Quote Investigator® – Page 154

Quote Origin: I Spent All Morning Taking Out a Comma and All Afternoon Putting It Back

Oscar Wilde? Gustave Flaubert? Robert H. Sherard? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: A famous writer who was punctilious about punctuation described an arduous day of work as follows:

I spent all morning putting in a comma and all afternoon taking it out.

In some versions of the anecdote the operations were reversed:

I spent all morning taking out a comma and all afternoon putting it back in again.

This humorous remark has been attributed to the wit Oscar Wilde and the French novelist Gustave Flaubert. Would you please determine the correct ascription?

Reply from Quote Investigator: Currently, there is no substantive evidence that Gustave Flaubert made this remark. He died in 1880, and the first linkage of the tale to him that QI has located was published in 1919. Details are given further below.

The earliest instance of this anecdote known to QI appeared on May 8, 1884 in “The Daily Graphic: An Illustrated Evening Newspaper”¹ of New York City under the title “The Casual Observer”. The story was quickly reprinted in several other newspapers including “The Syracuse Standard”² of New York under the title “Oscar’s Morning Work”, and “The Boston Sunday Globe”³ of Massachusetts under the title “A Fateful Comma”. Boldface has been added to excerpts:

Oscar Wilde, among his various stories told here of which he was always the aesthetic hero, related that once while on a visit to an English country house he was much annoyed by the pronounced Philistinism of a certain fellow guest, who loudly stated that all artistic employment was a melancholy waste of time.

“Well, Mr. Wilde,” said Oscar’s bugbear one day at lunch, “and pray how have you been passing your morning?” “Oh! I have been immensely busy,” said Oscar with great gravity. “I have spent my whole time over the proof sheets of my book of poems.” The Philistine with a growl inquired the result of that.

“Well, it was very important,” said Oscar. “I took out a comma.” “Indeed,” returned the enemy of literature, “is that all you did?” Oscar, with a sweet smile, said, “By no means; on mature reflection I put back the comma.” This was too much for the Philistine, who took the next train to London.

Thanks to scholar John Cooper who for three decades has been studying Oscar Wilde with particular emphasis on Wilde’s excursions in the United States. Cooper identified the widely-reprinted story given above, and found the earliest citation.⁴

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Of All the Forms of Inequality, Injustice in Health Is the Most Shocking and Inhuman

Martin Luther King Jr.? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: While reading about the economics of health care I came across the following statement attributed to the famous civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.:

Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.

A writer at “The Huffington Post” website attempted to trace this quotation and obtained first-hand testimony from an attendee at a human rights convention in 1966 who stated that King did make this remark, but King used the word “inhuman” instead of ‘inhumane”.¹

Would you please explore this topic? Perhaps contemporaneous documentary evidence can be located.

Reply from Quote Investigator: There is substantive evidence that Martin Luther King Jr. did make a statement that was nearly identical to the modern version given above. On Saturday, March 26, 1966 multiple newspapers published an article from the Associated Press (AP) newsgathering organization about a press conference held in Chicago on the night of Friday, March 25. The annual meeting of the Medical Committee for Human Rights was being held, and King spoke to journalists before he was scheduled to deliver an address to conference attendees.² King’s theme was the disparate medical care received by blacks. Boldface has been added to excerpts:³

“We are concerned about the constant use of federal funds to support this most notorious expression of segregation. Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhuman because it often results in physical death.

“I see no alternative to direct action and creative nonviolence to raise the conscience of the nation.”

Modern renditions of the quotation contain the terms “health care” or “healthcare”, but the concurrent AP report indicated that King simply said “health”. Also, King used the word “inhuman” instead of “inhumane” according to the AP.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: This Diary Is My Kief, Hashish, and Opium Pipe. This Is My Drug and My Vice

AnaÃ¯s Nin? Apocryphal?

A close up of a flower and an image of the same

Question for Quote Investigator: The acclaimed modern diarist AnaÃ¯s Nin apparently experienced an addictive intensity when writing in her diary. The following words have been attributed to her:

This diary is my kief, hashish, and opium pipe.

