Quote Investigator® – Page 191

Quote Origin: If At First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again. Then Quit. There’s No Use Being a Damn Fool About It

W. C. Fields? Stephen Leacock? Justin J. Burns? Henry Morgan? George Burns? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: A well-known saying about persistence has become an energyless cliché:

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

The following parody version is usually attributed to the famous comedian W. C. Fields:

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it.

Did Fields create this twisted proverb?

Reply from Quote Investigator: Based on current evidence QI believes that it is unlikely W. C. Fields wrote or said the statement above. He died in 1946, and the earliest known instance of the quotation attributed to him was published in September 1949. An anonymous version of the saying was already in circulation by 1946. Details are given further below.

A very similar joke was crafted by the Canadian humorist Stephen Leacock and published in 1917. QI hypothesizes that the 1940s quip evolved from Leacock’s words. Here is an excerpt from his comical essay “Simple Stories of Success or How to Succeed in Life”:¹

According to all the legends and story books the principal factor in success is perseverance. Personally, I think there is nothing in it. If anything, the truth lies the other way.

There is an old motto that runs, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” This is nonsense. It ought to read—”If at first you don’t succeed, quit, quit at once.”

If you can’t do a thing, more or less, the first time you try, you will never do it. Try something else while there is yet time.

In September 1917 a Flint, Michigan newspaper printed a short filler item with a parody saying:²

Motto of the Russian army: If at first you don’t succeed, quit, quit again.

In 1925 the Buffalo Evening News of Buffalo, New York reprinted Stephen Leacock’s essay which included the excerpt given previously. The following title was bannered across the top of the page:³

“If at First You Don’t Succeed, Quit, Quit at Once”

In April 1946 a version of the saying under investigation was printed in a trade magazine called Commercial Car Journal. A page titled “Laugh It Off” presented a collection of jokes compiled by Skag Shannon. This instance used the word “silly” instead of “damn fool” and the words were attributed to an anonymous “Fireman”:⁴

Our Fireman says, “If you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then stop. No use being silly about it.”

The day after the death of W. C. Fields in December 1946 the Associated Press news service released an obituary that included a discussion of lawsuits that were filed by Fields and his physician over compensation. Fields lost the lawsuit, and he appealed the decision. Interestingly, Fields was quoted using a simple instance of the cliché maxim. He did not employ the derisive quotation that has been attributed to him in modern times:⁵

“I struck out this time,” Fields told reporters, “but next time I’ll hit a home run. Onward and upward’s my motto. Try, try again.” He appealed and the judgment was pared to $2000.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Do One Thing Every Day That Scares You

Mary Schmich? Eleanor Roosevelt? Kurt Vonnegut? Baz Luhrmann? Ralph Waldo Emerson? Jane Addams? Mark Toby?

Question for Quote Investigator: To achieve personal growth it is sometimes necessary to move outside of a comfort zone. Unjustified fears can constrain exploration and positive development. Here is a saying I find valuable:

Do one thing every day that scares you.

The above advice is typically attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt who was First Lady for many years and a noted social activist. But I have been unable to find any justification for this ascription. What do you think?

Reply from Quote Investigator: An exact match for this quotation appeared within a June 1997 essay by Mary Schmich, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. She began her article with the statement: “Inside every adult lurks a graduation speaker dying to get out”, and she continued by presenting a staccato sequence of items of advice aimed at young students. Boldface has been added to excerpts below:¹

Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts. Don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Mary Schmich’s essay went viral and became a smash hit by August 1997, but the words were not credited to her. Instead, the work was retitled “Wear Sunscreen” and was incorrectly described as a graduation speech given by the well-known author Kurt Vonnegut at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).²

In 1999 the essay was transformed into a popular spoken-word song titled “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)” by the prominent film director Baz Luhrmann who credited Schmich. The quotation was included in the lyrics.³ ⁴

