Quote Investigator® – Page 206

Quote Origin: No One Can Win at Roulette Unless He Steals Money from the Table While the Croupier Isn’t Looking

Albert Einstein? Nick the Greek? Nicholas Dandolos? Ted Thackrey, Jr.? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: According to a legend in the gambling world Albert Einstein once visited a Las Vegas casino and after observing the action around the roulette wheel he said:

You cannot beat a roulette table unless you steal money from it.

Any truth to this story?

Reply from Quote Investigator: QI believes this quotation can be traced back to an article and a book by a controversial reporter named Ted Thackrey, Jr. In 1968 the Toledo Blade newspaper of Ohio published a series of articles by Thackrey under the title “Secrets of a Master Gambler”. The fourth article discussed a colorful gambler named Nick the Greek who died in 1966 and whose full name was Nicholas Andrea Dandolos. A version of the saying attributed to Einstein was included:¹

Indeed, Albert Einstein once made the flat statement no one could possibly win at roulette “unless he steals money from the table while the croupier isn’t looking.”

But during the little mathematician’s visit to Las Vegas the Greek stopped off briefly at a roulette table, bought a handful of chips, plunked them down on red — won — and let them ride for two more spins, on which red also appeared.

Then he cashed in, pocketed his winning and grinned at the scientist.

Also in 1968 Thackrey published the book “Gambling Secrets of Nick the Greek” which gave a more elaborate account of the supposed interactions of the famous gambler and Einstein:²

Just how or when the gambler and the scientist happened to become acquainted was a matter that neither man ever bothered to explain.

According to Thackrey the event at the roulette wheel occurred when Dandolos was showing Einstein around the city:³

So when the great mathematician decided to make a brief stopover in the gambling capital during a coast-to-coast journey, it seemed only natural that The Greek should be waiting at the airport to greet him and conduct him on a special tour of the city’s principal points of interest.

In the book the description of the roulette anecdote was extended, and after Dandolos won three times Einstein was apologetic:⁴

Then he cashed in, pocketed his winnings, and grinned at the scientist.
“Any questions?”
“One,” said Einstein.
“And it is . . ?”
“I was wondering if you would be kind enough to wash my mouth out with soap?”

Humorous and outlandish details were presented as true by Thackrey:⁵

Realizing that most of his gambling friends wouldn’t understand who Einstein was if he told them, Nick introduced the scientific genius as “Little Al from Princeton—controls a lot of the action around Jersey.”

In the book Dandolos and Einstein discussed the odds of various games, and Einstein wondered why someone would play a game like Chuck-A-Luck with such poor winning odds. Dandolos was also unable to understand the psychology of such gamblers.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Would You Ever Ask a Man that Question?

Hillary Clinton? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: I saw on Facebook recently a supposed quotation from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. While visiting some country in Central Asia she was asked by a reporter about fashion and she replied:

Would you ever ask a man that question?

No details were given about when or where this remark was made. Is this a real quote?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The official U.S. State Department website has a transcript for Hillary Clinton’s visit to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan on December 2, 2010. The following interchange is listed:¹

MODERATOR 1: Okay. Which designers do you prefer?
SECRETARY CLINTON: What designers of clothes?
MODERATOR 1: Yes.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Would you ever ask a man that question? (Laughter.) (Applause.)
MODERATOR 1: Probably not. Probably not. (Applause.)
MODERATOR 2: How many hours do you sleep?
SECRETARY CLINTON: That’s my answer.
MODERATOR 1: Yeah, I got it. I got it. That was a tough one.

In conclusion, the quotation is accurate, and the interaction took place in 2010 in Kyrgyzstan.

Acknowledgement: Thanks to Brandi Sperry whose tweet inspired this exploration, and thanks to James Callan who notified QI of Sperry’s interrogative.

Update History: On February 26, 2025 the format of the bibliographical notes was updated.

