Quote Investigator® – Page 155

Dialogue Origin: “I Bet I Could Get Three Words Out of You.” “You Lose.”

Calvin Coolidge? Frank B. Noyes? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: President Calvin Coolidge was known as “Silent Cal” because of his extraordinarily laconic speech. A famous anecdote tells of a dinner party during which the person sitting adjacent to the Coolidge said: “Mr. President I’ve made a large bet that I would be able to make you say more than two words.” Coolidge considered this proposition carefully and then replied slowly and emphatically, “You lose.”

Would you please explore the veracity of this comical tale?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest evidence known to QI appeared in several newspapers in April 1924 which were reporting on a short speech of introduction delivered at the annual luncheon of the Associated Press news service by Frank B. Noyes who was the President of the organization. The introduction was for the main speaker at the event, President Calvin Coolidge. Noyes told a story about an unnamed “very high official”, and his audience knew that the tale was supposed to be about Coolidge. Boldface has been added to excerpts:¹

. . . let me be reminded at this point of a story current in Washington last year.

“A very high official had a really undeserved reputation of extreme reticence, and it is related that at a dinner the lady on his right opened the conversation by saying that her neighbor had it in his power to lose or win a wager for her as she had made a bet that however reserved he might have been with others that he would talk with her. Then came a measurable pause, followed by ‘You lose.’

This version of the tale did not mention a specific number of words, e.g., “more than two words” or “at least three words”. Hence, it was not quite as funny as later instances of the anecdote.

“The New York Times” published an article about the luncheon which included the response given by Coolidge immediately after the humorous story was presented. He completely denied its accuracy. The term “President” in the following remark by Coolidge might be somewhat confusing; the term referred to Frank B. Noyes, President of the Associated Press, and not to Coolidge.²

“Your President has given you a perfect example,” said Mr. Coolidge, “of one of those rumors now current in Washington which is without any foundation.”

The audience laughed, and then Mr. Coolidge went ahead with his prepared speech.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Death Is Nature’s Way of Telling You to Slow Down

Madison Avenue? Doctor’s Advice? Graffito? Dick Sharples? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: When I strained a muscle recently a friend told me that the injury was nature’s way of telling me to slow down. Another friend quipped:

Death is nature’s way of telling you to slow down.

Would you please explore this adage?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest strong match located by QI appeared in the popular syndicated column of Leonard Lyons in April 1960, Boldface has been added to excerpts:¹

Madison Avenue’s definition of Death: “Nature’s way of telling you to slow up”.

“Madison Avenue” is a street in New York City which for many years has been used as a metonym for the U.S. advertising industry. The instance presented by Lyons differed from the more common modern variant by using the phrase “slow up” instead of “slow down” although the meaning was congruent.

QI hypothesizes that the parodic guidance propounded by the expression evolved from similar pieces of health advice and statements in advertisements.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: It Always Seems Impossible Until It’s Done

Nelson Mandela? Pliny the Elder? Daniel Wilson? Elbert Anderson Young? Robert H. Goddard? Robert Heinlein? Norton Juster? Paul Eldridge?

Question for Quote Investigator: Politicians, journalists, pundits, and self-help authors are fond of the following inspirational expression:

It always seems impossible, until it is done.

The words are usually attributed to the activist, statesman, and Nobel Prize winner Nelson Mandela, but I have not been able to find a good citation. Would you please explore this saying?

Reply from Quote Investigator: QI has not yet found this statement in a book or speech by Nelson Mandela. The earliest attribution to Mandela located by QI appeared in an Australian newspaper in 2001. Hence, the saying was linked to him for at least a dozen years before his death in 2013. Details for this citation are given further below.

Sometimes an event or achievement appears to be impossible, and only the actual occurrence of the event is enough to dispel the misconception. A statement that matched this notion was included in the encyclopedic work called “Naturalis Historia” (Natural History) which was written by Pliny the Elder who died in AD 79.¹ Boldface has been added to excerpts:²

Indeed what is there that does not appear marvellous, when it comes to our knowledge for the first time? How many things, too, are looked upon as quite impossible, until they have been actually effected?

