Quote Investigator® – Page 181

Quote Origin: The Purpose of Life Is to Discover Your Gift. The Meaning of Life Is to Give Your Gift Away

William Shakespeare? Pablo Picasso? David Viscott? Joy Golliver? Emilio Santini? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: A popular adage presents a fascinating answer to a perennial philosophical question about the significance of life:

The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.

This statement is often attributed to the famed playwright William Shakespeare or the influential painter Pablo Picasso on social networks like Facebook and Pinterest. I know that means absolutely nothing about who really said it. Would you please trace this quotation?

Reply from Quote Investigator: QI has found no substantive evidence linking this expression to William Shakespeare or Pablo Picasso. The earliest strong match located by QI appeared in a 1993 book by the radio personality David S. Viscott. This citation is detailed further below.

An interesting thematically related statement was included in an 1843 essay titled “Gifts” by the prominent lecturer Ralph Waldo Emerson who argued that a gift is only worthwhile if it is integrally related to the gift-giver:¹

Rings and jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself. Thou must bleed for me. Therefore the poet brings his poem; the shepherd, his lamb; the farmer, corn; the miner, a stone; the painter, his picture; the girl, a handkerchief of her own sewing.

In 1993 the volume “Finding Your Strength in Difficult Times: A Book of Meditations” by David Viscott was published. The author was a psychiatrist who hosted a pioneering radio talk show in the 1980s and 1990s during which he provided counseling to callers. Viscott’s statement was composed of three parts instead of two:²

The purpose of life is to discover your gift.
The work of life is to develop it.
The meaning of life is to give your gift away.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Briefest Correspondence: Question Mark? Exclamation Mark!

Victor Hugo? Oscar Wilde? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: There is a popular humorous anecdote about an exchange of letters between Victor Hugo and his publisher shortly after the publication of “Les Misérables”. Each message consisted of only a single character. Are you familiar with this story? Recently, I heard a version of the tale with Oscar Wilde replacing Victor Hugo. Would you explore this topic?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The novel “Les Misérables” was published in 1862, and the earliest instance of the Hugo anecdote known to QI appeared in 1892. Details for this citation are given further below. However, the thirty year delay casts doubt on the story. The connection to Oscar Wilde appeared much later.

A similar tale about the exchange of extraordinarily concise messages was printed four decades earlier in April 1850 in “The Nottinghamshire Guardian” paper in Nottinghamshire, England:¹

In the briefest correspondence known, only two figures were used, the first contained a note of interrogation (?), implying “Is there any news?” The answer was a cipher (0), “None.”

After presenting the item above, a different complementary story was told about a message painted on a chimney:

This was clever; but neighbour Shuttleworth, in Nottingham Market Place, beats it. He has on his chimney two large T’s, one painted black the other green, to intimate that he sells black and green tea.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: When We Are Listened To, It Creates Us, Makes Us Unfold and Expand

Karl Menninger? Brenda Ueland? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: The following statement about the enormous importance of listening attentively during conversations instead of simply talking is attributed to the psychiatrist Karl Menninger and the writer Brenda Ueland.

When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life.

Do you know who should receive credit?

Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1941 Brenda Ueland published an article titled “Tell Me More” in “Ladies’ Home Journal” about the desirability of listening carefully to children and adults. She believed that most people were not sufficiently mindful of conversational partners. Boldface has been added to excerpts:¹

Because listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. You can see that when you think how the friends that really listen to us are the ones we move toward, and we want to sit in their radius as though it did us good, like ultraviolet rays.

This is the reason: When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life. You know how if a person laughs at your jokes you become funnier and funnier, and if he does not, every tiny little joke in you weazens up and dies. Well, that is the principle of it.

Today, Brenda Ueland is best known for her self-help book “If You Want to Write” which has encouraged multiple generations of neophyte writers to express themselves. This work was first released in 1938, but its popularity grew through a series of reprint editions.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: “He Is a Self-Made Man.” “Yes, And He Worships His Creator.”

Speaker: William Allen Butler? Henry Clapp? John Bright? Junius Henri Browne? Howard Crosby? Henry Armitt Brown? Benjamin Disraeli? William Cowper?

Topic: Horace Greeley? Benjamin Disraeli? George Law? David Davies?

Question for Quote Investigator: Whenever I hear the claim that an individual who has excelled in life is a self-made man or a self-made woman I think of a well-known clever riposte:

Person A: He is a self-made man.
Person B: Yes, I have heard him say that many times, and he certainly worships his creator.

