Quote Investigator® – Page 209

Quote Origin: If I Had More Time, I Would Have Written a Shorter Letter

Blaise Pascal? John Locke? Benjamin Franklin? Henry David Thoreau? Cicero? Woodrow Wilson?

A hand holding a pencil and writing on paper. — **Public domain illustration of a hand writing**

Question for Quote Investigator: I was planning to end a letter with the following remark:

If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.

But the number of different people credited with this comment is so numerous that an explanatory appendix would have been required, and the letter was already too long. Here is a partial list of attributions I have seen: Mark Twain, George Bernard Shaw, Voltaire, Blaise Pascal, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Winston Churchill, Pliny the Younger, Cato, Cicero, Bill Clinton, and Benjamin Franklin. Did anybody in this group really say it?

Reply from Quote Investigator: Some of the attributions you have listed are spurious, but several are supported by solid evidence. The first known instance in the English language was a sentence translated from a text written by the French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal. The French statement appeared in a letter in a collection called “Lettres Provinciales” in the year 1657:¹ ² ³

Je n’ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.

Here is one possible modern day translation of Pascal’s statement. Note that the term “this” refers to the letter itself.

I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.

An English translation was created in 1658 and published in London. Here is an excerpt from that early rendition of the letter. The spelling differed in 1658, and the phrases “longer then” and “shorter then” occurred in this text instead of “longer than” and “shorter than”:⁴

My Letters were not wont to come so close one in the neck of another, nor yet to be so large. The short time I have had hath been the cause of both. I had not made this longer then the rest, but that I had not the leisure to make it shorter then it is.

Pascal’s notion was quite memorable, and it was discussed in a French book about language. That work was translated and published in London in 1676 as “The Art of Speaking”:⁵

These Inventions require much wit, and application; and therefore it was, that Mons. Pascal (an Author very famous for his felicity in comprising much in few words) excused himself wittily for the extravagant length of one of his Letters, by saying, he had not time to make it shorter.

In 1688 a religious controversialist named George Tullie included a version of the witticism in an essay he wrote about the celibacy of the clergy:⁶

The Reader will I doubt too soon discover that so large an interval of time was not spent in writing this discourse; the very length of it will convince him, that the writer had not time enough to make a shorter.

Below are listed several variations of the expression as used by well known, lesser known, and unknown individuals. The philosopher John Locke, the statesman Benjamin Franklin, the transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, and the President Woodrow Wilson all presented statements matching this theme and the details are provided.

Mark Twain who is often connected to this saying did not use it according to the best available research, but one of his tangentially related quotations is given later for your entertainment.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Students Today Can’t Prepare Bark to Calculate Their Problems

Teachers’ Conference in 1703? The Rural American Teacher of 1929? Gene Zirkel? Apocryphal?

Dear Quote Investigator: Everyone who works in the area formed by the intersection of education and technology has probably seen a hilarious collection of quotations that outlines the remarkable historical changes in education. Last month I saw these quotes, yet again, in a slide show. The first one starts with this sentence:

Students today can’t prepare bark to calculate their problems.

Usually there are six or seven quotes organized chronologically. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find solid citations for any of these quotes. Can you help?

Quote Investigation: This set of statements was printed in the Fall 1978 issue of “The MATYC Journal”, a publication that focused on mathematics education. The quotes were assigned the dates: 1703, 1815, 1907, 1929, 1941, and 1950. But QI believes these statements were actually constructed for the article in 1978. Copies of these quotes have been widely distributed and posted on many websites. They also have been published in multiple books and periodicals.

In 1978 the words were printed on a page labeled “Viewpoints” and the title displayed was “Probable Quotes From History”. The use of the word “probable” signaled that these quotes were designed with a humorous intent. Here are the six quotes and the final sentence:¹

“Students today can’t prepare bark to calculate their problems. They depend upon their slates which are more expensive. What will they do when the slate is dropped and it breaks? They will be unable to write!” Teachers’ Conference, 1703

“Students today depend upon paper too much. They don’t know how to write on a slate without getting chalk dust all over themselves. They can’t clean a slate properly. What will they do when they run out of paper?” Principals Association, 1815

“Students today depend too much upon ink. They don’t know how to use a pen knife to sharpen a pencil. Pen and ink will never replace the pencil!” National Association of Teachers, 1907

“Students today depend upon store bought ink. They don’t know how to make their own. When they run out of ink they will be unable to write words or ciphers until their next trip to the settlement. This is a sad commentary on modern education.” The Rural American Teacher, 1929

“Students today depend upon these expensive fountain pens. They can no longer write with a straight pen and nib (not to mention sharpening their own quills). We parents must not allow them to wallow in such luxury to the detriment of learning how to cope in the real business world, which is not so extravagant.” PTA Gazette, 1941

“Ballpoint pens will be the ruin of education in Our Country. Students use these devices and then throw them away! The American virtues of thrift and frugality are being discarded. Businesses and banks will never allow such expensive luxuries.” Federal Teachers, 1950

“Today’s students depend too much on handheld calculators . . .