The famous transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson employed a precursor to the saying in the nineteenth century. The conception of incrementally conquering fears as a pathway to growth evolved over many decades. The following five instances of expressions are examined in greater depth further below:

Always do what you are afraid to do. (1841) —Popularized by Ralph Waldo Emerson

To do what you are afraid to do is to guide your life by fear. How much better not to be afraid to do what you believe in doing! (circa 1881) —Jane Addams

You must do the thing you think you cannot do. (1960) —Eleanor Roosevelt

I’m supposed to do one thing every day that I want to do but I’m afraid to do. (1961) —Mark Toby

Do one thing every day that scares you. (1997) —Mary Schmich

Here are selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: They Haven’t Done Anything to My Book. It’s Right There on the Shelf

Raymond Chandler? James M. Cain? Alan Moore? William S. Burroughs? Larry Niven? Stephen King? Elmore Leonard? William Faulkner? Owen Sheers?

Question for Quote Investigator: I have heard the following anecdote told about Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, Stephen King, and Elmore Leonard. A journalist once visited the house of a popular author who had sold the movie rights to several of his novels to Hollywood. The quality of the resultant movies had been lamented by critics. The reporter attempted to commiserate with the writer by saying that Hollywood had ruined his books, but the author led the visitor into his study and pointed to a bookshelf:

They haven’t done anything to my books. They’re still right there on the shelf. They’re fine.

Is this story accurate? Who were the participants?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest evidence for this tale known to QI was published in the New York Times Book Review in March 1969. The influential cultural critic John Leonard visited James M. Cain at his home in Hyattsville, Maryland. Cain had written several best-selling books in the 1930s and 1940s including: “The Postman Always Rings Twice”, “Mildred Pierce”, and “Double Indemnity”. These works were transformed into movies of variable quality. Leonard reported on the remarks of Cain:¹

All the early novels were made into movies. (Hollywood made $12-million from Cain; Cain made $100,000.) He has seen only two of the movies made from his books. “There are some foods some people just don’t like. I just don’t like movies. People tell me, don’t you care what they’ve done to your book? I tell them, they haven’t done anything to my book. It’s right there on the shelf. They paid me and that’s the end of it.”

The citation above was located by top researcher Bill Mullins. In 1974 a book titled “Graham Greene: The Films of His Fiction” referenced the comments of Cain. The phrasing presented matched the version in the New York Times:²

The American novelist James M. Cain once remarked that he had rarely gone to see the screen version of one of his novels. “People tell me, don’t you care what they’ve done to your book? I tell them, they haven’t done anything to my book. It’s right there on the shelf. They paid me and that’s the end of it.”

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: A Statue Has Never Been Set Up in Honour of a Critic

Zig Ziglar? Jean Sibelius? Bengt de Törne? Martha Graham? Agnes De Mille? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: When the famous motivational speaker Zig Ziglar died last year I saw a list of ten quotations ascribed to him. One was about criticism:

There has never been a statue erected to honor a critic.

I thought this was first said by a prominent music composer or dancer. Would you please explore this saying?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest evidence of this saying known to QI appeared in 1937 in “Sibelius: A Close-Up” which discussed the life and works of the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. This book was authored by another composer named Bengt de Törne, and he described an exchange he had with Sibelius. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

Then his voice changed in tone as he told me that he wanted to give me some good advice. ‘Never pay any attention to what critics say,’ he proceeded, and expatiated on this theme. When I ventured to put in the remark that their articles might sometimes be of great importance, he cut me short. ‘Remember,’ he said, ‘a statue has never been set up in honour of a critic!’

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: All Actors Are Cattle

Alfred Hitchcock? Leonard Lyons? Apocryphal?

A herd of cattle grazing on top of a green hillside. — **Illustration of a group of cattle from Quaritsch Photography at Unsplash**

Question for Quote Investigator: Alfred Hitchcock was one of the greatest movie directors of the twentieth century in my opinion. A controversial quotation about actors has long been attributed to him:

All actors are cattle.

