Quote Investigator® – Page 209

Quote Origin: I Am Always Ready to Learn, Although I Do Not Always Like Being Taught

Winston Churchill? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: My question is about a quotation spotlighted in a recent news story. Two massive power companies merged and this caused a boardroom battle. The CEO, Bill Johnson, of the combined enterprise was abruptly ousted. Johnson reportedly alienated his new board members by using a saying attributed to Winston Churchill. Johnson’s lawyer said that the former CEO was using a paraphrase. Was the lawyer correct? What was the original Churchill quote?

Reply from Quote Investigator: Here is a passage describing the situation from an article in the Wall Street Journal. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

Ms. Gray said Mr. Johnson made two board appearances during the 18-month merger period. In the first appearance, she said, he got off on the wrong foot when he described himself as “a person who likes to learn but not be taught.” She said she took it to mean: “I don’t care about your feedback or I don’t really care about your input.”

Wade Smith, Mr. Johnson’s attorney, said his client, in fact, was paraphrasing Winston Churchill, who once said “I always like to learn but I sometimes don’t like to be taught.” Mr. Johnson had no idea the Duke board took umbrage at his comment, Mr. Smith said.

Churchill did make a remark of this type on November 4, 1952 while speaking in the House of Commons in London. His words were recorded in the Hansard, the official transcript record for Parliament, which is now available online:²

Personally, I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught, but I shall not attempt to foreshadow the proposals which will be brought before the House tomorrow. Today it will be sufficient and appropriate to deal with the obvious difficulties and confusion of the situation as we found it on taking office.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: I’m a Great Believer in Luck. The Harder I Work, the More Luck I Have

Thomas Jefferson? Coleman Cox? Stephen Leacock? Samuel Goldwyn? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: There is a humorously insightful quotation about luck that is often credited to the American Founding Father Thomas Jefferson:

I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

The class notes of a course taught by the renowned entrepreneur and venture capitalist Peter Thiel featured this quote. Here is a more concise version of the saying:

The harder I work, the more luck I have.

Is this remark really connected to Jefferson?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The saying has been ascribed to Jefferson for a few decades. However, the valuable Thomas Jefferson Monticello website states that there is no evidence to support the attribution:¹

Neither this statement nor any variations thereof have ever been found in Thomas Jefferson’s writings.

The earliest close match for this aphorism known to QI is in a 1922 collection titled “Listen to This” by Coleman Cox who composed a large number of sayings:²

I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have.

This theme has been reflected in adages for quite a long time. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations lists the following proverb which it dates to the late 16^th century:³

Diligence is the mother of good luck.

A novel in 1857 “The Laird of Restalrig’s Daughter” presented a maxim about luck in a comical context. The following passage used alternate spellings to reflect dialect:⁴

Good luck mainly depends on the thrying to get it, as Darby O’Reilly said when he made Thady O’Rhu’s will afther the creathur was dead, and left the whole dollop iv his fortune to himself, sure.

In 1870 the periodical “Contemporary Review” reprinted a small collection of “Notices to Correspondents” from the London Journal. These items were similar to the classified advertisements or Craigslist ads of today. A notice from a woman named Maggie May commented about luck:⁵

People make their own luck in this world.

In 1879 the American Bee Journal printed the same basic adage about luck:⁶

I think that many of you will say, “You make your own luck.”

In 1890 an agricultural magazine “Western Garden and Poultry Journal” linked hard work with making your own luck:⁷

Poor luck is often given as an excuse for lack of energy. You make your own luck and must work hard and plan carefully if you would succeed.

This post continues with additional selected citations in chronological order.

Note that information from the website of top etymologist and quote-tracer Barry Popik helped QI to construct this short essay. A commenter using the name “Anna Berkes” at the website provided an important lead to the saying which was credited to Coleman Cox in 1923 in a magazine.⁸

Quote Origin: The Best and Most Beautiful Things in the World Cannot Be Seen Nor Even Touched

Helen Keller? Anne Sullivan? John Macy? Margaret Davidson? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: The remarkable story of Helen Keller and her teacher Anne Sullivan has been told in books, television programs, and movies. Keller who was deaf and blind learned to communicate, obtained a college degree, and became a notable speaker and author. The following poignant words are attributed to her:

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.

Did she write this in one of her books?