Is this an authentic quotation, or is it simply a hallucination?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The publication of Anais Nin’s personal diary entries began in 1966 and continued into the 1970s. A series of seven edited and expurgated volumes were released under the umbrella title “The Diary of Anais Nin”. The content was based on her life and thoughts commencing in the 1930s. An entry in volume 1 dated June 1934 discussed the dichotomous struggle between private and public writing. Nin employed figurative language to express her drug-like dependence on the composition of the diary:¹

This diary is my kief, hashish, and opium pipe. This is my drug and my vice. Instead of writing a novel, I lie back with this book and a pen, and dream, and indulge in refractions and defractions, I can turn away from reality into the reflections and dreams it projects, and this driving, impelling fever which keeps me tense and wide-awake during the day is dissolved in improvisations, in contemplations. I must relive my life in the dream. The dream is my only life. I see in the echoes and reverberations the transfigurations which alone keep wonder pure. Otherwise all magic is lost.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Cloquet Hated Reality But Realized It Was Still the Only Place to Get a Good Steak

Woody Allen? Groucho Marx? Cloquet? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: The comedian and movie director Woody Allen sometimes constructs ontological jokes. For example, the following is attributed to Allen:

I hate reality, but it is still the only place where I can get a decent steak.

Oddly, the following very similar quip has been credited to Groucho Marx:

I’m not crazy about reality, but it’s still the only place to get a decent meal.

Did Allen engage in plagiarism? Would you please explore this question?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The first line above was similar to a line spoken by Woody Allen during an interview published in 1993. QI has found no substantive evidence that the second line was employed by Groucho. The initial citation located by QI for the second jest appeared in 2003, and yet Groucho died a quarter century before that date.

The earliest variant in this family known to QI was contained in a short story written by Allen called “The Condemned” that was published in “The New Yorker” magazine in 1977. The tale hinged on the parodic existential dilemmas of a would-be assassin named Cloquet. Boldface has been added to excerpts:¹

He’s dreaming, Cloquet thought, as he stood over him, revolver in hand. He’s dreaming, and I exist in reality. Cloquet hated reality but realized it was still the only place to get a good steak. He had never taken a human life before. True, he had once shot a mad dog, but only after it had been certified as mad by a team of psychiatrists.

Thus, Allen was willing to recycle the joke in 1993, but QI does not believe that he lifted it from Groucho.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: It Rolls Off My Back Like a Duck

Samuel Goldwyn? George Oppenheimer? Ellenor Stoothoff? Andrew Carnegie? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: The phrase “like water off a duck’s back” is a well-known idiom that refers to an incident or a comment having little or no effect on a person.¹ Here is a comically garbled version of the expression:

It rolls off my back like a duck.

This odd-duck version has been attributed to the famous movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn, but I have also heard that he never said it; instead, the phrase was deliberately crafted and pinned to Goldwyn by an unhappy employee of the producer. What do you think?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest connection of this remark to Samuel Goldwyn located by QI was published in a Hollywood gossip column in 1935. Interestingly, the columnist stated that Goldwyn had attributed the scrambled statement to another movie producer.

In 1937 the short biography “The Great Goldwyn” by Alva Johnston reported that the expression had been ascribed to Goldwyn by some witnesses but claimed that the truth was more convoluted; the humorous remark had been purposefully constructed by jokesters in the Goldwyn studio restaurant. Details for this citation and the one above are given further below.

Finally, in 1966 a Hollywood writer named George Oppenheimer stepped forward and asserted that he created the phrase while he was working for Goldwyn in the 1930s. In Oppenheimer’s memoir “The View from the Sixties: Memories of a Spent Life” he described his boss as follows:²

I found him unreasonable, tyrannical, infuriating, and I admired him greatly. He made good pictures and had high ideals and standards of taste, divorced from the usual Hollywood one-track, narrow-gauge commercialism.

