Barbara W. Tuchman? Denys Arthur Winstanley? Anonymous?
Procession of the Trojan Horse by Tiepolo
Question for Quote Investigator: The popular historian Barbara W. Tuchman suggested that it was unfair to “judge men of the past by the ideas of the present”. She credited this interesting stance to an unnamed English historian. Yet, I have been unable to determine the identity of this astute chronicler; there was no footnote. Would you please trace this statement?
Reply from Quote Investigator: Barbara W. Tuchman was quoting the words of Denys Arthur Winstanley of The University of Cambridge as detailed in the 1912 citation presented further below.
Similar thoughts have been expressed on multiple occasions in the past. For example, in 1821 a literary journal printed an article titled “On the Character of Socrates” which included the following passage:1
…we think nothing is more unfair than to judge of the sentiments of one age by the improved moral perceptions of another…
Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.
Milton Friedman? William F. Buckley Jr.? French Sage? Alfred E. Kahn? Anonymous?
Picture of desert sand dunes from Unsplash
Question for Quote Investigator: The well-known economist Milton Friedman was often critical of governmental power. The following saying has been attributed to him:
If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there’d be a shortage of sand.
I have been unable to find a precise citation for this statement. Would you please examine this topic?
Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1980 Milton Friedman wrote a partially matching statement in his “Newsweek” column that included the thematic phrase about Saharan sand, and he expressed a comparable attitude. A detailed citation is given further below.
The earliest instance of the vivid phrase “shortage of sand in the Sahara” located by QI was printed in 1951 in “Labour” magazine which was issued by the Trades Union Congress in London. A group of workers from Birmingham visited Sweden and were hosted by the Gothenburg Trades Council. The visitors commented on a shortage of timber; however, the overall context did not disparage government:1
The visitors were not surprised to find a housing shortage in Sweden; they knew before they went that the problem was world-wide. What they were surprised to find was a shortage of timber. “It sounds like a shortage of sand in the Sahara,” they commented. Then it was explained that the Swedish home market was going short to enable the country to export much of its valuable timber.
In 1971 the conservative magazine editor and commentator William F. Buckley Jr. published “Cruising Speed: A Documentary” which recorded in diary form the incidents and events in Buckley’s life during one week in November 1970. Buckley relayed a joke castigating communism:2
Curiously, the failures of Communism are more often treated as a joke than as a tragedy. (As in the current jollity: What would happen if the Communists occupied the Sahara? Answer: Nothing—for 50 years. Then there would be a shortage of sand.)
This was the earliest strongly matching instance of the quip found by QI. The target was not the U.S. government, but an archetypal communist government. The creator of the joke was anonymous, and the duration of the delay was 50 years instead of five.
During succeeding decades the barb has evolved and different governments have been excoriated. In addition, the time delay mentioned has varied.
Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.
Question for Quote Investigator: The late 1960s and early 1970s were a time of societal upheaval and uncertainty in the United States. The prominent conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein who was well-known for crafting the music of “West Side Story” delivered a speech during which he asserted that only the artists of the world could save the world. I would like to include an excerpt from the speech in a book, but I have not been able to trace it. Would you please examine this topic?
Reply from Quote Investigator: On June 28, 1970 Leonard Bernstein gave an address at the opening exercises of the Tanglewood Music Center in Massachusetts, and shortly afterward excerpts were printed in “The Boston Globe”. The article title mentioned Bernstein’s theme of hope and the artist’s role in a chaotic world:1
It is the artists of this world, the feelers and thinkers, who will ultimately save us, who can articulate, educate, defy, insist, sing, and shout the big dreams. Only the artists can turn the “not-yet” into reality.
How do you do it? Find out what you can do well, uniquely well, and then do it for all you’re worth. And I don’t mean “doing your own thing” in the hip sense. That’s passivity, that’s dropping out, that’s not doing anything. I’m talking about doing, which means serving your community, whether it’s a tiny town or six continents.
Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.
Humorist: Red Skelton? George Jessel? Goodman Ace? Groucho Marx? Bert Lahr? James Bacon?
Funeral: Harry Cohn? Louis B. Mayer?
Question for Quote Investigator: A show business platitude states that success at the box office is achievable by simply giving the people what they want.
A harsh comical anecdote about a funeral reinterpreted this saying. The memorial service of a powerful and disliked movie mogul was surprisingly well attended. One ambivalent mourner asked another to explain the existence of the large crowd of attendees. The acerbic response was:
Give the public what they want, and they’ll come to see it.
Would you please explore this tale? What was the name of the movie potentate who had died? Who was telling the joke?
Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest evidence known to QI appeared in “The Washington Post” in 1941. A columnist relayed a quip made by the popular actor and comedian George Jessel:1
And there was George Jessel’s box-office-ish remark about a funeral which was drawing enormous crowds of people into a church door as he passed—”Well, there you are, you see,” said Jessel. “Give ’em what they want.”
The text above was located by top researcher Bonnie Taylor-Blake. Jessel was presenting a joke, and he was not actually attending a funeral. The adage was recognizable to readers even when it was truncated. The memorialized individual was nameless in the quip.
In later years this comical remark was linked to other wits such as Red Skelton, Goodman Ace, and Groucho Marx. In addition, the barb was precisely aimed at the prominent movie producers Harry Cohn and Louis B. Mayer.
Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.
Question for Quote Investigator: You examined an adage about success and work that cleverly referred to their alphabetical order. I’ve seen a different joke about duty and pleasure:
Duty comes before pleasure, but only in the dictionary.
Would you please explore this saying?
Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest instance of this type of remark known to QI was printed in several newspapers in 1912. For example, “The Iola Register” of Kansas published a set of “Quaker Meditations” with an acknowledgement to “The Philadelphia Record” which included the following three statements. Boldface has been added to excerpts:1
The world is always eager to give a man a boost when he gets close to the top.
The one place where duty always comes before pleasure is in the dictionary.
Few things are perfect. Even the longest way ’round has its shortcomings.
The above remark was an anti-proverb that slyly subverted the preexisting didactic sayings: “Duty before pleasure” and “Business before pleasure”. The initial instances were anonymous. Top language columnist Ben Zimmer who writes for “The Wall Street Journal” identified this early version of the anti-proverb and shared it with QI.
Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.
George Bernard Shaw? John Harris? Brigid Brophy? Apocryphal?
Question for Quote Investigator: George Bernard Shaw was a strong advocate of vegetarianism who was greatly concerned with animal welfare. The following statement attributed to Shaw encouraged the reader to embrace an abstract extraplanetary perspective and asked the reader to condemn the instrumental use of animals for food, clothing, and sport:
If a group of beings from another planet were to land on Earth — beings who considered themselves as superior to you as you feel yourself to be to other animals — would you concede them the rights over you that you assume over other animals?
I have been unable to locate this passage in the writings of Shaw. Would please examine its provenance?
Reply from Quote Investigator:QI has found no substantive support for the claim that George Bernard Shaw wrote the words above. Indeed, QI hypothesizes that the fallacious ascription originated with the misreading of a passage from a volume published in 1979. Details are given further below.
The earliest strongly matching evidence located by QI was published in a 1972 collection called “Animals, Men, and Morals: An Enquiry into the Maltreatment of Non-Humans”. An article titled “Killing for Food” by John Harris argued that there was “no justification for continuing to eat meat”. Near the end of his essay Harris asked readers to contemplate an alien perspective:1
I should like to leave those of you who remain unconvinced with a final thought. Suppose that tomorrow a group of beings from another planet were to land on Earth, beings who considered themselves as superior to you as you feel yourself to be to other animals. Would they have the right to treat you as you treat the animals you breed, keep and kill for food?