This quip is based on a comical form of self-reference. The definition of “self-made” implies that the man’s creator is the man himself. Hence, when he worships his creator he is worshiping himself. Do you know who originated this joke and who was being criticized?

Reply from Quote Investigator: A precursor that expressed the core of the joke appeared in a satirical poem composed in 1858 titled “Two Millions” by William Allen Butler. The work described a millionaire who obeyed the following “higher law” with “all his heart and soul and mind and strength”:¹

To love his maker, for he was SELF-MADE!
Self-made, self-trained, self-willed, self-satisfied,
He was himself, his daily boast and pride.

Thanks to Professor Ian Preston who located the above citation and shared it with QI. The entire poem was reprinted in the magazine “Titan” in London.²

Also, sections of the work were reprinted by reviewers in periodicals such as “The Knickerbocker” in New York.³ Thus, the jest was further disseminated.

A close match to the popular form of the joke appeared in March 1868 in multiple newspapers such as “The Stillwater Messenger”⁴ of Minnesota and the “Burlington Hawk Eye” of Iowa. In the following statement “The World” was a reference to a New York newspaper. Boldface has been added to excerpts:⁵

The World says Horace Greeley is “a self-made man who worships his Creator.”

Also in March 1868 the “Springfield Republican”⁶ of Massachusetts and the “Utica Daily Observer” of New York identified the originator of the jibe as Henry Clapp who was the editor of a New York literary newspaper called “The Saturday Press”:⁷

Henry Clapp says that Horace Greeley is a self made man, and worships his creator.

In July 1868 “Harper’s Magazine” published a version of the remark and suggested that Greeley would probably respond with good humor:⁸

We take it that no man laughed more heartily than Mr. Greeley did when he was told what Henry Clapp had said about him. Said Clapp: “Horace Greeley is emphatically a self-made man, and he worships his Creator!”

In 1869 a non-fiction volume titled “The Great Metropolis: A Mirror of New York” by Junius Henri Browne was published, and the author applied the joke to a New Yorker named George Law:⁹

He is frequently to be seen walking and driving about on his private business; occasionally appears at Fulton Market in quest of oysters, which he swallows voraciously as if he were more savage than hungry; and now and then figures as a vice-president of some public meeting, which he never attends. Such is Live-Oak George, who, as has been said, is a self-made man, and worships his creator.

By June 1870 a different version of the joke was circulating in England. The phrase “adores his maker” replaced the phrase “worships his creator”. A short item published in newspapers in Newcastle-upon-Tyne¹⁰ and Leicester¹¹ claimed that the politician John Bright had aimed the barb at the politician Benjamin Disraeli:

One of Mr. Disraeli’s admirers, in speaking about him to John Bright, said, “You ought to give him credit for what he has accomplished, as he is a self- made man.” “I know he is,” retorted Mr. Bright, “and he adores his maker.” -Court Journal.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Don’t Believe the World Owes You a Living. The World Owes You Nothing. It Was Here First

Mark Twain? Robert J. Burdette? Apocryphal? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: During this graduation season many who are finishing school are scrambling to try and find a job. The following acerbic words are usually attributed to Mark Twain:

Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living; the world owes you nothing, it was here first.

But I have been unable to find this in Twain’s oeuvre. Did he really originate this statement?

Reply from Quote Investigator: There is no substantive evidence that Mark Twain said or wrote this remark. It doesn’t appear in the large compilation “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips”.¹ Unsupported ascriptions to Twain have been circulating in magazines and newspapers for more than fifty years, but Twain died more than one hundred years ago. Detailed citations are given further below.

The earliest close match for this comment located by QI was published in a New York newspaper in 1883. The paper printed excerpts from a recent speech given by Robert J. Burdette who was a popular humorist in this time period. Boldface has been added to excerpts:²

If you men do anything else in the world, get married. If you say you can’t afford it now, it is because you are too selfish and too mean. Don’t believe the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

For several decades this jape was properly ascribed to Burdette, and he sometimes receives credit today.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Goal of Education: Create People Who Are Capable of Doing New Things, Not Simply of Repeating What Other Generations Have Done

Jean Piaget? Eleanor Duckworth? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: The following popular quotation appears on a large number of websites in the educational domain. The statement is attributed to the famous developmental psychologist Jean Piaget:

The principal goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done.