Oppenheimer stated that he engaged in a competition with other employees of the studio chief to manufacture a Goldwynism and to successfully place it into a newspaper. Oppenheimer achieved his victory with the mangled idiom. Boldface has been added to excerpts:³

I can attest to the spuriousness of “It rolls off my back like a duck,” since I coined it. One day three or four of his employees, including myself, were lunching at the studio commissary. Word had gone round that Goldwyn was becoming increasingly sensitive about his reputation as a Mr. Malaprop. At the same time he had, of late, been particularly truculent and we had all suffered. So we decided that each of us would dream up a Goldwynism, attribute it to him, and the first one to appear in print would win a pot into which we put ten dollars apiece. I collected with the duck’s back.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Intelligence Without Ambition Is a Bird Without Wings

Salvador Dali? Walter H. Cottingham? Laura E. Riding? C. Archie Danielson? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: Some individuals have impressive natural gifts and aptitudes but do not have strong desires or motivations. Their worthwhile potential achievements often remain unrealized. The following adage embodies this notion:

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.

These words have been attributed to the famous surrealist artist Salvador Dali, but I have never seen a convincing citation. What do you think?

Reply from Quote Investigator: There is no substantive evidence to support the ascription to Salvador Dali. A partially matching statement appeared in 1908: “A man without ambition is like a bird without wings”.

An exact match with an anonymous ascription appeared in 1996. In 1997 the statement was attributed to a person named C. Archie Danielson. These two names are alphabetically very close, and QI conjectures that a mistake led to the reassignment of the saying from Danielson to Dali. Detailed citations are given further below.

A wingless bird has been used in metaphors and similes for many years. In 1732 an influential compilation called “Gnomologia” was published by Thomas Fuller, and the following statement about money was included. Boldface has been added to excerpts:¹

He that is without Money, is a Bird without Wings.

In 1806 a translation of the work titled “The Rose Garden” by the 13th century Persian poet Saadi was published. One aphorism in the book referred to a wingless bird:²

A student without inclination, is a lover without money; a traveller without observation, is a bird without wings; a learned man without works, is a tree without fruit; and a devotee without knowledge, is a house without a door.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Gentlemen, You Have Come Sixty Days Too Late. The Depression Is Over

Herbert Hoover? John A. Ryan? Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.? Apocryphal

Question for Quote Investigator: The great depression which began in 1929 was one of the most serious economic calamities of the twentieth century. In the U.S. a high unemployment rate persisted for more than a decade. Herbert Hoover was the U.S. President when the crisis began, and he has been criticized for responding ineffectively. In 1930 a group appealed to Hoover to initiate a large-scale intervention, and he reportedly made the following obtuse reply:

Gentlemen, you have come sixty days too late. The Depression is over.

Is this quotation accurate? Who was speaking with Hoover?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest pertinent evidence located by QI appeared in a 1931 article in “The Nation” titled “We Met Mr. Hoover” by a lawyer and political activist named Amos Pinchot which described a meeting held in June 1930 between President Hoover and a group that favored a large public works program to mitigate the effects of the great depression. Hoover spoke against the proposal because he believed that unemployment was decreasing and the economy was already improving:¹

Unemployment, he said, was being shamefully exaggerated. Its peak had been reached and passed. The tide had turned. The Census and Labor Department reports, and other information to which, as he reminded us, he had better access than we, would presently show that things were quite different from what we feared. Yes, we were now to drift peacefully, if slowly, back to good times.

According to Pinchot, Hoover made a statement that was similar to part of the quotation. Boldface has been added to excerpts:

He showed us, in authoritative style, that every agency of both the federal and State governments was working at top capacity to relieve the situation. “Gentlemen,” he said, “you have come six weeks too late.”

The next piece of evidence was contained in testimony given in 1933 by John A. Ryan during a subcommittee meeting of the U.S. Senate. Ryan was a scholar, priest, and political activist based at Catholic University. He was a member of the group with Pinchot. In the following excerpt Ryan was answering questions posed by Senator Smith W. Brookhart of Iowa:²

Doctor Ryan. Absolutely. It is nearly three years since I was a member of the committee headed by Mr. Metzerott, which went to the President of the United States asking him to recommend to Congress the appropriation of $3,000,000,000 for public works. This was in June, 1930; $3,000,000,000 would have been more than enough at that time.

Senator Brookhart. It will take more than $6,000,000,000 now.

Doctor Ryan. Much more. What did he say to that? “Gentlemen, you have come 60 days too late. The depression is over.”