Reply from Quote Investigator: A nearly identical statement does appear in one of Keller’s books. Intriguingly, the words were not credited to her. The book “The Story of My Life” by Helen Keller was published by 1905, and it included a letter dated June 8, 1891 from Keller to the Reverend Phillips Brooks. She was almost 11 years old when the letter was written, and it contained the following passage:¹

I used to wish that I could see pictures with my hands as I do statues, but now I do not often think about it because my dear Father has filled my mind with beautiful pictures, even of things I cannot see. If the light were not in your eyes, dear Mr. Brooks, you would understand better how happy your little Helen was when her teacher explained to her that the best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen nor even touched, but just felt in the heart. Every day I find out something which makes me glad.

An extraordinary woman named Anne Sullivan was Keller’s teacher starting in 1887. So, the quotation originated with Sullivan instead of Keller; however, the young girl did embrace the thought it expressed. The statement evolved over time. For example, the phrase “felt in the heart” became “felt with the heart” in the modern version.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: It’s Not the Years in Your Life That Count. It’s the Life in Your Years

Abraham Lincoln? Adlai Stevenson? Edward J. Stieglitz? Edward Barrett Warman? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: There are posters, shirts, mugs, and other commercial products displaying the following inspirational quote:

And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.

Abraham Lincoln is credited with this aphorism, but I cannot find it in his collected works. Can you determine who really said it?

Reply from Quote Investigator: QI has found no substantive evidence that Lincoln used this expression. Some quotation references attributed the remark to Adlai Stevenson II who was the Governor of Illinois and a Democratic Presidential nominee. Indeed, Stevenson did employ a version of this adage in speeches as early as 1952.

But the earliest strong match located by QI was in an advertisement in 1947 for a book about aging by Edward J. Stieglitz, M.D. The following statement appeared in an ad for “The Second Forty Years” which ran in the Chicago Tribune newspaper. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:¹

The important thing to you is not how many years in your life, but how much life in your years!

The rhetorical technique of reversing word order in successive clauses is called antimetabole. In this case, “years in your life” was transformed into “life in your years”, and the contrast between the two subphrases was highlighted.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Rock n Roll: The Most Brutal, Ugly, Degenerate, Vicious Form of Expression

Frank Sinatra? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: I greatly enjoy the singing of Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, so I was surprised to hear that Sinatra once attacked the type of music that Elvis popularized. Supposedly Sinatra said:

Rock n Roll is the most brutal, ugly, desperate, vicious form of expression it has been my misfortune to hear.

Is this quotation accurate? When was this said?

Reply from Quote Investigator: There is strong evidence that Sinatra made a remark very similar to this. The wording of the modern version has been altered somewhat. QI has located an Associated Press article from October 1957 that reprinted an excerpt from a magazine called “Western World” published in Paris. Sinatra denounced rock music and musicians using hyperbolic language:¹

The famed crooner, writing in the magazine Western World published here, praised the influence of American jazz and popular music as a way of winning friends and influencing people throughout the world.

“My only deep sorrow,” he said, “is the unrelenting insistence of recording and motion picture companies upon purveying the most brutal, ugly, degenerate, vicious form of expression it has been my displeasure to hear—naturally I refer to the bulk of rock ‘n’ roll.

“It fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people. It smells phony and false. It is sung, played and written for the most part by cretinous goons and by means of its almost imbecilic reiterations and sly, lewd—in plain fact dirty—lyrics, and as I said before, it manages to be the martial music of every sideburned delinquent on the face of the earth.

“This rancid smelling aphrodisiac I deplore. But, in spite of it, the contribution of American music to the world could be said to have one of the healthiest effects of all our contributions.”

Elvis Presley’s debut album was released in 1956, and by 1957 he was a star and a cultural sensation.

This article continues with Elvis Presley’s response to Sinatra.

Quote Origin: We’re Lost, But We’re Making Good Time!

Yogi Berra? George Lichty? Buddy Blattner? Joe Garagiola? Apocryphal? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: Famed baseball player Yogi Berra is credited with many hilarious remarks. Once Yogi was driving to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York with some other players. After passing the same landmark three times a fellow player named Joe Garagiola said “Yogi, you’re lost” and he replied:

Yeah, I know it. But we’re making good time, ain’t we?

I hope this anecdote is true. What do you think?

Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1998 Yogi Berra published a short volume called “The Yogi Book” containing a series of quotations that Berra claimed were accurately ascribed to him. He presented background information explaining when and why each statement was made. This is a valuable document because a large number of spurious sayings have been attached to the good-natured and larger-than-life figure.