This post continues with additional analysis and citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Hell! There Ain’t No Rules Around Here! We Are Tryin’ To Accomplish Somep’n!

Thomas Edison? Martin André Rosanoff? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: All the rules and regulations of the modern world can be quite aggravating. That is why I greatly enjoy the following quotation proclaimed by Thomas Edison to the employees in his Menlo Park laboratory:

Hell, there are no rules here. We’re trying to accomplish something.

I read this statement in a book published in 2000, but an exact reference was not given. Did Edison really say this?

Reply from Quote Investigator: Yes, he probably did make a comment like this to one of his researchers. The evidence was published in the September 1932 issue of Harper’s Magazine which contained an article titled “Edison in His Laboratory” by Martin André Rosanoff who performed chemical investigations for Edison. Rosanoff described an exchange he had with Edison shortly after he had joined the staff around 1903:¹

I approached him in a humble spirit: “Mr. Edison, please tell me what laboratory rules you want me to observe.” And right then and there I got my first surprise. He spat in the middle of the floor and yelled out,

“Hell! there ain’t no rules around here! We are tryin’ to accomplish somep’n!”

And he walked off, leaving me flabbergasted.

Note that the original printed quotation used the informal contraction “ain’t” instead of “are no”. Also, dialect spellings were employed for “tryin'” and “somep’n”.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Taxes Are What We Pay for Civilized Society

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.? Vermont Legislature? Albert Bushnell Hart? IRS Building? Apocryphal?

Dear Quote Investigator: It is tax time in the U.S., and I have a question about the inscription engraved on the exterior of the IRS Building in Washington D.C.:

Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society

The IRS website credited the remark to the Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. But my searches have not yet uncovered a solid attribution. Can you tell me where he wrote this or when he said it? I also found some other phrases attributed to Holmes expressing the same idea:

Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.
Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.
I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization.

Quote Investigator: In 1927 in the court case of Compañía General de Tabacos de Filipinas v. Collector of Internal Revenue a dissenting opinion was written by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. that included the following phrase. Note that the text differed slightly from the inscription. The word “a” was omitted:

Taxes are what we pay for civilized society …

Here is a longer excerpt from the opinion by Holmes:¹

It is true, as indicated in the last cited case, that every exaction of money for an act is a discouragement to the extent of the payment required, but that which in its immediacy is a discouragement may be part of an encouragement when seen in its organic connection with the whole. Taxes are what we pay for civilized society, including the chance to insure.

There is intriguing evidence supporting another of the quotations above in an anecdote recounted by a friend of Holmes named Felix Frankfurter who joined the Supreme Court in 1939 four years after Holmes died. In 1938 Frankfurter published the book “Mr. Justice Holmes and the Supreme Court”, and he also wrote an article for the Atlantic Monthly magazine. Both publications included this story about Holmes:² ³

He did not have a curmudgeon’s feelings about his own taxes. A secretary who exclaimed ‘Don’t you hate to pay taxes!’ was rebuked with the hot response, ‘No, young feller. I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization.’

Interestingly, this basic sentiment was expressed multiple times over a period of decades before Holmes wrote it. Although the wording used was variable. For example, in 1852 a committee appointed by the governor of Vermont wrote a report for the legislature which included the following:⁴

Taxation is the price which we pay for civilization, for our social, civil and political institutions, for the security of life and property, and without which, we must resort to the law of force.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: We Will Make Electricity So Cheap That Only the Rich Will Burn Candles

Thomas Edison? Samuel Insull? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: I am curious about a quote attributed to the remarkable inventor Thomas Edison:

We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles.

What proof exists that Edison actually said this? It’s such a visionary prediction that I’d love for it to be true.

Reply from Quote Investigator: There is strong evidence that Edison expressed this idea in 1880 though he used a different phrasing. A journalist for the New York Herald visited Edison’s laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey and observed the newly created electric lights. A report was sent via telegraph to the Herald office and published the next day on January 4, 1880:¹

The little globes of fire still continue burning in all their beauty, notwithstanding the predictions of the sceptics. The three hours test which a rival electrician loudly dared Mr. Edison to make, proclaiming that only that length of time was necessary to prove the utter failure of his invention, has now grown into a test of 240 hours and still the lamps are burning.

The last section of the article was titled “The Question of Cost”, and a remark of Edison’s on this topic was printed. Instead of using the word “rich” Edison used the term “extravagant”:²

The exact cost of the new light the inventor has not made public; but it is characteristically summed up in an answer which he was overheard to give an inquirer:—

“After the electric light goes into general use,” said he, “none but the extravagant will burn tallow candles.”

