Quote Investigator® – Page 203

Quote Origin: The ‘t’ Is Silent, as in Harlow

Margot Asquith? Margot Grahame? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: According to a Hollywood legend there was a pointed verbal encounter between the movie siren Jean Harlow and the sharp-tongued English aristocrat Margot Asquith. When Harlow attended a party given by Asquith, the movie star presumptuously referred to the hostess by her first name, and she repeatedly mispronounced it as “Margott”, i.e., she pronounced a “t” at the end of the name. Eventually, Asquith responded with a squelcher:

No, no, Jean. The ‘t’ is silent, as in Harlow.

Do you think this wordplay on “harlot” occurred during an actual conversation or was this dialog constructed afterwards by a comedian? I have seen a citation in 1974, but that date is very late.

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest evidence located by QI was printed in a newspaper gossip column in August 1934. The article discussed a rising young movie actress who used the single name “Margo”. (This Margo was unrelated to Harlow or Asquith.) The title of the article was “Name is ‘Margo’ Without a ‘T'” and it had two meanings. The first meaning was simply a reference to the new actress. The second meaning was a sly allusion to the punchline of the joke under examination.

The gossip columnist did not directly recount the comical anecdote involving Harlow and Asquith because of the censorial sensitivities of the 1930s, and because the reporter was dependent on the good will of movie studios. However, the final sentence of the column shown below established the fact that the joke was in circulation:¹

Apropos Margo, who is discussed in this column, get Fred McFadden, Palace press agent, to tell you the story of Jean Harlow at Margot Asquith’s party.

The second earliest evidence known to QI appeared in a letter dated October 4, 1934 that was located by top-notch researcher Sam Clements. For many years the famous jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and the diplomat Lewis Einstein exchanged correspondence. A note from Einstein included a version of the anecdote which he may have heard from Margot Asquith directly. The term “Lady Oxford” in the following passage referred to Asquith who was the Countess of Oxford:²

By way of pleasantry I must relate to you one of our mutual friend Lady Oxford’s latest. Having met Jean Harlow (the original platinum blonde) at a party the latter exuberantly began to call her Margott stressing the final t. Margot (severely) — ‘The final “t” in my christian name is silent, unlike your family name’.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Watch Your Thoughts, They Become Words; Watch Your Words, They Become Actions

Ralph Waldo Emerson? Lao Tzu? Frank Outlaw? Gautama Buddha? Bishop Beckwaith? Father of Margaret Thatcher?

Question for Quote Investigator: What do the following people have in common: Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson, Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, supermarket magnate Frank Outlaw, spiritual teacher Gautama Buddha, and the father of Margaret Thatcher? Each one of these individuals has been credited with versions of the following quote:

Watch your thoughts. They become words. Watch your words. They become deeds. Watch your deeds. They become habits. Watch your habits. They become character. Character is everything.

Can you sort out this confusing situation?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest evidence of a closely matching expression located by QI was published in a Texas newspaper feature called “What They’re Saying” in May 1977. The saying was ascribed to the creator of a successful U.S. supermarket chain called Bi-Lo:¹

“Watch your thoughts, they become words;
watch your words, they become actions;
watch your actions, they become habits;
watch your habits, they become character;
watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

FRANK OUTLAW
Late President of the Bi-Lo Stores

QI believes that this saying evolved over many decades. One interesting property that is shared between the modern expression and several precursor sayings involves wordplay. Consider five of the key words in the saying: words, actions, thoughts, character, and habits. The initial letters can be arranged to spell the repeated focal term: w, a, t, c, h. This type of wordplay will be discussed further below.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order

Quote Origin: Why Don’t You Carry a Wrist Watch Like Everyone Else?

Herbert Beerbohm Tree? Frederick Henry Townsend? George du Maurier? Yogi Berra? Mutt and Jeff? An inebriate? A woman carrying packages?

