Quote Investigator® – Page 200

Quote Origin: Keep Away from People Who Try to Belittle Your Ambitions

Mark Twain? Gay Zenola MacLaren? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: The following compelling advice is credited to Mark Twain in self-help books and on websites. It is valuable guidance in my opinion:

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

While searching to learn more about the saying I came across another version which used a different wording. The word “people” was replaced with “those”, and “feel” was replaced with “believe”:

Keep away from those who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you believe that you too can become great.

Did Twain say or write either of these expressions?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest evidence known to QI was published in 1938 in the memoir of an extraordinary elocutionist who gave recitals at Chautauquas around the United States. Chautauquas were assemblies that combined entertainment and education by presenting lecturers, preachers, musicians, and other performers to a largely rural audience. Gay Zenola MacLaren wrote in her memoir that she met Mark Twain when she was still a child who aspired to be a great performer. Twain offered her the following counsel:¹

He opened the door for me himself. As we said good-bye, he put his fingers lightly under my chin and lifted my head up so that my eyes met his.

“Little girl,” he said earnestly, “keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”

The date of the meeting was not listed in the book. The distinctive artistry of MacLaren was described in a promotional brochure for her act:²

Gay Zenola MacLaren attends the production of a modern play five times, and then, without ever having read the original book or dramatization, or, in fact, any of the lines in any way, can go upon the Lyceum or Chautauqua platform and give an imitative recital of the entire production, impersonating every character. This, at once, places Miss MacLaren as an entertainer in a class entirely by herself.

In 1901 a review of a performance by MacLaren was published in a Brooklyn, New York newspaper:³

She has an almost ventriloquistic power of changing her voice from the light tones of women to the heavier speaking of men, so the recital was thoroughly well balanced and was given with intelligence.

In 1909 the periodical “The Lyceumite and Talent” printed an advertisement for Gay Zenola MacLaren that included a testimonial statement from Mark Twain:⁴

Opinions from Prominent Men

An unusually gifted young lady. Mark Twain.

I do not hesitate to say that I think Miss MacLaren’s work phenomenal. She is a genius. Major James B. Pond.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: When I Read About the Evils of Smoking, I Gave Up Reading

Groucho Marx? Henry G. Strauss? Phil Harris? Joe E. Lewis? Anonymous?

Topic: Smoking? Drinking?

Question for Quote Investigator: There is a family of jokes about smoking, drinking, and reading. The quips certainly do not reflect the actions of role models, but they are funny:

When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.

He read so much about the ill effects of smoking that he gave up – reading!

When I read about the bad effects of drinking I decided to give up reading.

A man was so horrified by what he read about effects of smoking that he gave up reading.

When did this family originate? Were the initial gags about smoking or drinking?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest evidence located by QI appeared in 1950. The topic of the quip was smoking, and the words were ascribed to a well-known comedy superstar:¹

Groucho Marx says he became disturbed over the effects of smoking, after reading an article on the subject, he gave up reading. (That’s right, not smoking. That’s Groucho.)

In 1954 a version of the joke was told in the Parliament of the United Kingdom where it was credited to Henry G. Strauss who later became Lord Conesford. Strictly speaking Strauss assigned the gag to an anonymous American:²

As I listened to the hon. Baronets I could not help thinking of a story told to the House two weeks ago by my hon. and learned Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. H. Strauss) about the American who was so horrified at what he had read in the newspapers about smoking that he gave up reading.

The comedic remark credited to Strauss was reported in North American papers, e.g., the Lethbridge Herald or Lethbridge, Alberta,³ and the Big Spring Daily Herald of Big Spring, Texas.⁴

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: The Only Unnatural Sex Act Is That Which One Cannot Perform

Alfred Kinsey? Richard Brinsley Sheridan? Xaviera Hollander? William Burroughs? Sigmund Freud? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: Years ago I read a statement credited to the researcher Alfred Kinsey who was famous for producing the Kinsey Reports on sexual behavior. I do not remember the exact phrasing but the expression was similar to this:

The only unnatural act is one you cannot perform.

Kinsey’s book “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male” was released in 1948, and “Sexual Behavior in the Human Female” was published in 1953. Both of these books were very controversial when they were published. I looked through them but was unable to find the quotation. Could you explore this saying?

Reply from Quote Investigator: A precursor to this statement appeared in a satirical comedy by the prominent Irish playwright and poet Richard Brinsley Sheridan in 1779. “The Critic: or, A Tragedy Rehearsed” was first performed in London, and it included the following line in Act 2, Scene 1:

Certainly nothing is unnatural that is not physically impossible.

