Quote Investigator® – Page 181

Quote Origin: The Jawbone of an Ass

Oscar Wilde? Lord Paget? Henry Watterson? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: In modern times a philistine is an uncultured anti-intellectual. In the Bible the Philistine people were enemies of the Israelites. Samson successfully fought against an army of Philistines while wielding the jawbone of an ass (donkey) as a devastating weapon. This background information allows one to understand one of the funniest anecdotes about Oscar Wilde, a tale in which he was outwitted.

Wilde became irritated during a lecture in the United States with the uncomprehending response he received while discussing the importance of aesthetics. He berated his audience and referred to them as philistines.

Finally, a voice in the back of the room called out, “Yes, we are Philistines, and now I see why for the past hour you have been assaulting us with the jawbone of an ass.”

I enjoy this story, but suspect that it is apocryphal. What do you think?

Reply from Quote Investigator: A version of this anecdote featuring Oscar Wilde was in circulation by 1883. The details are given further below. However, japes based on wordplay with the terms “jawbone” and “ass” were being disseminated many years earlier.

In 1833 “Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country” published a comical passage that was implicitly based on the dual meaning of the expression “jawbone of an ass”. In the following excerpt braying referenced the sound made by a donkey or ass. Also, “fall beneath the jaw” meant to be verbally chastised:¹

As the Duke fell before the braying of Sir John Key, so shall Lord Grey fall beneath the jaw of Stockton the baker. The parental earl will be felled by the same weapon as that with which Samson smote the Philistines in the field of Ramath-Lehi.

The 1836 edition of a classic joke book titled “Joe Miller’s Jests with Copious Additions” included an instance of the tale in which the “jawbone of an ass” referred to the jawbone of a boastful individual:²

A young fellow, not quite so wise as Solomon, eating some Cheshire cheese full of mites, one night at the tavern: Now, said he, have I done as much as Sampson, for I have slain my thousands and my ten thousands. Yes, answered one of the company, and with the same weapon too, the jawbone of an ass.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: We Don’t See Things As They Are, We See Them As We Are

Anaïs Nin? Babylonian Talmud? Immanuel Kant? G. T. W. Patrick? H. M. Tomlinson? Steven Covey? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: Our preconceptions can dramatically alter the way we perceive the world. There is a saying attributed to the prominent writer Anaïs Nin that reflects this idea:

We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are.

These words have also been assigned a Talmudic origin. In addition, the popular motivational author Steven Covey used this maxim. Would you please explore this saying?

Reply from Quote Investigator: Anaïs Nin did employ this statement in her 1961 work “Seduction of the Minotaur”. She also presented two illustrations of distinctive perceptions in passages that occurred shortly before she wrote the adage. In the first example, two characters named Lillian and Jay reacted very differently to the Seine River in France:¹

Lillian was bewildered by the enormous discrepancy which existed between Jay’s models and what he painted. Together they would walk along the same Seine river, she would see it silky grey, sinuous and glittering, he would draw it opaque with fermented mud, and a shoal of wine bottle corks and weeds caught in the stagnant edges.

In the second example, Nin described a homeless woman who slept in the middle of the sidewalk in front of the Panthéon in Paris:

…when they tried to remove her to an old woman’s home she had refused saying: “I prefer to stay here where all the great men of France are buried. They keep me company. They watch over me.”

When Nin wrote the adage she did not take credit for the notion. Instead, she pointed to a major religious text:²

Lillian was reminded of the talmudic words: “We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are.”

In 2005 an article in Newsweek magazine contained an epigraph that matched the adage under investigation. The statement was identified as an English translation of a comment from a section within the Talmud:³

“We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.”— Rabbi Shemuel ben Nachmani, as quoted in the Talmudic tractate Berakhot (55b.)

This modern citation may help to give insight into the recurrent ascriptions to the Talmud in previous decades. However, the referenced part of the Talmud was concerned with the interpretation of dreams. Another translation indicated that the original statement was within this domain of dream analysis. Thus, the Newsweek translation may be somewhat loose:⁴

R. Samuel b. Nahmani said in the name of R. Jonathan: A man is shown in a dream only what is suggested by his own thoughts…

The maxim has a long history and close matches in English were in circulation by the 1800s as detailed below.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: You Just Can’t Beat the Person Who Never Gives Up

Babe Ruth? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: George Herman Ruth Jr. was one of the greatest baseball players in history. His famous nickname was Babe Ruth. A popular adage about perseverance and tenacity has been attributed to him. Here are three versions I have found:

(1) You just can’t beat the person who never gives up.
(2) It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.
(3) It’s hard to beat somebody when they don’t give up.