Did he really say this? Who was he speaking to?

Reply from Quote Investigator: There is good evidence that Alfred Hitchcock did refer to actors as cattle by 1940, and his astringent remark became widely known in Hollywood. Eventually he provided elaborations and playful variations. Details are given further below.

Hitchcock was not the first person to describe actors as cattle. A book published in 1900 discussed a court case between a prominent actor named William Charles Macready and a stage manager named Bunn. The manager was portrayed negatively because of his harsh attitude toward actors. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:¹

The plaintiff in the case got little or no sympathy from the public, for he belonged to the order of manager, not yet totally extinct, who looks upon actors as cattle and plays as mere pens wherein to exhibit them at so much profit.

The earliest instance located by QI of Hitchcock using the phrase was reported by the popular gossip columnist Leonard Lyons in the Washington Post in July 1940. The remark was contained within a larger joke that zinged the acting skills of George Raft who often portrayed gangsters in melodramas:²

When Raft, incidentally, appeared in “The House Across the Bay,” his director was absent for one day, and Alfred Hitchcock was asked to help, by directing some closeups. â€œYou know,â€ Hitchcock warned Raft, â€œthat I think all actors are cattle?â€ Raft replied, “Yes, I knowâ€”but I’m no actor.”

In October 1940 an Associated Press article with a Hollywood dateline included an instance of the quotation. The George Raft joke was altered, and the location of the anecdote was moved from a film set to the home of a well-known actress:³ ⁴

There is a locally-famous story about this Englishman’s attitude toward actors. One evening at Norma Shearer’s, breaking a conversational lull, Hitchcock pulled himself up portentously and announced: â€œAll actors are cattle.â€ He hoped to provoke a stimulating argument.

After a stunned silence, George Raft, so goes the story, said â€œBut no one ever called me an actor.â€
And Hitchcock replied, quietly: â€œYes, I know.â€

Every actor in town knows the story, but all who have had the pleasure of working with the pudgy director say that whatever he may think of them as a class, he certainly is one of the few who can get the most out of all actors at all times.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Don’t Tell Me the Moon Is Shining; Show Me the Glint of Light on Broken Glass

Anton Chekhov? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: Recently I was reading a collection of writing tips designed for neophyte scribblers, and I came across a valuable piece of advice that was attributed to Anton Chekhov:

Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.

I have seen this statement several times before, and I believe it provides excellent direction, but no one states where it originally appeared. Did Chekhov really offer this counsel?

Reply from Quote Investigator: QI hypothesizes that this expression was constructed as a summary of the instructions Anton Chekhov gave to his brother in a letter written in 1886. The summary was eventually re-assigned directly to Chekhov. Below is an English language version of a passage from the letter which was originally written in Russian. The translation was performed by Avrahm Yarmolinsky and published in “The Unknown Chekhov” in 1954:¹

In May, 1886, Chekhov wrote to his brother Alexander, who had literary ambitions: “In descriptions of Nature one must seize on small details, grouping them so that when the reader closes his eyes he gets a picture. For instance, you’ll have a moonlit night if you write that on the mill dam a piece of glass from a broken bottle glittered like a bright little star, and that the black shadow of a dog or a wolf rolled past like a ball.”

There are crucial points of commonality between this passage and the abbreviated expression. Chekhov suggested using details to communicate the presence of moonlight. Also, the distinctive phrase “broken bottle glittered” was transformed into “glint of light on broken glass” in the summary.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It

Yogi Berra? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: Yogi Berra was a brilliant baseball player and manager. He is also famous for his comically wise sayings which are known as ‘Yogiisms’. This is my favorite on the topic of making decisions:

When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

Is this an authentic Yogiism?

Reply from Quote Investigator: This precise quotation was printed in the salient 1998 work “The Yogi Book: I Really Didn’t Say Everything I Said!”, and its author Yogi Berra provided some context for his statement:¹

I was giving Joe Garagiola directions from New York to our house in Montclair when I said this.