Some websites list a citation in 1988, but Piaget died in 1980, and no information is provided about when or where it was spoken or written. Would you please examine the provenance of these words?

Reply from Quote Investigator: In November 1964 the journal “The Arithmetic Teacher” published an article by Eleanor Duckworth titled “Piaget Rediscovered”. Duckworth had worked with Piaget as a student, and she served as an interpreter for the Swiss psychologist during some U.S. conferences in 1964.

Piaget had recently attended two gatherings on cognitive research. One was held at Cornell University and the other at University of California, Berkeley. Piaget’s responses to questions from participants were recorded and translated by Duckworth. An instance of the quotation appeared in one of these responses.

The inclusive phrase “men and women” was not used; instead, the designation “men” was used to encompass both. The phrase “in the schools” was absent. Oddly, the word “principle” was used instead of “principal”. Boldface has been added to excerpts:¹

The principle goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done—men who are creative, inventive, and discoverers.

The second goal of education is to form minds which can be critical, can verify, and not accept everything they are offered. The great danger today is of slogans, collective opinions, ready-made trends of thought. We have to be able to resist individually, to criticize, to distinguish between what is proven and what is not.

So we need pupils who are active; who learn early to find out by themselves, partly by their own spontaneous activity and partly through material we set up for them, and who learn early to tell what is verifiable and what is simply the first idea to come to them.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: You Don’t Owe Prettiness to Anyone

Diana Vreeland? Fran Lebowitz? Erin McKean? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: The following cogent statement about self-ownership, integrity, and image has been shared on social media networks:

You Don’t Have to Be Pretty.
You don’t owe prettiness to anyone.

I have seen an extended version of the remark attributed to the fashion columnist and editor Diana Vreeland in a Facebook post. However, I have also seen the words credited to the writer and humorist Fran Lebowitz on Pinterest. Would you please clarify this situation?

Reply from Quote Investigator: In October 2006 the lexicographer, entrepreneur, and fashion aficionado Erin McKean composed a post about the expectations and impositions encountered in the realm of personal appearance for her blog called “A Dress A Day”. She was responding to critical comments about the stylishness of leggings. Boldface has been added to excerpts:¹

Now, this may seem strange from someone who writes about pretty dresses (mostly) every day, but: You Don’t Have to Be Pretty. You don’t owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don’t owe it to your mother, you don’t owe it to your children, you don’t owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked “female”.

I’m not saying that you SHOULDN’T be pretty if you want to. (You don’t owe UN-prettiness to feminism, in other words.) Pretty is pleasant, and fun, and satisfying, and makes people smile, often even at you.

When contacted by QI, Erin McKean stated that she wrote the passage above. A picture of the fashion maven Diana Vreeland appeared at the top of the McKean’s post, and this has led to some confusion. However, none of the words in the post were written by Vreeland. The text by McKean has been disseminated through several networks, e.g., Blogger, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Facebook.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: The Secret to Creativity Is Knowing How to Hide Your Sources

Albert Einstein? C. E. M. Joad? Nolan Bushnell? Coco Chanel? Conan O’Brien? Franklin P. Jones? Charles Moore? Bruce Sterling? Joe Sedelmaier? Anonymous?

**Illustration of a blank canvas from Pexels**

Question for Quote Investigator: I have a difficult challenge for you. Here are three versions of a popular maxim:

1) The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
2) Creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
3) The key to originality is hiding your sources.

These expressions are usually attributed to the famous scientist Albert Einstein. However, no one bothers to supply any supporting references. Somehow the true source has magically disappeared, it seems. Would you please help to uncover the accurate provenance?

Reply from Quote Investigator: There is no substantive evidence that Einstein ever made a remark of this type. It is not listed in the comprehensive collection “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein” from Princeton University Press.¹

QI hypothesizes that this maxim evolved from a statement made in 1926 by a prominent English commentator and broadcaster named C. E. M. Joad. The initials abbreviated the full appellation Cyril Edwin Mitchinson Joad. Below is a dated series of phrases outlining the transformational process:

1926: the height of originality is skill in concealing origins
1933: originality is little more than skill in concealing origins
1938: originality was merely skill in concealing origins
1953: originality has been described as the art of concealing origins
1970: originality is the art of concealing your source
1985: creativity is the art of concealing your sources
1989: the secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources

In 1926 Joad published “The Babbitt Warren” in England, and the following year “The New Republic” magazine printed a review. Joad evaluated the United States harshly in his volume, and the reviewer reprinted a sampling of his critical remarks including a precursor of the adage under investigation. Boldface has been added to excerpts:²

Whereas in Europe the height of originality is genius, in America the height of originality is skill in concealing origins.