Because there are multiple versions I am beginning to wonder whether Babe Ruth actually spoke or wrote these words. It is listed in multiple books of sports quotations without any source. Would you please examine this topic?

Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1940 “The Rotarian” magazine published an article titled “Bat It Out!” with the byline George Herman (‘Babe’) Ruth. “The Rotarian” was published by Rotary International, an enduring civic organization known for its Rotary Clubs. In the penultimate paragraph of the essay, Babe Ruth presented the adage for the guidance of his readers. Boldface has been added to excerpts:¹

One more point: A good player never stops until he’s actually out, running as hard for first base on the almost-certain-to-be-caught fly or grounder as he would if he were sprinting the 100-yard dash.

If Henry Ford hadn’t kept going in the early days despite ridicule, we would never have seen the Ford car. It’s been much the same with almost every great man you could name. He kept plugging when everybody said his chances of making first base were nil. You just can’t beat the person who never gives up.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Any Fool Can Paint a Picture, But It Takes a Wise Person To Be Able To Sell It

Samuel Butler? Apocryphal? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: I’ve always wanted to be an artist. But digitization and the internet have upended so many domains, e.g., music, photography, graphic art, and books. Now there are artists raising money on Kickstarter. Apparently, you cannot simply create a work of art; you must personally market and promote it. I’m trying to recall a statement by the controversial nineteenth century novelist Samuel Butler. Here is my vague memory:

Any fool can create a piece of art. Only a wise person can sell it.

The cogency of this adage has grown over the years. Can you tell me what Butler actually said?

Reply from Quote Investigator: Butler did make a remark of this type about painting. The statement was published posthumously in a book titled “Further Extracts from the Note-Books of Samuel Butler”. The introduction explained that Butler filled a sequence of notebooks over a long period of time with miscellaneous jottings:¹

Early in life Samuel Butler acquired the habit of carrying a Note-Book and of writing down in it anything he wanted to remember; it might be something he heard someone say, more often it was something he said himself. Or perhaps it was the germ of a passage in whatever book he happened to be writing at the moment.

Butler consolidated material on small notebooks by copying it to larger notebooks, and he sometimes revised his writings. The adage about painting was the following:²

ART NOTE
Any fool can paint a picture but it takes a wise man to be able to sell it.

The above text was written in a notebook sometime between 1883 and 1887, and it may have been revised sometime between 1897 and 1898. Butler died in 1902, and the notebook extracts containing the quotation were published in 1934.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: You Can’t Use Up Creativity. The More You Use, The More You Have

Maya Angelou? Oscar Wilde? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: Recently on Pinterest and Twitter I have seen the following quotation attributed to the famous wit Oscar Wilde:

You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.

However, I thought these were the words of the acclaimed poet and memoirist Maya Angelou. Would you please resolve this conflict?

Reply from Quote Investigator: There is no substantive evidence that Oscar Wilde made this remark. It is not listed in “The Wit & Wisdom of Oscar Wilde”, an extensive collection compiled by quotation expert Ralph Keyes.¹

The earliest evidence known to QI appeared in a periodical in 1982 which was initiating a series of articles:²

With this edition, Bell Telephone Magazine begins a series to profile those people whose attitudes and approaches to problems and challenges bear the mark of creativity — of courage, of talent, of innovative problem solving.

Maya Angelou was the first subject of the series, and her wide accomplishments as a writer, singer, dancer, actress, and teacher were discussed. Angelou commented on the inexhaustibility of creativity. Boldface has been added to excerpts:³

“You can’t use up creativity,” she stresses. “The more you use, the more you have. It is our shame and our loss when we discourage people from being creative. We set apart those people who should not be set apart, people whom we assume don’t have a so-called artistic temperament, and that is stupid.

“Too often creativity is smothered rather than nurtured. There has to be a climate in which new ways of thinking, perceiving, questioning are encouraged. People also have to feel they are needed.”

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: If I Am To Speak Ten Minutes, I Need a Week for Preparation; If an Hour, I Am Ready Now

Woodrow Wilson? Abraham Lincoln? Rufus Choate? Thomas B. Macaulay? William Howard Taft? Mark Twain? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: A biography of President Woodrow Wilson included an entertaining quotation about the preparation time needed for speeches of varying lengths. Here is an excerpt from the book:¹

A member of the Cabinet congratulated Wilson on introducing the vogue of short speeches and asked him about the time it took him to prepare his speeches. He said:

“It depends. If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if fifteen minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days; if an hour, I am ready now.”

This biography was published in 1946, i.e., many years after the death of Wilson in 1924. Could you search for earlier support of this quotation?

Reply from Quote Investigator: QI has located a match for a close variant quotation in 1918 that was attributed to Woodrow Wilson. The details are given further below.