This statement appeared within the comedy when a character named Puff was explaining the plot of another play which contained a love match between two characters of different nationalities:¹ ²

SNEER. No scandal about Queen Elizabeth, I hope?
PUFF. O Lud! no, no.—I only suppose the Governor of Tilbury Fort’s daughter to be in love with the son of the Spanish admiral.
SNEER. Oh, is that all?
DANGLE. Excellent, Efaith!—I see it at once.—But won’t this appear rather improbable?
PUFF. To be sure it will—but what the plague! a play is not to shew occurrences that happen every day, but things just so strange, that tho’ they never did, they might happen.
SNEER. Certainly nothing is unnatural, that is not physically impossible.

QI has not yet located the statement in a work written by Alfred Kinsey. The earliest evidence known to QI of a close match appeared in 1963 in an article in the Mattachine Review by Harold L. Call who was President of the Mattachine Society. The words were credited to Alfred Kinsey:³

I suggest that the varied forms of sexual behavior are simply a part of nature. I urge others to regard them so. I remember Dr. Kinsey once said that the only unnatural sex act is that which one cannot perform. Then let’s start accepting the fact, and chuck into the rubbish can a lot of the prudish nonsense the anti-sexualists are feeding us.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: I Fear the Day That Technology Will Surpass Our Human Interaction

Albert Einstein? Cell Phone Critics? Pranksters? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: A friend sent me a link to a message on a website with the title: “The day that Albert Einstein feared may have finally arrived”. The message showed eight pictures of groups of people looking intently at cell phone screens. The people were ignoring one another and were oblivious to their surroundings. The images were being used to comically illustrate the following quotation credited to Albert Einstein:

I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.

I was suspicious of this attribution and when I searched the internet I found another similar saying credited to Einstein in a web forum. This statement was also illustrated with an image of people staring at cell phone screens.

I fear the day when the technology overlaps with our humanity. The world will only have a generation of idiots.

I have a different fear. I fear the day that individuals will believe that Einstein actually made one of these inane statements. Could you examine these sayings?

Reply from Quote Investigator: There is no substantive evidence that Einstein made either of these statements. Neither appears in the comprehensive collection of quotations “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein” from Princeton University Press.¹

Both versions given by the questioner were in circulation in 2012. For example, in the past, a website called answerbag.com presented a version of the saying in a message with an attached date of October 21, 2012:²

Einstein: I fear the day when the technology overlaps with our humanity. The world will only have a generation of idiots. Was he right?

Dates on websites are sometimes inaccurate because the retroactive alteration of text and dates is easy to accomplish. Sometimes the content of a webpage is altered, and the date associated with the content is not updated to reflect the modification.

Also, in the past, a website called imfunny.net displayed a composite image post dated November 3, 2012 with the title: “The day that Albert Einstein feared may have finally arrived”. The post consists of nine images including one displaying the quotation given below. No name is given for the person posting the message:³

“I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.” Albert Einstein

Further below are additional selected citations.

Quote Origin: Somewhere, Something Incredible Is Waiting To Be Known

Carl Sagan? Newsweek Reporters? Sharon Begley? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: Today on the website of a software developer I saw an inspiring quotation that was credited to the famous astronomer and science communicator Carl Sagan:

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

I would like to use this quotation also, but I have not located it in the books by Sagan that are on my shelves. Could you tell me when he wrote or said this?

Reply from Quote Investigator: QI has not found any substantive evidence that Carl Sagan crafted this quotation. The ascription was based on a misreading of text printed in Newsweek magazine. On August 15, 1977 the magazine published a cover story with an extended profile of Sagan titled “Seeking Other Worlds”. Four reporters participated in the creation of the report: David Gelman with Sharon Begley in New York, Dewey Gram in Los Angeles and Evert Clark in Washington.

The article began by noting that the young Sagan had been entranced by the adventure tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs which were set on a fantastical version of the planet Mars referred to as Barsoom. Canals and fifteen-foot-tall green warriors with four arms were present in this romanticized setting.

The end of the profile discussed the topic of hypothetical life forms on other planets. Sagan was in favor of funding serious efforts to search for evidence of extraterrestrial life by scanning the skies for electromagnetic signals. He contended that obtaining positive or negative results in a comprehensive search would be interesting and valuable. The ellipses in the following passage are present in the original printed text:¹

“A serious search with negative results says something of profound importance,” Sagan argues. “We discover there’s something almost forbidden about life … if it turns out we really are alone.” But clearly, Sagan is looking for a happier result. There may be no galumphing green Barsoomian giants to satisfy the fantasies of a romantic Brooklyn boy. But no doubt, there are even stranger discoveries to be made . . . some totally new phenomenon perhaps . . . Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

The final sentence was not placed between quotation marks. If Sagan had spoken the final compelling phrase it would have been placed within such marks. Instead the final statements were written using a reportorial voice.