In 1862 the book “Prehistoric Man: Researches into the Origin of Civilisation in the Old and the New World” was published, and the author, Professor Daniel Wilson, commented on the remarkable insights available through the study of the geological record. Information could be reconstructed about the nature of Earth before the appearance of mankind. The author employed the saying in the form of a rhetorical question:³

Yet all the while, the geological record lay there open before him, awaiting God’s appointed time. What so inconceivable as the recovery of the world’s history prior to man’s creation; but, indeed is not everything impossible until it is done? and the history of man himself, though so much less inconceivable, also an impossibility until it has been accomplished?

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: No Passion in the World Is Equal to the Passion to Alter Someone Else’s Draft

H. G. Wells? Barbara Wootton? Lawrence R. Klein? Stanley Kramer? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: If you have ever experienced the manuscript editing process as an editor or an editee you should fully comprehend this quotation:

No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else’s draft.

The above remark is in the current draft of my book, but the editor will strike it out unless I am able to find a good citation. The statement is usually attributed to the famous British science fiction author and social commentator H. G. Wells. Would you please help?

Reply from Quote Investigator: At this time QI has been unable to locate a match within a text written or spoken by H. G. Wells who died in August 1946. The earliest evidence located by QI appeared in the 1945 book “Freedom Under Planning” by the prominent British sociologist Barbara Wootton. Boldface has been added to excerpts:¹

The worst examples of this are found sometimes in small political societies, where the strength of each member’s devotion to his own particular way of putting things is out of all proportion to the significant difference between his views and those of his fellows. It is here that the truth of H. G. Wells’ dictum that no passion in the world, no love or hate, is equal to the passion to alter someone else’s draft, is only too well illustrated. But, in greater or less degree, the same tendency to lay disproportionate emphasis on differences, and to ignore agreements, runs through all democratic political life.

Wootton did not enclose the remark within quotation marks, and it was possible that she was presenting her own phrasing of an opinion she ascribed to Wells. Alternatively, she may have heard the statement directly from Wells.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: People Laugh at This Every Night, Which Explains Why a Democracy Can Never Be a Success

Robert Benchley? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: The Broadway play “Abie’s Irish Rose” opened in 1922 and ran for more than five years which was a record-breaking achievement at the time. The writer and future actor Robert Benchley was the drama critic at “Life” magazine, and apparently he detested the production. Every week he crafted a new insult and printed it in the play guide that appeared in the periodical. Would you please list some of these barbs?

Reply from Quote Investigator: In June 1922 “Life” reviewed “Abie’s Irish Rose” and decried the hackneyed quality of its script. The humor was unfavorably compared to the contents of a discontinued humor magazine:¹

Any further information, if such could possibly be necessary, will be furnished at the old offices of “Puck,” the comic weekly which flourished in the ’90’s. Although that paper is no longer in existence, there must be some old retainer still about the premises who could tell you everything that is in “Abie’s Irish Rose.”

On August 10, 1922 “Life” magazine published a two word capsule review of the play in the weekly “Confidential Guide”. The production was housed at the Republic Theater. Boldface has been added to excerpts:²

Abie’s Irish Rose. Republic.—Something awful.

Below is a sampling of other remarks crafted by Benchley. On August 17, 1922 “Life” printed the following:³

Abie’s Irish Rose. Republic—Couldn’t be much worse.

On September 14, 1922 Robert Benchley’s critique comically questioned the wisdom of the demos:⁴

Abie’s Irish Rose. Republic.—People laugh at this every night, which explains why a democracy can never be a success.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Anyone Who Can Drive Safely While Kissing Is Simply Not Giving the Kiss the Attention It Deserves

Albert Einstein? Philippa? Fluffy Flapper? James Russell? Apocryphal? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: The modern traveler may encounter dangerous drivers who are texting while driving. But another risky behavior has been occurring on roadways for many decades: kissing while driving. The brilliant physicist Albert Einstein supposedly said:

Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.