Question for Quote Investigator: I have read several instances of a popular comical anecdote. Two different versions featured baseball Hall-of-Famer Yogi Berra. One night he was presented with a grandfather clock at a banquet dinner. Yogi was struggling to carry the clock down the street when a drunken individual bumped into him.

“Excuse me,” said Yogi.
The drunk looked at him unhappily and demanded, “Why don’t you carry a wrist watch like everybody else?”

In another version of the story Yogi was inebriated. He collided with a person carrying a large clock, and Yogi delivered the final humorous line.

In a third version of the tale a famous actor and theater manager in England was the protagonist. Herbert Beerbohm Tree observed a man staggering down the street under the weight of a grandfather clock and remarked: “My poor fellow, why not carry a watch?”

Can you clarify the origin of this anecdote?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest evidence of this basic jest known to QI appeared in a cartoon drawn by Frederick Henry Townsend in the London humor magazine Punch in March 1907. Here is the image and the caption:¹

Funny Man. “Pardon me, Sir, but wouldn’t you find it more convenient to carry a watch?”

Top quotation expert and BBC broadcaster Nigel Rees included this key citation in his compilation “Cassell’s Humorous Quotations”.² The joke was noticed across the ocean, and the cartoon was reprinted in The Washington Post in April³ and a Pennsylvanian newspaper in October.⁴

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Let Your Memory Be Your Travel Bag

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: On a website dedicated to travel I saw a quotation credited to the famous Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:

Own only what you can carry with you; know language, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.

Is this attribution accurate? A travel tip from Solzhenitsyn seems incongruous.

Reply from Quote Investigator: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn did write this in his most famous work “The Gulag Archipelago”. He was discussing his experiences as a prisoner in the forced labor camp system of the former Soviet Union. Any of your belongings could be taken from you forcibly or stealthily by a guard or a fellow prisoner at any time.

If you were lucky enough to be given a two-day supply of bread and sugar Solzhenitsyn recommended eating it in one sitting. Then no one could steal it from you, and you would be released from worrying about it. The context of the quotation was the hardship of imprisonment:¹

Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag. Use your memory! Use your memory! It is those bitter seeds alone which might sprout and grow someday.

Look around you—there are people around you. Maybe you will remember one of them all your life and later eat your heart out because you didn’t make use of the opportunity to ask him questions. And the less you talk, the more you’ll hear. Thin strands of human lives stretch from island to island of the Archipelago.

In conclusion, the words were written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The quote was not originally intended to be light-hearted advice about the joys of travel. Solzhenitsyn was offering advice to compatriots for physical and mental survival.

Acknowledgement: Thanks to Kate McClare whose inquiry about this quotation provided the impetus for QI to construct this question.

Update History: On February 23, 2025 the format of the bibliographical notes was updated.

1974, The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, Volume I-II, (Translated from the Russian by Thomas P. Whitney), Quote Page 516 and 517, Publisher: Harper & Row, New York. (Verified on paper) ↩︎

Quote Origin: Imagination Is More Important Than Knowledge

Albert Einstein? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: Many websites credit Albert Einstein with this statement:

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

I am skeptical. Are these the words of Einstein?

Reply from Quote Investigator: This remark apparently was made by Einstein during an interview that was published in “The Saturday Evening Post” in 1929. Here is an excerpt showing the context of his comment. The first paragraph below records Einstein’s words; the next sentence is the interviewer speaking; the final paragraph is Einstein speaking again. Boldface has been added to the following passage and some excerpts further below:¹

“I believe in intuitions and inspirations. I sometimes feel that I am right. I do not know that I am. When two expeditions of scientists, financed by the Royal Academy, went forth to test my theory of relativity, I was convinced that their conclusions would tally with my hypothesis. I was not surprised when the eclipse of May 29, 1919, confirmed my intuitions. I would have been surprised if I had been wrong.”

“Then you trust more to your imagination than to your knowledge?”