On January 13, 2015, QI was contacted by Sharon Begley who worked on the team that created the Newsweek article. When she contacted QI, Begley was the senior health and science correspondent at Reuters. She stated that the words in the final sentence of the article were her words and not Sagan’s. She also told QI about a stylistic guideline that was adhered to by the writers at the magazine:²

A nearly ironclad rule at Newsweek back then was that it was lazy and unacceptable to end a story with a quote. Writers/reporters were paid to come up with an original, thought-provoking kicker, and that’s what we did, or tried to. The words were not Sagan’s.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Fashion Passes; Style Remains

Coco Chanel? Yves Saint Laurent? Diana Vreeland? Pier Luigi Nervi? Tom Stoppard? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: The fashion designer Coco Chanel was brilliant and innovative. I am interested in a motto that she may have originated:

Fashion passes; style remains.

When did she say this?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest close match for this phrase known to QI appeared in an interview of Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel conducted by the journalist Joseph Barry in McCall’s magazine in 1965. Chanel was primarily a speaker of French, and the phrase she used in 1965 did not employ the word fashion; instead, she used the word “mode” which is both French and English:

Mode passes; style remains.

Here is an excerpt from the interview which took place when Chanel was an eminent 81-year-old. Boldface has been added to some excerpts:¹

INTERVIEWER: Apropos copying, you are probably the most copied dress designer in the world. Does it bother you?

CHANEL: I suppose it is a kind of flattery. Someone said I dress eighty per cent of the well-dressed women—and the not so well-dressed, I’m afraid—whether they know it or not. But style should reach the people, no? It should descend into the streets, into people’s lives, like a revolution. That is real style. The rest is mode. Mode passes; style remains. Mode is made of a few amusing ideas, meant to be used up quickly, so they can be replaced by others in the next collection. A style endures even as it is renewed and evolved.

The word “mode” has several meanings in English including the following which is listed in the Oxford English Dictionary:²

A prevailing fashion, custom, practice, or style, esp. one characteristic of a particular place or period.

Both Chanel and her interviewer were able to speak in French and English, and it is not clear whether Chanel spoke the aphorism in French or English. If she spoke it in French then she probably said:

La mode passe; le style reste.

This expression can be translated into English in more than one way. One possibility is:

Fashion passes; style remains.

Adages that contrast the longevity of fashion and style have been in circulation for many decades. In 1889 a precursor was printed that presented part of the idea, i.e., a particular style can have a long life:³

The natural inconvenience resulting from such a style of dress, it would appear, would induce a change in the fashion plates, but while the seasons change this style “goes on forever.“

In 1904 a variant of the motto was employed in the architectural domain:⁴

The fashions of architecture—they perish. Style endures.

In 1929 a Springfield, Massachusetts newspaper printed an excellent example of the maxim under investigation using a different phrasing. The newspaper article discussed a trend that had swept through New York and had reached Springfield. The trend did not involve garments or accessories. It was based on the skin: the “sun tan”. The article author contended that the “sun tan” was a fad among women that was fleeting. The story referred to “beauty officials” who claimed that the peak of the fad was past, and it was unlikely to return the next summer. The overall report was humorously wrong-headed, but it did include an interesting version of the adage:⁵

As one philosophical beauty expert put it, “Fashion comes and goes, style goes on forever.”

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Attitude Is a Little Thing That Makes a Big Difference

Winston Churchill? Theodore Roosevelt? Zig Ziglar? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: I work in an office where they hang inspirational posters on the wall. The caption of one sign credits the following words to the master orator Winston Churchill:

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.

I think that the person who created the poster knows that a distinguished attribution is a little thing that can make a big difference in the perception of a quotation. But this ascription seems laughably unlikely. Could you examine this saying?

Reply from Quote Investigator: This expression is not listed in “Churchill by Himself”, a comprehensive collection of Churchill quotations,¹ and QI has not located any substantive evidence linking the statement to him.

Writers have been deploying sentences that emphasized the contrast between a “little thing” and a “big difference” for more than one-hundred years. Here is an example in a letter about photography printed in Recreation magazine in 1895:²

In our High School Scientific Association we founded an amateur photographic club, of which I was elected president, and we have pecks of fun out of it. Some of us learned, in a short time, that “little things make a big difference in the wonderful art of photography.”

Here is an example in 1920 from a book by an advertising specialist:³

In the offices of most newspapers and many magazines there simply isn’t time to fuss over the little things that make such a big difference in the appearance of advertisements.