Berra states that he did make a remark of this type while driving to the Hall of Fame in 1972. The other occupants of the vehicle were his wife Carmen and his three sons. “Carmen was giving me a hard time, so I gave it back.” He said:

We’re lost, but we’re making good time!

This suggests that Berra was consciously making a joke. In fact, QI has traced this type of humorous comment as far back as the 1940s. A panel by the cartoonist George Lichty was published in the October 1947 issue of popular periodical Collier’s Weekly. It depicted a uniformed airplane pilot addressing his passengers with the following words:¹

We’re still lost, but we’re making very good time!

Lichty was best known for the long-running syndicated comic strip panel “Grin and Bear It”. Interestingly, he did not formulate the punchline given above. The cartoon was reprinted in Collier’s Weekly in 1948 along with commentary that identified the author of the caption as Buddy Blattner, a baseball player who later became a broadcaster:²

The gag, incidentally, came from the fertile brain of Buddy Blattner, of the New York Giants, who sold it to Collier’s, who farmed it to Lichty.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Show Me a Sane Man and I Will Cure Him

Carl Jung? Sigmund Freud? Guy Bellamy? Jolande Jacobi? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: As part of a book project I have been tracking down quotations credited to the famed psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung. One of the most interesting was:

Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.

The best citation I have found appeared in a newspaper article in 1975. The words were attributed to Jung, but this date is fourteen years after his death. So I am handing this task off to you, if you chose to accept it. This is a somewhat extreme statement with a humorous edge; hence, it probably did not appear in a monograph or journal article.

Reply from Quote Investigator: There is evidence that Jung made a remark of this type. The English author Vincent Brome has written a large number of biographies including some about individuals in Sigmund Freud’s circle. In 1978 he published a volume about Jung that included information from an interview with Jolande Jacobi, a long-time assistant to the psychiatrist. Jung died in 1961, and the interview was conducted in 1963 according to Brome. Here is an excerpt describing Jung from the biography together with a footnote:¹

It was the explosive person who said one day to his wife, ‘If I get another perfectly normal adult malingering as a sick patient I’ll have him certified!’ And to George Beckwith, his American friend, ‘I’m sometimes driven to the conclusion that boring people need treatment more urgently than mad people.’ Witty on some occasions, he commented to one of his assistants, ‘Show me a sane person and I’ll cure him for you.’ [Footnote 1]

[Footnote 1 for Chapter 23] Jolande Jacobi, author’s interview, 24 Nov 1963.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: The Universe Is Full of Magical Things Patiently Waiting for Our Wits to Grow Sharper

Bertrand Russell? William Butler Yeats? Eden Phillpotts? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: I adore the following quotation which is attributed to the philosopher Bertrand Russell:

The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

But recently I saw a different version in which two words had been changed:

The world is full of magic things patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.

This saying was credited to the Irish poet William Butler Yeats. Now my confidence that either of these prominent intellectuals fashioned this quote has been diminished. Can you clear up the confusion?

Reply from Quote Investigator: There is no substantive evidence that Russell or Yeats created this saying. QI believes that the original statement was crafted by an English author and playwright named Eden Phillpotts who used the word “universe” instead of “world”:¹

The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

The best-known works by Phillpotts were part of a series set in Dartmoor, England. He was praised for writing convincing West Country dialect, sympathetic rural characters, and accurate descriptions of topography. He also wrote a popular and long-running play called “The Farmer’s Wife”.²

The quote appeared in a 1919 book titled “A Shadow Passes” that contained a collection of vignettes depicting scenes in nature. Phillpotts noted that a magnifying lens could heighten visual acuity such that the perceived beauty of some plants would be enhanced. The passage that included the saying was about the plant species Menyanthes trifoliate which is commonly known as buckbean:³

In the marshes the buckbean has lifted its feathery mist of flower spikes above the bed of trefoil leaves. The fimbriated flowers are a miracle of workmanship and every blossom exhibits an exquisite disorder of ragged petals finer than lace. But one needs a lens to judge of their beauty: it lies hidden from the power of our eyes, and menyanthes must have bloomed and passed a million times before there came any to perceive and salute her loveliness. The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

The phrase “wits to grow sharper” referred to the development of sufficient knowledge by mankind to create and use a magnifying lens to reveal the splendor of the buckbean. Phillpotts was suggesting that there are many other “magical things” that will be revealed in the future as our knowledge and capabilities grow.

This post continues with the conclusion, acknowledgment, and bibliographical notes.