Ryan was a critic of Hoover and an advocate of the New Deal policies of the incoming President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Ryan’s version of the quotation matched the one under investigation, but if differed somewhat from Pinchot’s version. The time period was “sixty days” instead of “six weeks”. The phrase “The depression is over” was mentioned by Ryan but not by Pinchot. Nevertheless, it was an accurate summary of Hoover’s commentary.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: War Does Not Determine Who Is Right — Only Who Is Left

Bertrand Russell? Frank P. Hobgood? Jessie Woodrow Wilson Sayre? Reader’s Digest? Montreal Star? Andrew Carnegie? Winston Churchill? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: A piquant slogan has been used by pacifists and peace activists for decades. Here are two variants:

War does not determine who is right — only who is left.
The atom bomb will never determine who is right — only who is left.

The first saying is often attributed to the philosopher and social thinker Bertrand Russell, but I have never seen a precise reference to support this connection. Would you please examine this expression?

Reply from Quote Investigator: QI has found no substantive evidence that Bertrand Russell wrote or spoke this adage.

The earliest citation located by QI appeared without attribution in “The Saskatoon Star-Phoenix” of Saskatchewan, Canada in August 1931 within an article containing miscellaneous expressions under the title “The Daily Starbeams”. Emphasis added to excepts by QI:¹

“War does not determine who is right.” It only determines who is left.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: The Customer Is Always Right

Marshall Field? Harry Gordon Selfridge? John Wanamaker? César Ritz? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: There is a famous customer service slogan that has been highlighted by several business people. Here are two versions:

The customer is always right.
The customer is never wrong.

Do you know who created this motto?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest close match located by QI and fellow researcher Barry Popik appeared in an article about the retailer Marshall Field of Chicago that was published in “The Boston Sunday Herald”¹ and “The Boston Globe”² in September 1905. The original text used the spelling “employe” instead of “employee”. Boldface has been added to excerpts:

Every employe, from cash boy up, is taught absolute respect for and compliance with the business principles which Mr. Field practices. Broadly speaking, Mr. Field adheres to the theory that “the customer is always right.” He must be a very untrustworthy trader to whom this concession is not granted.

Based on current knowledge QI would tentatively ascribe the adage to Marshall Field. He was definitely central to its early popularization, but it was not certain whether he coined the expression. He may have heard it from another retailer or even an angry customer, and he decided to adopt it. Searchable electronic databases of periodicals and books continue to grow, and in the future additional illuminating citations may be located.

This entry was constructed by request to present the most up-to-date research results for the journalist Forrest Wickman of Slate in October 2015.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Our Comedies Are Not To Be Laughed At

Samuel Goldwyn? William Cox? Cumberland’s Comedies? Mack Sennett? Johnny Grey? Christie Comedies? Abe Stern? Carl Laemmle? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: A Hollywood movie producer had achieved great fame with opulent historical dramas. His company also released financially lucrative comedies which were embraced by audiences but lambasted by critics. While attending a lavish party the producer overheard a negative comment about the humor in his films, and he proclaimed loudly:

Our comedies are not to be laughed at.

He was confused by the uproarious laughter that greeted his remark. Samuel Goldwyn is usually identified as the perplexed speaker in this anecdote. Would you please examine the history of this inadvertent oxymoron-like jest?

Reply from Quote Investigator: This joke was assigned to Samuel Goldwyn by 1937, but it began to circulate more than one hundred years before that date.

The earliest evidence located by QI was published in the “New-York Mirror” in 1829 within a theatre profile written by a drama critic named William Cox. The profile by Cox discussed a popular performer named Mr. Richings. Boldface has been added to excerpts:¹

As a vocalist Mr. Richings is rather distinguished by force than sweetness; and as a comedian, many of his efforts, like Cumberland’s comedies, are not to be laughed at.

The phrase “Cumberland’s comedies” may have been referring to the prominent playwright Richard Cumberland who crafted many comedies. The context suggested that Cox was repeating an existing joke, but it was also possible that he constructed it.

In 1833 the newspaper profiles written William Cox were gathered together and published under the title “Crayon Sketches by An Amateur”.² The portrait of Mr. Richings was included; thus, the quip was further disseminated. The author’s name was not specified in the pages of the work, but an article in the journal “American Literature” clearly identified Cox.³

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.