QI believes that the modern quotation was derived from the passage above although the wording was somewhat different. Harris should be credited with this statement and not Shaw.
Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.
Ralph Waldo Emerson? Leo Rosten? Thomas Carlyle? Anonymous?
Question for Quote Investigator: On Facebook and the web the following quotation has been circulating widely:
The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
The words are attributed to the famous philosophical essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson, but I have not been able to find a proper citation to an essay by the transcendentalist. Would you please explore this statement?
Reply from Quote Investigator:QI has found no substantive evidence that Ralph Waldo Emerson crafted the words above. Instead, QI believes that the passage was derived from a series of similar statements written and spoken by Leo Rosten who was a teacher and humorist.
In 1962 “The Sunday Star” newspaper of Washington D.C. published the text of an address recently delivered by Leo Rosten at the National Book Awards held in New York. The following excerpt strongly matched the target quotation though it was not identical:1
The purpose of life is not to be happy—but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you lived at all.
Rosten restated this anti-hedonic proposition multiple times, and he used similar language to communicate his ideas. Detailed references are provided further below.
Question for Quote Investigator: Grace Murray Hopper was a pioneering computer scientist whose work was central to the development of COBOL, one of the foundational high-level programming languages. She worked in a very fast moving technological domain where simply attempting to repeat previously successful strategies was sometimes disastrous. I am trying to determine if she crafted the following astute remark:
The most dangerous phrase in the language is, ‘We’ve always done it this way.’
Would you please explore this topic?
Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest strong match located by QI appeared in the periodical “Computerworld” in 1976. An article about new laws in the U.S. concerning data processing (DP) and privacy included an interview with Grace Murray Hopper who employed an instance of the saying. Boldface has been added to excerpts:1
On the future of data processing, Hopper said the most dangerous phrase a DP manager can use is “We’ve always done it that way.”
Here are additional selected citations in chronological order
Milton Berle? Bob Hope? Eugene P. Bertin? Connie Nelson? Robert Zwickey? Dale Turner? Anonymous?
Question for Quote Investigator: The comedian Milton Berle was a major star for decades on radio and then on television. The following insightful adage has been attributed to him:
Laughter is an instant vacation.
I have also seen these words credited to Bob Hope who was another top comedian with extraordinary longevity. Would you please explore this saying?
Reply from Quote Investigator: This expression was ascribed to Milton Berle in 1977, and in 1985 Bob Hope included the adage in an essay he wrote for the UPI news service. So linkages exist for both comedians, and full citations are given further below. Yet, the phrase was already in circulation before 1977.
The earliest evidence located by QI appeared in the “Pennsylvania School Journal” in 1968. A column called “Ravelin’s: Threads Detached from Texture” by Eugene P. Bertin stated that laughter was an “instant vacation”; however, the phrasing was not compact. Boldface has been added to excerpts:1
There is a purifying power in laughter. It is truth in palatable form. It is instant vacation. Seeing the comical side of many situations makes life a great deal easier. It’s like riding through life on sensitive springs that ease every jolt.
Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.
Question for Quote Investigator: Albert Einstein was asked to explain the abstruse theory of relativity so many times that he reportedly created a comical illustration involving a hot stove and a pretty girl. Would you please explore the provenance of this tale?
Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest evidence located by QI was printed in “The New York Times” in March 1929. The phrase “nice girl’ was used instead of “pretty girl”:1
Numerous anecdotes are being circulated concerning Einstein. He once told a girl secretary when she was bothered by inquisitive interviewers, who wanted to know what relativity really meant, to answer:
“When you sit with a nice girl for two hours you think it’s only a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove for a minute you think it’s two hours. That’s relativity.”
The quotation was not directly from Einstein. Indeed, the reporter simply noted that the tale was being circulated. Yet, the vivid comparison was very popular and many variants evolved in the following years. Einstein was still based in Germany in 1929, so earlier instances of the anecdote may have been published in German.
Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.