U.S. Department of State website, Transcript, Townterview Hosted by KTR, Remarks: Hillary Rodham Clinton – Secretary of State, KTR Studio: Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Date: December 2, 2010. (Accessed at state.gov on September 6, 2012) link ↩︎

Anecdote Origin: It Will Take Them Ten Years to Prove Me Wrong

Winston Churchill? Paul S. Nadler? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: I heard this story many years ago at an economics convention. I’ve contacted the Churchill Archive and a couple of renowned Churchill scholars, and so far the answer seems to be “apocryphal,” as with so many great quotes attributed to the Great Quote Magnet. But it does fit his character. Here goes:

As Chancellor of the Exchequer in the mid-1920s, Churchill asked his chief economist what would be required to produce a good estimate of the total cost of World War I to Britain. The economist replied that it would take ten years by the best means available, whereupon Churchill promised his answer to the Prime Minister that same day. He explained: “If I give him my best guess this afternoon, it will take ten years for anyone to prove me wrong.”

Can you uncover something about this anecdote?

Reply from Quote Investigator: QI has found a few examples of stories that fit this general template. The earliest was published in Coronet magazine in 1945 and Winston Churchill was the primary character. However, the setting was World War 2 and not World War 1:¹

During the early days of his prime ministership, Winston Churchill’s war expenditures aroused an opposition member of Parliament to demand a strict accounting of the vast sums involved. Well aware that such an accounting would be almost impossible to make within the time set, the MP sat back to wait for the fiasco. Churchill, however, blandly promised to have the figures ready the very next day, and true to his word he did. At any rate, he read off a series of figures that ran into 103,429,009 pounds, eight shillings and sixpence. The opposition was promptly silenced.

The session over, a friend asked Churchill how he had worked the miracle. “Quite simple,” Churchill confessed. “I made those figures up as I went along. It will take the opposition at least three months and a score of clerks to prove me wrong—if they care to try it!

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Life Is a Journey, Not a Destination

Ralph Waldo Emerson? Lynn H. Hough? Aerosmith? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: Ralph Waldo Emerson is often credited with the following:

Life is a journey, not a destination.

I’ve searched a database Emerson’s works without luck, and I believe this is a misattribution. Any insight you have into the lineage of this quote would be much appreciated.

Reply from Quote Investigator: An exact match for the expression above has not been found in the oeuvre of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Yet, Emerson did write a thematically related remark:¹

To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.

This sentence suggested a psychological vantage point in which the intermediate advances of the journey were representative of the completion of the journey. This is arguably a distinct statement from the questioner’s saying which is listed in “The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs” without attachment to a specific person.²

The earliest close match located by QI appeared in 1920 in a periodical called “The Christian Advocate”. The phrase was used by the theologian Lynn H. Hough within his outline for a Sunday School Lesson discussing a letter from Simon Peter. Bold face has been added to the phrase here and some phrases below:³

He wanted his friends to realize that life is a journey and not a destination; that the heart must be set upon those matters of character which are eternal and not upon those matters of sensation which pass away.

Interesting precursors of the expression were in circulation in the previous century. In 1854 “The Sunday at Home: A Family Magazine for Sabbath Reading” printed a “Page for the Young” with the following advice:⁴

You should learn in early youth that your life is a journey, not a rest. You are travelling to the promised land, from the cradle to the grave.

In 1855 another religious text used a variant phrase and provided an explanation:⁵

All life is a journey, not a home; it is a road, not the country; and those transient enjoyments which you have in this life, lawful in their way,—those incidental and evanescent pleasures which you may sip,—are not home; they are little inns only upon the road-side of life, where you are refreshed for a moment, that you may take again the pilgrim-staff and journey on, seeking what is still before you—the rest that remaineth for the people of God.

A decade later the passage above was reprinted in a collection entitled “A Cyclopaedia of Illustrations of Moral and Religious Truths”; however, it was labeled ANON.⁶

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Advice Origin: Substitute ‘Damn’ Every Time You’re Inclined to Write ‘Very’

Mark Twain? William Allen White? Franklin P. Adams? Brock Pemberton? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: I’ve been quoting an editor-friend’s advice for years, and suddenly tonight I see it online attributed to Mark Twain:

Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very’; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

If that’s really Twain, what work is it from, please? It’s all over the Internet on quote sites.