In no country is personality valued as it is in America, and in no country is it so rare.

Joad was pleased with this expression, and he developed multiple variants which he placed in his later writings. As the saying continued to evolve it was attributed to Franklin P. Jones, Albert Einstein, Coco Chanel and others. Detailed citations are given further below.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Find What You Love, and Let It Kill You

Charles Bukowski? Kinky Friedman? Van Dyke Parks? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: The following grimly comical paean to romanticized self-destruction is often attributed to the poet, novelist, and imbiber Charles Bukowski:

Find what you love and let it kill you.

I have been unable to locate a poem or story written by Bukowski containing this line. Another candidate for authorship is the musician and mystery writer Kinky Friedman. Who do you think crafted this eccentric advice?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest evidence located by QI appeared in the “Houston Chronicle” newspaper of Houston, Texas in 1986. The humorist, singer, and songwriter Kinky Friedman was profiled by the paper because he had branched out into a new field. Friedman had recently authored his first mystery novel, and while discussing his colorful career he employed the adage. Interestingly, the expression contained the word “like” instead of “love”. Boldface has been added to excerpts:¹

Friedman is a little proud of himself that he got past the self-destruct phase of booze and drugs without going any of the usual mystical routes.

“I did it on my own, without AA or Jesus; but, then, I think we all have to find the Jesus of our choosing. I’ve always said: Find what you like, and let it kill you.”

The saying with the word “love” has been credited to Charles Bukowski in recent years, but QI has located no substantive evidence to support this ascription.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Our Greatest Glory Is Not in Never Falling, But in Rising Every Time We Fall

Confucius? Nelson Mandela? Vince Lombardi? Oliver Goldsmith? Ralph Waldo Emerson? Christian Nestell Bovee?

Question for Quote Investigator: The following adage about motivation and perseverance has been attributed to an oddly eclectic group: Chinese philosopher Confucius, football coach Vince Lombardi, activist politician Nelson Mandela, Irish author Oliver Goldsmith, and transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson. Here are four versions. The fourth uses “failing” instead of “falling”:

1) The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

2) The greatest accomplishment is not in never falling, but in rising again after you fall.

3) Our greatest strength lies not in never having fallen, but in rising every time we fall.

4) Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.

I have no idea if any of these ascriptions is correct because I have not seen any documentation listing a source. Would you please help me with this frustrating situation?

Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1760 and 1761 a series of letters written by an imaginary Chinese traveler based in London named Lien Chi Altangi was published in “The Public Ledger” magazine of London. The actual author was an Irishman named Oliver Goldsmith who used the perspective of an outsider from China to comment on and satirize the life and manners of the city. Goldsmith later achieved fame with his novel “The Vicar of Wakefield” and his play “She Stoops to Conquer”.¹

The letters were collected and released in book form in 1762 under the title “The Citizen of the World: or, Letters from a Chinese Philosopher, Residing in London, to His Friends in the East “. The seventh letter from Lien Chi Altangi included an instance of the adage:²

Our greatest glory is, not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

A different phrasing of the maxim was included in the twenty-second letter:

True magnanimity consists not in NEVER falling, but in RISING every time we fall.

QI has located no substantive evidence that the ancient sage Confucius constructed this saying in either form, and QI believes that Goldsmith crafted it. However, the context of these simulated exotic letters led many readers to believe that the author was relaying aphorisms from China. Indeed, the introductory note for the seventh letter specifically referred to Confucius:

The Editor thinks proper to acquaint the reader, that the greatest part of the following letter seems to him to be little more than a rhapsody of sentences borrowed from Confucius, the Chinese philosopher.

By 1801 an edition of “The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith” included the letters that were originally ascribed to Lien Chi Altangi. Hence, the words were properly credited to Goldsmith.³

Yet, by 1831 the saying had been reassigned to Confucius. In later years, the phrasing evolved, and the adage was attributed to a variety of individuals including Ralph Waldo Emerson. In modern times, there is evidence that both Vince Lombardi and Nelson Mandela used the expression. Details for these citations are given further below.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.