“I am enough of the artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: I Really Didn’t Say Everything I Said

Yogi Berra? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: Thanks for working to help clear up so many incorrect quotations and attributions. I have a question about a quote that might be suitable as the motto of your website. Yogi Berra supposedly said one the following Yogi-isms:

1. I really didn’t say everything I said.
2. I didn’t say everything I said.
3. I never said half the things I said.
4. Half the things I said, I never said them.
5. I never said most of the things I said.

Did Yogi say one of these statements?

Reply from Quote Investigator: In February 1986 there is good evidence that Yogi Berra did say the first statement above as recorded in a Long Island, New York newspaper:¹

Berra was unveiled to the Southwest in the Astros’ winter caravan. “Here he was a Hall of Famer coming down to the backwoods of Texas,” publicist Rob Matwick said. “He was the most single sought-out person. He led the team in stares.”

Fans hung on Berra’s every word, hoping for a Berra-ism, many of which have been said by others but attributed to Yogi. “I really didn’t say everything I said,” Berra said, creating another original.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Thank You for the Gift Book. I Shall Lose No Time In Reading It

Benjamin Disraeli? William Gladstone? William Makepeace Thackeray? Moses Hadas? A celebrated botanist? A Scotchman? Thomas Bailey Aldrich? Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.? Samuel Wilberforce? Max O’Rell?

Question for Quote Investigator: Aspiring authors sent numerous manuscripts to the statesman and novelist Benjamin Disraeli. Reportedly, he would send back a wittily ambiguous response:

Many thanks; I shall lose no time in reading it.

This statement might mean that Disraeli would immediately start to read the volume, or it might mean that he would never read the book. A similar response has been credited to William Makepeace Thackeray. Also, I have seen the following variant phrasing:

Your book has arrived, and I shall waste no time reading it.

Could you determine who is responsible for this type of quip?

Reply from Quote Investigator: This amusing remark has been attributed to a large and varied collection of individuals over the past 140 years including: French comedian Max O’Rell, author William Makepeace Thackeray, Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, statesman Benjamin Disraeli, and his opposition William Gladstone.

First, QI notes that the phrase can be used in a straight-forward manner without a comical overlay. For example, a letter dated September 11, 1784 from the poet William Cowper used the phrase with the assumption that the text would indeed be read quickly:¹

I know that you will lose no time in reading it, but I must beg you likewise to lose none in conveying it to Johnson, that if he chuses to print it, it may go to the press immediately…

The earliest instance located by QI of an individual wielding the phrase with a humorous intent appeared in an 1871 issue of the British Quarterly Review. The quipster was identified as a botanist, but no name was given:²

A celebrated botanist used to return thanks somewhat in the following form:—’I have received your book, and shall lose no time in reading it.’ The unfortunate author might put his own construction on this rather ambiguous language.

In 1883 a travel book titled “There and Back; or, Three Weeks in America” printed the joke and referred to it as “the old equivoque”. The word “equivoque” meant a pun or a phrase with a double meaning:³

…they may adopt the old equivoque—”We have received your book, and shall lose no time in reading it!”

Also, in 1883 the witticism was printed in the science periodical Nature. The context was an article critical of testimonial letters which clearly indicated that the saying was being used sarcastically. The phrase was called a “well-known formula”:⁴

Many testimonials are framed after that well-known formula for acknowledging the receipt of pamphlets which runs as follows:—”Dear Sir,—I beg to thank you for the valuable pamphlet which you have so kindly sent me, and which I will lose no time in reading.” And I heard the other day a testimonial praised because it showed the electors whom not to elect.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease

Josh Billings? Josh Weathersby? Cal Stewart? Ring Lardner? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: Individuals who complain often receive the most attention. There is a popular analogy about squeaky wheels that I think has been incorrectly attributed to the humorist Josh Billings who was a famous lecturer in the 1800s. (Billings was the pseudonym of Henry Wheeler Shaw.) Here are three versions of the maxim:

The wheel that squeaks the loudest is the one that gets the grease.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
The squeaky wheel gets the oil.