Quote Origin This Is the Sort of Nonsense Up With Which I Will Not Put

Winston Churchill? Rudy Vallee? Army Captain? High School Teacher? The Strand Magazine? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: My question concerns a memorable anecdote about the statesman Winston Churchill and the fine points of grammar. In the past many books offering grammatical advice told readers that they must never end a sentence with a preposition. Years ago when Churchill solicited comments by circulating a draft of an important speech he received a criticism that included a correction to his text. One of his sentences was rearranged to comply with the preposition rule. An irate Churchill responded with one of the following ripostes:

This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put.
This is the kind of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put.
This is the type of impertinence up with which I shall not put.

I enjoy this story and have retold it on numerous occasions because it demonstrates how clumsy a sentence can become when it is mechanically rewritten to comply with a nonsensical prohibition. Sadly, I have learned that his story may be apocryphal. Would you please explore this topic?

Reply from Quote Investigator: This famous tale has attracted the interest of many researchers over the decades. The earliest instance known to QI appeared on July 31, 1941 within “The West Sussex Gazette” of Sussex, England. Churchill was not involved; instead, the anecdote featured an unnamed English master from a high school who was called upon to join the military. During correspondence with a superior officer, the English master was scolded for placing a preposition at the end of a sentence, and he responded by employing the comically awkward sentence. The phrase “ticked off” in the passage below meant “scolded”. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:¹

The superior, who was something of a martinet, precise in matters of composition, “ticked off” his junior for ending a sentence with a preposition. Whereupon the junior, in his reply, while acknowledging himself the obedient servant of his superior in matters affecting his military duties, declined to take orders from him in respect of his use of the English language. This, he announced, was “a thing up with which I will not put”. Perhaps he has learnt otherwise since!

Winston Churchill was connected to this joke in a multi-step process that began in 1943. Details are given further below together with additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: I’ve Had a Perfectly Wonderful Evening, But This Wasn’t It

Groucho Marx? A. E. Thomas? Beatrice Faber? Sidney Skolsky? Hugh Herbert? Walter Catlett? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: When Groucho Marx was leaving a boring party he supposedly said:

I have had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.

Did Groucho really insult a host or hostess in this way, or did he use this line in a comedy routine? Incidentally, I saw this quote when I was reading about the fun word “paraprosdokian” which refers to a figure of speech that contains a surprising or unexpected ending.

Reply from Quote Investigator: In a newspaper piece he wrote in 1962 Groucho denied that he ever used this quip to actually insult someone in real life. The details are given further below. Indeed, the earliest examples known to QI were not spoken by Groucho.

In the 1930s the stories told in movies were sometimes serialized in newspapers. In June 1935 an Iowa paper serialized the movie “No More Ladies”. The movie was based on a stage play by A. E. Thomas, and the adaption was performed by Beatrice Faber. The quip appeared in chapter one of the serialization. Boldface has been added to excerpts:¹

She dropped a kiss on Fanny’s forehead. “Good night sweet. If you see Sherry tell him I had a lovely evening but this wasn’t it.”

In October 1936 the Hollywood columnist Sidney Skolsky credited the joke to a popular comedian named Hugh Herbert who had appeared in many movies. Today, Herbert is not well-known, but Groucho’s fame is uneclipsed:²

Hugh Herbert leaving a party, said to the hostess: “I had a lovely evening, but this wasn’t it.”

In November 1936 a column about Sacramento, California asserted that the line was used by an unnamed young man:³

When goodnights were being said, the girl remarked politely to a well-known out-of-town boy, “I hope you enjoyed yourself.” The boy replied just as politely, “Yes, I had a lovely evening, but this wasn’t it.” (Now, I ask you was that nice?)

In 1940 Cosmopolitan magazine published “I Cover Hollywood” by Sidney Skolsky. The columnist printed the quip again, but this time he assigned the phrase to another actor. The context was a discussion of a big party scene in the motion picture “Public Deb No. 1” which was directed by Gregory Ratoff:⁴

Director Ratoff was thinking of using the best line ever pulled at a Hollywood party as a tag for his party sequence. It actually occurred, however, when Walter Catlett, on leaving a swanky party, said to the hostess, “I had a lovely evening, but this wasn’t it.”

In 1941 the Reader’s Digest attached the words to Groucho Marx. A footnote indicated that the performer Eddie Cantor supplied the quotation and ascription:⁵

“I’ve had a wonderful evening,” said Groucho Marx to his hostess as he was leaving a dull Hollywood party, “but this wasn’t it!”*
* Contributed by Eddie Cantor

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.