I think this ascription is unlikely. Would you please examine the history of this saying?

Reply from Quote Investigator: There is no substantive evidence that Einstein wrote or spoke the statement above. It is listed within a section called “Probably Not By Einstein” in the comprehensive reference “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein” from Princeton University Press.¹ Einstein died in 1955, and the phrase was implausible attributed to him many years later in a book called “More Sex Talk” in 2002. Details are given further below.

The earliest pertinent match known to QI appeared as a short item in multiple U.S. newspapers starting in 1923. The joke employed a dialog format² and its creator was unidentified.³ Boldface has been added to excerpts:⁴

Dorcas—”Do you ever allow a man to kiss you when you’re out motoring with him?”

Philippa—”Never, if a man can drive safely while kissing me he’s not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.”

Many thanks to top researcher Bonnie Taylor-Blake who located and shared several valuable citations via a message at the Snopes website.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Who Are the People Most Opposed to Escapism? Jailors!

J. R. R. Tolkien? Arthur C. Clarke? C. S. Lewis? China Miéville? Michael Moorcock? Neil Gaiman

Question for Quote Investigator: Today, the genres of science fiction and fantasy are ascendant in popular culture. But detractors have long complained that works in these domains are escapist, and critics have asserted that the literary values displayed are sharply circumscribed. The shrewdest riposte I have heard to these notions is:

Who are the people most opposed to escapism? Jailors!

Would you please explore the origin of this remark?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The exact concise formulation given above was written by the well-known science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, but he credited the fantasy writer C. S. Lewis who was best-known for creating the world of Narnia. Indeed, a similar remark was made by Lewis, but he credited the prominent fantasy author J. R. R. Tolkien who was best-known for crafting the legendarium of the Middle-earth.

In 1938 Tolkien delivered a lecture about works of fantasy to an audience at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. He extended his talk to produce an essay titled “On Fairy-Stories” which was published by the Oxford University Press in 1947. The essay was reprinted in a 1965 collection called “Tree and Leaf”. Tolkien championed the value of literature deemed escapist:¹

I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which “Escape” is now so often used: a tone for which the uses of the word outside literary criticism give no warrant at all.

Tolkien’s remarks were thematically related to the quotation, and he mentioned jailers, but there was no strongly matching statement within the essay. Boldface has been added to excerpts:

Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls? The world outside has not become less real because the prisoner cannot see it. In using Escape in this way the critics have chosen the wrong word, and, what is more, they are confusing, not always by sincere error, the Escape of the Prisoner with the Flight of the Deserter.

C. S. Lewis discussed “escape” in an essay titled “On Science Fiction” which appeared in a 1966 collection. Lewis argued that some adherents of vehement political beliefs were hostile to exercises of the imagination because they wished to “keep us wholly imprisoned in the immediate conflict”:²

That perhaps is why people are so ready with the charge of ‘escape’. I never fully understood it till my friend Professor Tolkien asked me the very simple question, ‘What class of men would you expect to be most preoccupied with, and most hostile to, the idea of escape?’ and gave the obvious answer: jailers. The charge of Fascism is, to be sure, mere mud-flinging. Fascists, as well as Communists, are jailers; both would assure us that the proper study of prisoners is prison. But there is perhaps this truth behind it: that those who brood much on the remote past or future, or stare long at the night sky, are less likely than others to be ardent or orthodox partisans.

So, Lewis ascribed a closely matching version of the saying to Tolkien, but the remark was not written; instead, Lewis heard it during a conversation.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: You Can Make a Killing in the Theater, But Not a Living

Robert Anderson? William Goodhart? Sam Taylor? Israel Horovitz? John Guare? Sherwood Anderson? Ron Dante? Norman Mailer?

Question for Quote Investigator: Trying to build a career in the entertainment industry is precarious. One play, movie, or album might be a huge and lucrative hit for an artist, but the next project might be a complete money-losing bust. The situation has been described with the following bitter-sweet expression using wordplay:

You can make a killing in this business, but you can’t make a living.