Reply from Quote Investigator: There is no substantive evidence that Mark Twain said this. It is not listed on the important Twain Quotes website edited by Barbara Schmidt.¹

In the earliest citation located by QI the humorous advice was credited to William Allen White who was a prominent newspaper editor based in Emporia, Kansas. Here is the tale as told in 1935 by a columnist in a Seattle, Washington newspaper:²

William Allen White’s visit here, en route to the Philippines, recalled the story of the famous Kansas editor and publisher’s meeting several years ago with a group of fledgling newspaper men in Lawrence. Kas. The “cubs” listened eagerly to everything “the Sage of Emporia” had to say and besought him to give them some advice about news writing.

“I never give advice,” said Mr. White, “but there is one thing I wish you would do when you sit down to write news stories, and that is: Never use the word, ‘very.’ It is the weakest word in the English language; doesn’t mean anything. If you feel the urge of ‘very’ coming on, just write the word, ‘damn,’ in the place of ‘very.’ The editor will strike out the word, ‘damn,’ and you will have a good sentence.”

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: A Person Who Publishes a Book Willfully Appears Before the Populace with His Pants Down

Edna St. Vincent Millay? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: A recent controversial article about critics and criticism in the New York Times contained a refreshingly blunt two-part quotation:¹

To writers, Edna St. Vincent Millay offered the wisest counsel. It rings down the decades. “A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down,” she said. “If it is a good book, nothing can hurt him. If it is a bad book, nothing can help him.”

Did Millay, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, write this in an essay or letter? Did she say it as an impromptu remark? I have not been able to find a precise reference.

Reply from Quote Investigator: These two statements can be traced back to a letter that Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote to her mother, Cora B. Millay, in 1927. However, the second statement has been modified in an interesting way.

In 1927 Kathleen Millay, the sister of Edna and daughter of Cora, was planning to publish a book of poetry titled “The Evergreen Tree”. Her mother was anxious about this event, and she wrote a letter to Edna who responded. Bold type has been added:²

Kathleen is about to publish a book, as thousands have done before her. A person who publishes a book wilfully appears before the populace with his pants down. And there’s nothing you can do about that.

Note that Edna used “his”, a male possessive adjective, even though the topic of the letter was her sister. Edna was constructing an adage that applied to any person, and she followed the convention of using male pronouns and adjectives to designate persons of unspecified gender. Edna continued her letter by emphasizing the maturity of her sister:

Kathleen is not a baby. She is a grown-up person quite able to take care of herself. And she has been struggling for years to be allowed to manage her own affairs. If she knew the kind of letter you wrote me in her behalf, she’d froth at the mouth & spit brimstone.

The next section of the letter contained the second sentence that is often quoted. This time Edna used the female pronoun “her”. This is understandable because she was discussing her sister:

Kathleen is about to publish a book. If it’s a good book, nothing can harm her. If it’s a bad book, nothing can help her. And all your stewing & fretting will accomplish just one end: it will make you very sick, & a nuisance to yourself …

So the second sentence in the widely distributed quotation has been modified. The word “harm” has been changed to “hurt”. Also, the pronoun “her” has been replaced by “him” in two places. Summarizing, the quotation was written by one female writer about another female writer, but the most common version in circulation uses the words “his” and “him”.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

YOLO in the Boston Globe

Top language columnist Ben Zimmer has written a great article for the Boston Globe about YOLO. He referenced QI (a.k.a. Garson O’Toole) and some of the research that was posted on this website. Zimmer is the executive producer of VisualThesaurus.com and Vocabulary.com. He also writes for the New York Times. Newspapers are shrinking, and the Boston Globe deserves kudos for publishing high-quality articles about language.

More about this topic appeared in his column “Further Adventures of YOLO” at the Visual Thesaurus website. Access may be restricted to subscribers, but your library or school may already have a subscription. Zimmer discussed Yolo County, California, pointed out the entry on the Know Your Meme website, mentioned an alternative: YOLT, and presented additional background.