Edison’s comment above was reprinted in multiple newspapers in 1880. By 1914 another version of the saying that was closer to the modern statement was credited to Edison. In 2004 an article in the USA Today newspaper attributed a version of the remark to a competitor of Edison’s named Samuel Insull.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: If You Love Someone, Set Them Free. If They Come Back They’re Yours

Richard Bach? Jess Lair? Anonymous student? Sting? Peter Max? Chantal Sicile?

Question for Quote Investigator: On his first solo album in 1985 the musician Sting released a song called:

If You Love Somebody Set Them Free

Recently, I heard more elaborate quotations that included the above statement:

If you love something, let it go. If it returns, it’s yours; if it doesn’t, it wasn’t.
If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they’re yours; if they don’t they never were.

The statement immediately above was attributed to Richard Bach who wrote the enormously popular inspirationally work “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” in the 1970s. But I cannot find this saying in his novels. Could you tell me where this expression came from?

Reply from Quote Investigator: QI has found no substantiation that Richard Bach created or used the phrases above.

The earliest known evidence for a version of this saying appeared in a book titled “I Ain’t Much Baby—But I’m All I’ve Got” by Jess Lair that was privately published in 1969. Lair was a teacher, and he asked his students to create small writing samples. For each class meeting a student was supposed to write “some comment, question or feeling” on a three inch by five inch card and place it on a table in the front of the classroom. Lair read the short texts and made comments at the beginning of the class. The following was written on one card:¹ ²

If you want something very, very badly, let it go free. If it comes back to you, it’s yours forever. If it doesn’t, it was never yours to begin with.

Lair stated that about half of the cards were unsigned, and he did not identify the person who turned in the expression above. Here are three other examples from junior and senior students:

1. I heard a very profound statement last night. Unfortunately I’ve forgotten it.
2. No guts—no glory.
3. Laughter is the song of the angels.

Lair did not require the words to be original, and he did not request attributions. So the student may have gathered the quotation of interest from another unknown person.

Top quotation expert Fred Shapiro, editor of the Yale Book of Quotations, obtained a copy of the 1969 book recently and verified the presence of the passage. Lair published multiple editions of his book, and in the past a 1974 edition was the earliest known and verified copy.³ ⁴

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: In the Future Everyone Will Be Famous for 15 Minutes

Andy Warhol? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: The expression “fifteen minutes of fame” is based on a quotation by the influential Pop artist Andy Warhol. But what exactly did he say and when did he say it?

Reply from Quote Investigator: Warhol’s notable maxim about the transience of fame has been popular for much longer than the standard allotment of fifteen minutes. The earliest evidence QI has located for a version of the phrase is in an issue of Time magazine dated October 13, 1967:¹

Whole new schools of painting seem to charge through the art scene with the speed of an express train, causing Pop Artist Andy Warhol to predict the day “when everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.”

Many reference works list an important citation that was published the next year in early 1968. An exhibition of Warhol’s art was held at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden and a catalog for the show was released in February-March 1968 which included a version of the popular apothegm:² ³ ⁴

In the future everybody will be world famous for fifteen minutes.

This variant includes the extra modifier “world” that is absent in the earlier Time magazine citation. Indeed, the wording of the expression is highly variable, and Warhol himself deliberately altered the statement over time.

Here are additional selected citations in approximately chronological order.

Quote Origin: You Don’t Have to Know Everything. You Just Have to Know Where to Find It

Albert Einstein? Samuel Johnson? Sophonisba Breckinridge? John Brunner? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: The depth and breadth of information available on the internet is wondrous. Here are three examples from a family of pertinent sayings I came across recently:

1) I don’t need to know everything; I just need to know where to find it, when I need it.
2) Never keep anything in your mind that you can look up.
3) Never memorize what you can look up in books.

These sayings express a fundamental insight into this age of vast knowledge bases and high-speed networks. The words were credited to Albert Einstein, but I cannot find any precise reference. There so much junk and misinformation about quotations. The prevalence of inaccurate data makes it harder to find correct information. Can you trace this general saying?

Reply from Quote Investigator: These quotations were not listed in the key reference work “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein” from Princeton University Press.¹ Also, QI has not located any evidence of an exact match in the words written by the illustrious scientist.

Einstein did make a remark in 1921 that was conceptually related to the quotation. While visiting Boston he was asked whether he knew the value of the speed of sound, and he demurred. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:²

He was asked through his secretary, “What is the speed of sound?” He could not say off-hand, he replied. He did not carry such information in his mind but it was readily available in text books.