Would you please explore the provenance of this expression?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest strong match located by QI appeared in a January 1966 article by playwright Robert Anderson in “The Christian Science Monitor”. The play “Tea and Sympathy” was Anderson’s first Broadway production, and it proved to be a great success that was also made into a Hollywood movie. Yet, Anderson found it difficult to recapture that triumph, and he supplemented his uneven theatrical income by writing screenplays and teaching. Boldface has been added to excerpts:¹

On the down-to-earth matter of money: A hit play can make a fortune (taxable!) for an author by movie sales, road tours, foreign rights, etc. But I have always felt it was too bad that you could make a killing, but not a living, in the theater. Stable, growing careers cannot be based on chance killings.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: The Joy That You Give to Others Is the Joy That Comes Back to You

John Greenleaf Whittier? Margaret E. Sangster? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: Recently, I came across a heartfelt short poem titled “Happy New Year” containing the following line:

The joy that you give to others is the joy that comes back to you.

The verse was attributed to the prominent nineteenth-century poet John Greenleaf Whittier who died in 1892, but the earliest citation I could find was dated 1901. Was this attribution accurate? Was the work posthumous?

Reply from Quote Investigator: QI believes that the common modern attribution to Whittier was inaccurate. The lines in the short poem were part of longer poem by Margaret E. Sangster titled “The Christmas Tree”, and Sangster should receive credit for her work.

The earliest evidence located by QI appeared in “The Elocutionist’s Journal: A Repository of the Choicest Standard and Current Pieces for Readings and Declamations”. Sangster’s didactic poem contained 54 lines and was printed on the front page of the January 1878 issue. The first four lines described a child’s desire for a Christmas tree:¹

Our darling little Florence, our blessing and our pride,
With dimpled cheeks, and golden hair, and brown eyes open wide,
To look at every pretty thing, came flying in to me:
“O please,” she pleaded earnestly, “I want a Christmas tree.”

When the request for a tree was granted the child invited lonely and impoverished children to a Christmas party held around the tree. The final four lines of the poem were the following:²

For somehow, not only for Christmas, but all the long year through,
The joy that you give to others is the joy that comes back to you;
And the more you spend in blessing the poor, the lonely, and sad,
The more to your heart’s possessing, returns to make you glad.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: They Will Not Let My Play Run, But Steal My Thunder

John Dennis? Alexander Pope? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: To steal someone’s thunder means to take an idea, a strategy, or a policy created by another person and use it advantageously. It can also mean to grab attention by anticipating and pre-empting the strategy of another. This figurative phrase supposedly originated with an angry remark made by a frustrated dramatist. Would you please explore this topic?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The critic and playwright John Dennis wrote a tragedy “Appius and Virginia” which was staged in a London theater circa 1709. The effort was unsuccessful and the production closed rapidly; however, Dennis at the same time introduced an innovative new method for simulating the sound of thunder that won plaudits.

A short time later Dennis attended a performance of “Macbeth” at the playhouse and heard the distinctive sound of his simulated thunder. He leapt to his feet enraged and shouted, “They steal my thunder”. Accounts of the event vary, and the exact actions and words of Dennis are probably lost.

The earliest evidence known to QI appeared in 1727 in Alexander Pope’s “The Dunciad: With Notes Variorum, and the Prolegomena of Scriblerus”. This was a second edition of the celebrated poem which included notes and commentary by Pope. The anecdote is referred to in a note and not within the poem. In Pope’s version Dennis did not use the word “steal”.¹ Boldface has been added to excerpts:²

Whether Mr. Dennis was the inventor of that improvement, I know not; but it is certain, that being once at a Tragedy of a new Author, he fell into a great passion at hearing some, and cry’d, “S’death! that is my Thunder.”

In an account from 1747 Dennis was depicted employing the verb “to steal”. The latter-day figurative phrase and the most popular modern versions of his remarks use that verb. Details are given further below.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.