Quote Origin: A Kiss Is A Trick of Nature to Stop Speech When Words Are Superfluous

Ingrid Bergman? Evan Esar? Paul H. Gilbert? Hal Boyle? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: One of my favorite websites recently presented a collection of “Ten Favorite Quotations about Words”. Number one was about osculation:

A kiss is a lovely trick, designed by nature, to stop speech when words become superfluous.

These words were attributed to the lovely Oscar-winning actress Ingrid Bergman, but no citation was given. Oddly, most of the other ten quotes incorporated precise citations. Can you tell me when and where this was said?

Reply from Quote Investigator: This statement was credited to Bergman in a syndicated newspaper column written by Hal Boyle in 1970, and this was the earliest connection to Bergman located by QI. The actress lived until 1982, so it was possible that she did speak or write this line.

However, the clever definition was in circulation a few decades earlier. In 1943 Evan Esar, the inveterate phrase collector, published “Esar’s Comic Dictionary” which included the following meaning for the word kiss:¹

kiss. A trick of nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.

Esar did not list credits for any of the definitions in his book proclaiming that the contents were “of popular origin and therefore unattributed”. He also complained about the ubiquity of false attributions in his Foreword:²

Now more than ever is it a wise crack that knows its own father, for the general practice of apocryphal ascription has been aggravated by the rise of radio.

Yet, Esar also admitted that some of the jokes in his book should have been ascribed:

Some of the unattributed items in this work doubtless derive from present-day humorists and men of letters, and for their inadvertent inclusion the writer wishes to apologize in advance.

The humorous remark about kissing was reprinted without ascription for many years until a version was finally assigned to Bergman by 1970.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Character Is Most Evident by How One Treats Those Who Can Neither Retaliate nor Reciprocate

Paul Eldridge? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: I noticed that the QI website has an entry for the following expression:

You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.

I believe a similar statement containing the phrase “to retaliate or to reciprocate” was printed in a 1965 book called “Maxims for a Modern Man” by the novelist Paul Eldridge.

Reply from Quote Investigator: Thanks for your valuable note. In August 1948 Paul Eldridge published an article titled “Lanterns in the Night” which listed dozens of maxims. Here are three:¹

40. Evil flows backward swelling its source.

41. A man’s character is most evident by how he treats those who are not in a position either to retaliate or reciprocate.

42. Avarice is fear sheathed in gold.

In 1965 a version of this saying with a slightly different phrasing was printed in “Maxims for a Modern Man” by Paul Eldridge:²

A man is most accurately judged by how he treats those who are not in a position either to retaliate or to reciprocate.

In 2000 the reference work “Random House Webster’s Quotationary” reprinted the adage and credited Eldridge with the following acknowledgement:³

PAUL ELDRIDGE (1888-1982). Maxims for a Modern Man, 1198, 1965.

This post continues with a comment and conclusion.

Quote Origin: Fathers Should Give the Gift of Time to Their Children

Ann Landers? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: Many years ago I read a poem I greatly enjoyed in a newspaper column by Ann Landers. Unfortunately, I only remember a few fragments:

What will you give one small boy?
… a tinker toy?
No, give him a day he can call his own.

Can you find the poem with this partial information?

Reply from Quote Investigator: In the 1950s a poem was printed in multiple newspaper columns during the period around Father’s Day in the United States. Here is an instance published in 1956 in the Oxnard Press-Courier of Oxnard, California. The verse included the phrase “tinseled toy” rather than “tinker toy”. The author was anonymous:¹

What shall you give to one small boy?
A glamorous game, a tinseled toy,
A barlow knife, a puzzle pack,
A train that runs on curving track?
A picture book; a real live pet.
No, there’s plenty of time for such things yet.
Give him a day for his very own—
Just one small boy and his dad alone.
A walk in the woods, a romp in the park,
A fishing trip from dawn to dark.
Give the gift that only you can—
The companionship of his Old Man.
Games are outgrown, and toys decay—
But he’ll never forget if you “Give him a day.”

Other newspapers publishing the poem included: the Logansport Press of Logansport, Indiana in 1956;² the Millbrook Round Table of Millbrook, New York in 1957;³ and the Augusta Chronicle of Augusta, Georgia in 1957.⁴ Each time the poem was labeled anonymous.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.