Some reference works credit Josh Billings, but none of these works present a solid citation. Would you please attempt to uncover the truth about the provenance of this adage?

Reply from Quote Investigator: Some books have suggested that the maxim appeared in a poem called “The Kicker” that was supposedly composed by Josh Billings circa 1870. But the careful and scholarly reference “The Yale Book of Quotations”¹ remarked that the existence of “The Kicker” by Billings has never been verified. Indeed, QI believes that the attribution to Billings is unsupported.

The earliest appearance of this expression located by QI occurred in a collection of stories published in 1903. The author Cal Stewart constructed a colorful raconteur character that he called Uncle Josh Weathersby. The saying under investigation was contained in an epigraph that was ascribed to this character:²

“I don’t believe in kickin’,
It aint apt to bring one peace;
But the wheel what squeaks the loudest
is the one what gets the grease.”
—Josh Weathersby.

The word “kickin” was a slang term that referred to complaining or causing a disturbance..

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: We Are Never Alone. Not When the Night Is Darkest, the Wind Coldest

Taylor Caldwell? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: Taylor Caldwell wrote several best-selling books. Two of her novels were made into popular television mini-series: “Testimony of Two Men” and “Captains and the Kings”. I found a quotation attributed to her that fits with this holiday season:

I am not alone at all, I thought. I was never alone at all. And that, of course, is the message of Christmas. We are never alone. Not when the night is darkest, the wind coldest, the word seemingly most indifferent. For this is still the time God chooses.

I do not know where this quote appeared, and when I checked Wikiquote the expression was not listed on the main page for Taylor Caldwell; instead, the words were in the “Unsourced” section. Do you think Caldwell wrote these words?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The quotation above was included in a short autobiographical tale by Taylor Caldwell that was published in “Family Circle” magazine on December 24, 1961. The story has been reprinted multiple times. In the tale Caldwell described a Christmas season during which she was divorced, jobless, and nearly moneyless. She despaired as she anticipated being forced to vacate her apartment together with her 5-year-old child.

But she succeeded in paying her rent and obtaining a new job. Part of her accomplishment and joy hinged on the positive consequences of a good deed she had performed six months earlier. In conclusion, the quote is accurate, and it appeared at the end of the story.¹

Image Notes: Public domain illustration of snowflakes from “The Century Dictionary” of 1895. Image has been resized and cropped.

Acknowledgement: Thanks to A. for this request.

Update History: On February 23, 2025 the format of the bibliographical notes was updated.

1996, Christmas in My Heart, Compiled and edited by Joe Wheeler, “My Christmas Miracle” by Taylor Caldwell, Start Page 209, Quote Page 214, (A note accompanying the acknowledgement of the reprint states that the story appeared in Family Circle on December 24, 1961; Family Circle has not been directly examined), Published by Guideposts, Carmel, New, York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎

Quote Origin: The Best Way to Cheer Yourself Is to Try to Cheer Somebody Else Up

Mark Twain? Albert Bigelow Paine? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: While watching a television show recently I heard the following saying credited to Mark Twain:

The best way to cheer yourself up is to cheer somebody else up.

The writers of television series sometimes sacrifice accuracy to enable more colorful story-telling. Is this quotation really from Twain?

Reply from Quote Investigator: This quote is very close to a statement written by Mark Twain in one of his notebooks in November 1896. The first “up” is omitted, and the word “try” is included in the original quote:¹

The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer somebody else up.

After Twain died in 1910, his friend and biographer Albert Bigelow Paine became his literary executor. Paine examined a group of notebooks containing unpublished material by Twain, and he constructed a compilation of selected items. The result was published in 1935 under the title “Mark Twain’s Notebook”. The saying was printed in this posthumous work.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.