In 1977 a famous motivational writer and speaker named Zig Ziglar wrote a comment about attitude in his popular book “See You at the Top” that matched the saying under investigation:⁴

Attitude is the “little” thing that makes the big difference. The story of life proves that it is often the minute things that spell the differences between triumph and tragedy, success and failure, victory or defeat. For example, if you call a girl a kitten, she will love you. Call her a cat and you’re in trouble.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: People Say Nothing Is Impossible, But I Do Nothing Every Day

A. A. Milne? Alfred E. Neuman? Winnie the Pooh? The Foolish Almanak? Theodor Rosyfelt? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: I saw the following entertaining quotation on several websites where it was ascribed to the Winnie-the-Pooh character of the author A. A. Milne:

People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.

I searched for this quote in The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh and was unable to find it. Perhaps it was used in one of the movies. Could you explore this funny statement?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest evidence of this humorous remark located by QI appeared in 1906 in “The Foolish Almanak For Anuthur Year” by Theodor Rosyfelt. The book was filled with deliberate misspellings, and the author’s name may have been creatively altered. No attribution was given within the text for its prolix version of the jest:¹

It is said that nothing is impossible; but there are lots of people doing nothing every day.

The first collection of Winnie-the-Pooh stories was published in 1926, so the joke was already in circulation before A. A. Milne’s children’s classic was released. In addition, QI has found no substantive evidence that Milne wrote or said this jest.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Good Artists Copy; Great Artists Steal

Steve Jobs? Pablo Picasso? T. S. Eliot? W. H. Davenport Adams? Lionel Trilling? Igor Stravinsky? William Faulkner? Apocryphal?

**Picture of empty picture frames from Unsplash**

Question for Quote Investigator: The gifted entrepreneur Steve Jobs made some controversial comments about innovation during his career. He expressed strong agreement with the following aphorism which he ascribed to the famous painter Pablo Picasso:

Good artists copy; great artists steal.

Did Picasso really make this remark? Are there other examples of similar statements?

Reply from Quote Investigator: An intriguing precursor appeared in an article titled “Imitators and Plagiarists” published in The Gentleman’s Magazine in 1892. The author was W. H. Davenport Adams, and the terminology he used was transposed: “to imitate” was commendable, but “to steal” was unworthy. Adams extolled the works of the famed poet Alfred Tennyson, and presented several examples in which Tennyson constructed his verses using the efforts of his artistic antecedents as a resource. In the following passage Adams referred to his aphorism as a “canon”, and he placed it between quotation marks. Boldface has been added to some excerpts below:¹

Of Tennyson’s assimilative method, when he adopts an image or a suggestion from a predecessor, and works it up into his own glittering fabric, I shall give a few instances, offering as the result and summing up of the preceding inquiries a modest canon: “That great poets imitate and improve, whereas small ones steal and spoil.”

Note that Adams depicted poets who stole harshly, but the adage used by Jobs was accepting of the artist who copied or stole: one was good, and the other was great. Adams concluded his essay with additional praise for Tennyson and a condemnation of plagiarists. Oddly, the word “plagiarizes” was incorporated in later variants of the expression.

In 1920 the major poet T. S. Eliot published “The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism”, and he presented his own version of the maxim. Eliot interchanged the terminology used by Davenport by suggesting that: “to imitate” was shoddy, and “to steal” was praiseworthy. This change moved the expression closer to the modern incarnation employed by Steve Jobs:²

One of the surest of tests is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Not a Shred of Evidence Exists in Favor of the Argument That Life Is Serious

Joseph Campbell? Ogden Nash? Brendan Gill? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: Here is a quick question. Which of the following quotations is accurate?

There is not one shred of evidence that life is serious. —Joseph Campbell

There is not a shred of evidence that life is serious —Ogden Nash

Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious. —Brendan Gill

Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious. —Anonymous

If each of these four quotes is inaccurate can you determine the original quotation and coiner? My friend has some magnets that credit the poet and humorist Ogden Nash.

Reply from Quote Investigator: Brendan Gill wrote for The New Yorker magazine for six decades. In 1975, near the four decade mark, he published a memoir titled “Here at The New Yorker” that included the following passage:¹

In fact, not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the argument that life is serious, though it is often hard and even terrible. And saying that, I am prompted to add what follows out of it: that since everything ends badly for us, in the inescapable catastrophe of death, it seems obvious that the first rule of life is to have a good time; and that the second rule of life is to hurt as few people as possible in the course of doing so. There is no third rule.

Gill’s actual statement is very similar to the one given by the questioner but not identical. The word “argument” is used instead of “idea”. This altered version has become more popular over time. In 1979 the compilation “1,001 Logical Laws” gathered by John Peers included the following instance with the word “idea”:²

Gill’s Law:
Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.