Garagiola was a long-time friend of Berra and a fellow baseball player.

Intriguingly, this same statement was used as part of a joke that was printed in several U.S. newspapers such as the “Fort Gibson New Era”² of Gibson, Oklahoma and the “Correctionville News”³ of Correctionville, Iowa one hundred years ago in 1913. The humor was based on wordplay and referenced the additional meaning of ‘fork’ as a dining utensil:

Wise Directions

“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
“I will, if it is a silver one.”

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: I Never Think of the Future. It Comes Soon Enough

Albert Einstein? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: The following saying is attributed to the scientific genius Albert Einstein:

I never think of the future – it comes soon enough.

Did he really say this? When did he say it?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest evidence of this saying located by QI was printed in a newspaper article on December 12, 1930 by David P. Sentner who was a correspondent for the International News Service (INS). Albert Einstein was a passenger aboard the Red Star Liner Belgenland which docked in New York, and Sentner reported on the questions that were addressed to Einstein by a group of reporters. One query concerned his remarkable theory of relativity:¹

“Can you explain your theory simply for the masses of America?” he was asked.
“No,” he answered running his fingers through his shock of graying hair, “it would take me three days to do it.”

Sentner noted that Einstein was primarily not speaking English during the colloquy; hence, translation was required to surmount the language barrier for most of the American news people. It was during this interchange that the scientist made his now famous remark about the future:²

Professor Einstein spoke almost entirely in German, but the barrage of questions and answers were translated for the benefit of the distinguished visitor and reporters by a number of interpreters, official and volunteer. The scientist was asked whether he had anticipated the interview would be such a trying ordeal as it turned out to be.

“I never think of the future,” he said. “It comes soon enough.”

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Count Your Age by Friends, Not Years. Count Your Life by Smiles, Not Tears

John Lennon? Birthday Card? Dixie Lee Crosby? Dixie Willson? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: I am a big fan of the Beatles, and I think I have a good mental picture of my favorite band member, John Lennon. The following popular pair of statements is often credited to Lennon, but I think the attribution is false:

Count your age by friends, not years.
Count your life by smiles, not tears.

Disagreement with a friend of mine about these words has led to a social rift. The prevalence of incorrect ascriptions is irritating to me. Yet, an expression like this can have a deep emotional resonance for an individual, and skepticism about an attribution can be viewed as callous. Perhaps an exploration of this saying will help to repair our relationship.

Reply from Quote Investigator: The musician John Lennon was born in 1940. The earliest evidence of this quotation located by QI was printed in a newspaper in 1927. Hence, Lennon did not craft these two statements. They were part of a larger poem that was printed in a birthday card given to a woman in Richfield Springs, New York when she attained her ninetieth year:¹

The following quotation is taken from one of the many beautiful greeting cards:

“Count your garden by the flowers,
never by the leaves that fall;
Count your days by golden hours
don’t remember clouds at all!
Count the night by stars, not shadows
Count your life with smiles—not tears
And with joy on today’s birthday,
count your age by friends—not years!”

In 1931 a newspaper in Roswell, New Mexico published a version of the poem under the title “Count Your Blessings” without an attribution. The first four lines were identical to those given above. The end of the poem was slightly different, e.g., the mention of a birthday was omitted:²

Count your nights by stars — not shadows;
Count your life with smiles, not tears — and with joy
Count your age by friends, not years.
–Author Unknown To Us.

In 1933 a newspaper in Anniston, Alabama printed an article titled “How ‘Count Your Garden’ Was Written”. The author of the poem was identified as Dixie Willson:³

Into the Volland office one day came Dixie Willson. She had come to see the editor. “I’m broke,” she told the editor. “And not only broke, but I haven’t eaten in so long that the old belt won’t pull any tighter. But I can write verses. If I should write a greeting verse for you, would you buy it?” “Write it, and I’ll see what I can do,” said the editor.

