke? John Bright? John J. Keane? William Wedgwood Benn? Tony Benn? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: When you are attacked with falsehoods and invective it is natural to respond with abusive language; however, viewers of the interaction may feel revulsion for both the attacker and the defender. This notion has been expressed using a vivid analogy. Here are three examples:

You can’t wrestle with a chimney sweep and come out clean.
He who wrestles with a sweep must expect to be begrimed with soot.
Never wrestle with a chimney sweep.

The British politician Tony Benn employed this saying. Would you please examine its history?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The celebrated multi-volume biography “The Life of Samuel Johnson” by James Boswell included a pithy instance of the expression in a section recounting events in 1776. The saying was spoken to Samuel Johnson by William Adams who was Master of Pembroke College, University of Oxford. Interestingly, Johnson disagreed with the advice. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

Johnson coincided with me and said, “When a man voluntarily engages in an important controversy, he is to do all he can to lessen his antagonist, because authority from personal respect has much weight with most people, and often more than reasoning. If my antagonist writes bad language, though that may not be essential to the question, I will attack him for his bad language.”

ADAMS. “You would not jostle a chimney-sweeper.”

JOHNSON. “Yes, Sir, if it were necessary to jostle him down.”

Adams employed a version of the metaphor without elaboration, and Johnson understood it readily; hence, both may have already heard similar phrases.

QI has an article on an entertaining variant adage that appeared later: Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.