There is a family of statements expressing this central idea, and it has been evolving for more than one hundred years. Tracing this family is difficult because of the high variability of the wording.

The first relevant instance found by QI was spoken in 1893 by the Governor of California. He ascribed the words to Abraham Lincoln, but this linkage was weak because Lincoln died decades earlier in 1865.This rudimentary version mentioned two different speech lengths instead of four:²

Lincoln once made a most apt suggestion applicable to such cases. When asked to appear upon some important occasion and deliver a five-minute speech, he said that he had no time to prepare five-minute speeches, but that he could go and speak an hour at any time.

In 1895 a minister named J. N. Hall gave a speech at a meeting of the Men’s Sunday Evening Club as reported in a Rockford, Illinois newspaper. Hall ascribed an instance of the saying to Rufus Choate who was an orator and Senator from Massachusetts who died decades earlier in 1859. This version was tripartite; however, the third part referred to talking all day instead of speaking for an hour:³

There is a great deal in condensation in these days of compressed yeast and potted ham, and I am reminded of an incident told of Rufus Choate, who being asked to make a speech on a certain occasion said, “If it is to be a minute speech I shall need four weeks in which to prepare, if a half hour speech, then two weeks, but if I am to talk all day I’m ready now.”

The QI website also has an entry for a popular related quotation: “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter”. Here is a link.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: The Person Who is Clever and Lazy Qualifies for the Highest Leadership Posts

Helmuth von Moltke the Elder? Erich von Manstein? Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord? Douglas MacArthur? Frederick the Great? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: In self-help books I have repeatedly seen a two-by-two matrix used to evaluate individuals. The four elements in the matrix were labeled: Brilliant & Lazy, Brilliant & Energetic, Dumb & Lazy, and Dumb & Energetic. Curiously, the brilliant and lazy were extolled above all others.

Sometimes a different vocabulary was employed. Brilliant was replaced by smart, bright, clever, or intelligent. Energetic was replaced by industrious or diligent. Dumb was replaced by stupid.

This four-class categorization has been ascribed to several German generals, e.g., Helmuth von Moltke, Erich von Manstein, Carl von Clausewitz, and Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord. Would you please explore the origins of this matrix?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest evidence located by QI appeared in January 1933 in a periodical called “Army, Navy & Air Force Gazette” based in Great Britain. A passage attributed to German General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord described the placing of officers into four classes.

The text was reprinted under the title “Selecting Officers” in the “United States Naval Institute Proceedings” in March 1933¹ and in the “Review of Military Literature: The Command and General Staff School Quarterly” in September 1933.² Boldface has been added to excerpts:

General Freiherr von Hammerstein-Equord, the present chief of the German Army, has a method of selecting officers which strikes us as being highly original and peculiarly un-Prussian. According to Exchange, a Berlin newspaper has printed the following as his answer to a query as to how he judged his officers: “I divide my officers into four classes as follows: The clever, the industrious, the lazy, and the stupid. Each officer always possesses two of these qualities.

Those who are clever and industrious I appoint to the General Staff. Use can under certain circumstances be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy qualifies for the highest leadership posts. He has the requisite nerves and the mental clarity for difficult decisions. But whoever is stupid and industrious must be got rid of, for he is too dangerous.”

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Choose a Lazy Person To Do a Hard Job Because That Person Will Find an Easy Way To Do It

Bill Gates? Frank Gilbreth Sr., Clarence Bleicher? Walter Chrysler? Apocryphal? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: There is a quotation offering eccentric advice that is often attributed to the billionaire software magnate Bill Gates:

I will always choose a lazy person to do a difficult (or hard) job because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.

However, a very similar comment has been ascribed to Walter Chrysler who was famous for starting the Chrysler car company:

Whenever there is a hard job to be done I assign it to a lazy man; he is sure to find an easy way of doing it.

Are these really the words of Gates or Chrysler?

Reply from Quote Investigator: Probably not. QI has located no substantive support for the claim that Bill Gates or Walter Chrysler made this remark.

The earliest evidence known to QI championing the counter-intuitive adroitness of the lazy man appeared in an article published in “Popular Science Monthly” in 1920. Frank B. Gilbreth Sr. evaluated the motions of workmen to determine the most efficient techniques to perform tasks:¹

Gilbreth studied the methods of various bricklayers—the poor workmen and the best ones, and he stumbled upon an astonishing fact of great importance and significance. He found that he could learn most from the lazy man!

Most of the chance improvements in human motions that eliminate unnecessary movement and reduce fatigue have been hit upon, Gilbreth thinks, by men who were lazy—so lazy that every needless step counted.”