The article stated that Willson wrote a verse that was accepted, and she received $5 from the editor. Willson and the editor went to dinner which she generously paid for with the money. Finis for the $5.

But it wasn’t finis for the verse: it was the beginning of an edition that has passed the half-million publication mark. For the verse that she wrote is this favorite of greeting card buyers everywhere:

Count your garden by the flowers, never by the leaves that fall;
Count your days by golden hours, don’t remember clouds at all!
Count your nights by stars—not shadows; count your life with smiles—not tears.
And with joy, on this your birthday—count your age by friends—not years.

In February 1935 an inquiry about the poem was printed in the “Queries and Answers” section of the New York Times:⁴

S. H. requests the title and the name of the author of the poem which contains the following lines, possibly not quite correctly quoted:

Don’t count your troubles
By the leaves that fall.
The poem ends with these lines:
Don’t count your birthdays by the years that pass
But by the friends you have.

In March 1935 a partial answer to the inquiry was published in the “Queries and Answers” section of the New York Times:⁵

The poem desired by S. H. (Feb. 3) appears as a popular birthday card and bears no author’s name.

After the remark above, the paper printed a poem very similar to the one given in the 1927 citation, and after the poem the following comment appeared:

Several readers sent these lines, but none of them was able to give the title or the author’s name. One correspondent informs us that the poem has been set to music by Harriet Ware and published by G. Schirmer, Inc.

In April 1935 a sardonic article about the greeting-card business by E. B. White was published in The New Yorker magazine. The article presented a different identity for the author of the poem:⁶

Bing Crosby’s wife, Dixie Lee, is one of the people who have lived to regret the passing of the royalty system. Miss Lee, about six years ago, sold to the P. F. Volland Company the following poem:

Count your garden by the flowers,
Never by the leaves that fall,
Count your days by golden hours,
Don’t remember clouds at all;
Count your nights by stars, not shadows,
Count your life with smiles, not tears,
And with joy on this, your birthday,
Count your age by friends, not years.

The firm paid her five bucks, and she blew most of it taking one of the editors to lunch. The next few months she watched her greeting become a best-seller.

The year specified in the article for the sale of the poem was six years before 1935, i.e., in 1929, but the card was already in circulation by 1927. This slight inaccuracy does not rule out the correctness of the authorship indicated. Also, The New Yorker was once praised for the high-quality of its fact-checking.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Teach a Parrot to Say ‘Supply and Demand’ and You Have an Economist

Thomas Carlyle? Irving Fisher? Joseph Schumpeter? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: There is a humorous saying about parrots and economists that is often attributed to the philosopher and satirist Thomas Carlyle. Sometimes the joke is simply ascribed to Anonymous. Here are three versions:

1: Teach a parrot the terms ‘supply and demand’ and you’ve got an economist.
2: It’s easy to train economists. Just teach a parrot to say ‘Supply and Demand’.
3: You can make even a parrot into a learned political economist. All he must learn are the two words ‘supply’ and ‘demand’.

I have not seen any precise references supporting the linkage to Thomas Carlyle. Would you be willing to attempt to trace this comical barb?

Reply from Quote Investigator: In the 1800s the words ‘supply and demand’ were sometimes derided as “parrot words”. In addition, disapproving terms such as “parrot-like” and “parrot-cries” were used in critiques aimed at economic analyses invoking “supply and demand”. In 1897 an individual using the phrase “supply and demand” was said to be acting “like a trained parrot”.

In 1907 the prominent Yale economist Irving Fisher included a version of the parrot joke in a book about interest rates. Fisher did not claim credit for the jibe, and he left the attribution anonymous. In 1931 an author used the following statement to present a tentative ascription for the parrot jest: “It was probably Thomas Carlyle’s none too gentle pen”. That was the earliest connection to Carlyle located by QI. Since Carlyle died in 1881 this late attribution provided very weak evidence.

Here are selected citations in chronological order.