Einstein’s remark was about a single fact; hence, it differed from the statement under investigation. Nevertheless, it was possible to generalize and reformulate his comment to apply to the wider set of knowledge available in books. Indeed, another version of Einstein’s response that was published in 1947 was closer to the sayings being examined. (Details are given further below.) Hence, the modern expressions may have evolved from Einstein’s comment in 1921.

The idea presented in the quotation does have a long history before the computer age. Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Secret of the Universe: A Strong Smell of Turpentine Prevails Throughout

Bertrand Russell? William James? Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.? Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.?

Question for Quote Investigator: The eminent philosopher Bertrand Russell discussed visions and experiences in his major opus “A History of Western Philosophy” in 1945. Russell noted that subjective experiences were not always reliable:¹

William James describes a man who got the experience from laughing-gas; whenever he was under its influence, he knew the secret of the universe, but when he came to, he had forgotten it. At last, with immense effort, he wrote down the secret before the vision had faded. When completely recovered, he rushed to see what he had written. It was

“A smell of petroleum prevails throughout.”

What seems like sudden insight may be misleading, and must be tested soberly when the divine intoxication has passed.

Can you determine who experienced this eccentric revelation?

Reply from Quote Investigator: QI believes that this passage can be traced back to an episode described by the prominent physician and author Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. who on June 29, 1870 delivered an address before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard University. The New York Tribune reported on the speech two days after it occurred. Holmes discussed his experiments with ether and not nitrous oxide, and the curious insight he wrote down was about “turpentine” and not “petroleum”. Boldface has been added to excerpts:²

A strong smell of turpentine prevails throughout.

Here is an extended excerpt from the 1870 lecture of Holmes which was published in 1879:³

I once inhaled a pretty full dose of ether, with the determination to put on record, at the earliest moment of regaining consciousness, the thought I should find uppermost in my mind. The mighty music of the triumphal march into nothingness reverberated through my brain, and filled me with a sense of infinite possibilities, which made me an archangel for the moment. The veil of eternity was lifted. The one great truth which underlies all human experience, and is the key to all the mysteries that philosophy has sought in vain to solve, flashed upon me in a sudden revelation. Henceforth all was clear: a few words had lifted my intelligence to the level of the knowledge of the cherubim. As my natural condition returned, I remembered my resolution; and, staggering to my desk, I wrote, in ill-shaped, straggling characters, the all-embracing truth still glimmering in my consciousness. The words were these (children may smile; the wise will ponder): “A strong smell of turpentine prevails throughout.”

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Hogamous, Higamous, Man is Polygamous, Higamous, Hogamous, Woman is Monagamous

William James? Dorothy Parker? Ogden Nash? Mrs. Amos Pinchot? Alice Duer Miller? Apocryphal? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: I read a wild story about William James, the prominent psychologist, educator, and philosopher. One night he experimented with the psychoactive gas nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas. While experiencing a reverie James became convinced that he had developed a profound insight into the universe. The next day when he examined the paper on which he scrawled his precious wisdom he read this bit of doggerel:

Hogamous, Higamous,
Man is polygamous,
Higamous, Hogamous,
Woman is monagamous.

Could this comical tale about the famous psychologist be correct?

Reply from Quote Investigator: Probably not. This poem has been attributed to Mrs. Amos Pinchot, William James, Dorothy Parker, Ogden Nash, and others. The earliest citation located by QI appeared in 1939 and credited Pinchot, but a cite in 1942 claimed that she denied the attribution. No decisive candidate for authorship has yet emerged in QI’s opinion.

William James did experiment with psychoactive agents, but his name was not connected to this verse until many years after his death. The earliest attribution to James located by QI was dated 1953, yet his life ended in 1910.

The first known evidence of this unusual anecdote appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper in November 1939. The article “Thanksgiving Nightmare” by Claire MacMurray discussed dreams and not drugs. MacMurray presented a supposed episode in the mental life of a person named Mrs. Amos Pinchot:¹

She dreamed one night that she had written a poem so beautiful, so wise, so close to the ultimate truth of life that she was immediately acclaimed by all the peoples on the earth as the greatest poet and philosopher of all the ages. Still half asleep as the dream ended, she stumbled out of bed and scribbled the poem down, realizing that she must take no risk of forgetting such deathless lines. She awoke in the morning with the feeling that something wonderful was about to happen—oh, yes! Her poem.

She clutched the precious paper and, tense with excitement, read the words she had written. Here they are:

Hogamus Higamus
Men are Polygamous
Higamus Hogamus
Women Monogamous

The spelling and wording of this poem do differ from the most common modern versions, but QI believes that the words above likely correspond to the ancestral verse. The dream state is certainly an altered state, and it does generate insights, both genuine and spurious. But it is a relatively conventional mental excursion.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.