Another important thing Gilbreth noted was that the so-called expert factory workers are often the most wasteful of their motions and strength. Because of their energy and ability to work at high speed, such men may be able to produce a large quantity of good work, and thus qualify as experts, but they tire themselves out of all proportion to the amount of work done.

The above valuable citation was located by librarian Erica Cathers who shared it with QI.

Gilbreth’s ideas were influential, and his comments about the “lazy man” probably reached the ears of many managers in industry. In 1947 an automobile executive named Clarence Bleicher testified before a U.S. Senate committee. He was the president of a division of Chrysler Corporation that built DeSoto automobiles. QI hypothesizes that Bleicher’s remarks were refashioned over time to yield the modern quotations. The following excerpt includes a question that was posed by Allen J. Ellender who was a Senator from Louisiana:²

Mr. BLEICHER. …So if you have got a job that is tough—I have taught my foremen this for some months now—if you get a tough job, one that is hard, and you haven’t got a way to make it easy, put a lazy man on it, and after 10 days he will have an easy way to do it, and you perfect that way and you will have it in pretty good shape. [Laughter.]…

Senator ELLENDER. You say you would put a lazy man on a job to find an easy way to do it. Why would you say a lazy man rather than a hard worker?

Mr. BLEICHER. Because the lazy man will find an easy way to do it. He may not do much, but he will find an easy way to do it. [Laughter.]

Senator ELLENDER. That has been your experience?

Mr. BLEICHER. That has been my experience.

A thematically related viewpoint was expressed by German General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord in the 1930s. However, Hammerstein was discussing the selection of military officers, and he assigned the greatest value to individuals who were both lazy and smart. The quotation under examination here does not mention intelligence. The QI entry on the Hammerstein quotation is available here.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, You Have No Heart. If You Are Not a Conservative at 35 You Have No Brain

Edmund Burke? Anselme Batbie? Victor Hugo? King Oscar II of Sweden? George Bernard Shaw? François Guizot? Jules Claretie? Georges Clemenceau? Benjamin Disraeli? Winston Churchill? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: Some individuals change their political orientation as they grow older. There is a family of sayings that present a mordant judgment on this ideological evolution. Here are three examples:

Not to be a républicain at twenty is proof of want of heart; to be one at thirty is proof of want of head.

If you’re not a socialist before you’re twenty-five, you have no heart; if you are a socialist after twenty-five, you have no head.

If you aren’t a liberal when you’re young, you have no heart, but if you aren’t a middle-aged conservative, you have no head.

Political terminology has changed over time, and it differs in distinct locales. Within the context of these sayings the terms “républicain”, “socialist”, and “liberal” were all on the left of the political spectrum. Would you please explore this complex topic?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest strong match known to QI appeared in a history book titled “Histoire de la Révolution de 1870-71” by French literary figure Jules Claretie. The book included a reprint of a public 1872 letter from academic and politician Anselme Polycarpe Batbie who employed the saying. Interestingly, Batbie, credited the remark to “Burke”. Below is an excerpt in French followed by an English translation. Boldface has been added:¹

Plusieurs de mes amis m’engageaient à répondre par le trait célèbre de Burke: « Celui qui n’est pas républicain à vingt ans fait douter de la générosité de son âme; mais celui qui, après trente ans, persévère, fait douter de la rectitude de son esprit. »

Several of my friends urged me to respond with Burke’s famous line: “Anyone who is not a republican at twenty casts doubt on the generosity of his soul; but he who, after thirty years, perseveres, casts doubt on the soundness of his mind.”

Batbie was probably referring to the statesman Edmund Burke who was noted for his support of the American Revolution and his later condemnation of the French Revolution. However, QI has not located the quotation under investigation in the writings of Burke. Anselme Batbie lived between 1828 and 1887.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: I Have Made an International Reputation for Myself by Thinking Once or Twice a Week

George Bernard Shaw? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: The famous playwright, critic, and essayist George Bernard Shaw has been credited with a remark about his world-wide fame. He entertainingly stated that his acclaim rested on his ability to engage in thought once or twice a week because others attempted to think only two or three times a year. Would you be willing to trace this quotation?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest instance of this remark known to QI was published in the mass-circulation periodical “Reader’s Digest” in May 1933. The statement was printed in a section called “Quotable Quotes” together with a miscellaneous collection of other items:¹

George Bernard Shaw once addressed a company as follows: “I suppose that you seldom think. Few people think more than two or three times a year. I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.”

Unfortunately, the passage did not present any details about when the words were spoken nor was the audience identified. Shaw died in 1950, and the expression coupled with this ascription achieved wide-spread dissemination many years before his death.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.