Quote Investigator® – Page 211

Quote Origin: Men Occasionally Stumble Over the Truth, But They Pick Themselves Up and Hurry Off

Winston Churchill? Simon Singh? Stanley Baldwin? The Reader’s Digest? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: Simon Singh is a fine author who writes knowledgeably about mathematical and scientific topics. His book “Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe” credited the following words to the statesman Winston Churchill:¹

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

This quotation was used by Singh during a discussion about serendipity and the development of antibiotics. When Alexander Fleming examined some bacterial cultures that had been contaminated with mold he saw an avenue toward the epoch-making discovery of penicillin Other scientists probably threw away similar contaminated cultures in exasperation.

I think it is a marvelous saying, but I have not yet located a solid citation. Could you determine if Churchill made this remark?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest published evidence located by QI for a similar quote appeared in Reader’s Digest magazine in 1942, and the words were ascribed to Winston Churchill. Interestingly, the saying was about an individual unnamed man and not about men in general or people in general:²

Occasionally he stumbled over the truth but he always picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened. (Winston Churchill)

An important reference work “Irrepressible Churchill: A Treasury of Winston Churchill’s Wit” was published by Kay Halle in 1966. Halle knew the leader well, and she interviewed him and many of his friends while creating the compendium. Halle stated that the quote was aimed at Churchill’s political adversary Stanley Baldwin who was Prime Minister between 1935 and 1937. The wording given in the reference differed slightly from the version in the Reader’s Digest:³

Occasionally he stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened.

Halle used the label “Ear-witness” for the quote to indicate that she heard it though mutual friends and not directly from Churchill. Also, she estimated that it was said around 1936.

In 1945 the syndicated newspaper columnist Charles G. Sampas printed a modern variant of the saying that referred to men in general instead of a specific man:⁴

Men occasionally stumble over truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened. (Churchill)

Here are additional selected citations and details in chronological order.

Quote Origin: You Only Live Once – YOLO

Drake? Schlitz Beer? Fritz Lang? Honoré de Balzac? Joe E. Lewis? Frank Sinatra? Fyodor Dostoevsky? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: In 2011 a song called “The Motto” by Drake was released, and it contained this expression:

You only live once.

The acronym YOLO was popularized by this song, I think. But I have heard the catch phrase for decades. I recall that the famous crooner Frank Sinatra entertained concert goers with the following version:

You only live once, and the way I live, once is enough.

Could you tell me about the history of this aphorism?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The actor and hip hop artist Aubrey Drake Graham records music under the name Drake. The song “The Motto” by Drake featuring Lil Wayne was released in November 2011 and was a hit. The lyrics included the phrase “You only live once” and the term YOLO along with the following repeated chorus “We bout it every day, every day, every day.”

The acronym YOLO was popularized by Drake, but it has been circulating for decades. The Associated Press news service in 1968 published an article titled “Fort Lauderdale: The City of Boats” which included a discussion of the creative names assigned to yachts and other watercraft. Emphasis in excerpts added by QI:¹

Naming the vessels, plain or fancy, is a chore that delights some owners. One fad is acronyms, initials of a phrase that spell a word of sorts.

The Pitoa translates “Patience is the Only Answer.” Tica is not named for an Aztec chieftain: It means, “This I Can’t Afford.” Yolo is short for “You Only Live Once.”

The above citation is the earliest evidence known to QI of the acronym together with its modern meaning. Thanks to top researcher Peter Reitan who located it and shared it with QI.

The general expression: “You only live once” (without YOLO) has a very long history. The precise phrasing of the sentiment is variable. For example, sometimes the pronoun “we” is used instead of “you” to yield: “We only live once”. Also, sometimes the word order is altered to produce: “We live only once”.

The earliest exact match for “You only live once” found by QI occurred in an 1896 English translation of the French work “La Comédie Humaine” (“The Human Comedy”) by the famed novelist Honoré de Balzac. The statement appeared in a passage describing a free-spending pair of characters:²

… the couple made up, counting their New Year’s gratuities an income of sixteen hundred francs, all of which they spent, for they lived better than the majority of the common people. “You only live once,” said Madame Cibot.

Here are additional selected citations and details in chronological order.

Quote Origin: There Is No Right Way to Do the Wrong Thing

Toby Keith? Charles Jewett? W. Adam? Seneca the Younger? Waylon Jennings? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: A song by the country music superstar Toby Keith includes the following words in the chorus:

Ain’t no right way,
To do the wrong thing,

The song is on the album “White Trash With Money” which was released in 2006. More than a decade ago I started to use the same saying:

There’s no right way to do the wrong thing.

Yet, I do not recall hearing this phrase before 2000. Is this a modern proverb?

Reply from Quote Investigator: Some researchers thought the phrase might be modern, i.e., twentieth century, but a major new reference work: “The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs” by Charles Clay Doyle, Wolfgang Mieder, and Fred R Shapiro dispelled that notion. The authors found a citation before 1900 and placed the phrase in a special appendix listing: “No Longer Modern Proverbs”.¹

In fact, the aphorism has a long history. In 1850 an article about the relationship between Britain and India was published in the U.S. periodical “De Bow’s Southern and Western Review”. The article criticized the dominance of Britain:²

They stand in the relation of conquerors and conquered; of arbitrary rulers and subject masses; of masters and slaves-without common associations, …

The phrase was used when the author discussed how Britain should rule India:³

There is no right way of doing a wrong thing; and while the relation itself is allowed to continue, the mode of acting under that relation must partake of its vicious and unnatural character.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Do Good Anyway. The Paradoxical Commandments

Mother Teresa? Kent M. Keith? Dempsey Byrd? Howard Ferguson? E. T. Gurney? Lucinda Vardey? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: Mother Teresa is credited with a very popular collection of wise rules. Here are the first two:

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered; Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives; Be kind anyway.

Usually there are between eight and ten statements, and each one ends with the word “anyway”. The precise phrasing for each statement varies. In addition, the collection ends with the following coda:

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; It was never between you and them anyway.

Did Mother Teresa create this valuable set of principles?

Reply from Quote Investigator: No. The original collection of sayings was created by a college student named Kent M. Keith and published in 1968 in a pamphlet titled “The Silent Revolution: Dynamic Leadership in the Student Council”. Below are the original expressions given in the pamphlet. To simplify exposition a two-digit number has been added before each statement. There was no coda in the original text:¹

01: People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway.

02: If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway.

03: If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.

04: The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.

05: Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.

06: The biggest men with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.

07: People favor underdogs, but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

08: What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.

09: People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway.

10: Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.

Note that Kent M. Keith has a website that includes a page listing the expressions above which he calls the “Paradoxical Commandments of Leadership”. Keith discusses the origin of the commandments, and his claims are consistent with the documentary evidence that QI has located.

The statements provided by the questioner do differ somewhat from the expressions given by Keith. For example, in commandment 01 the ordering of the initial three terms is different: “unreasonable, illogical and self-centered” versus “illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.” Also, the final phrase is different: “Forgive them anyway” versus “Love them anyway.”

In commandment 02 the word “kind” is used instead of “good”. The first phrase is: “If you are kind” versus “If you do good.” The final phrase is: “Be kind anyway” versus “Do good anyway.”

Indeed, the sayings did evolve during decades of transmission, and multiple variants have been published in newspapers, books, and magazines. Sometimes entire statements have been deleted. But Keith’s “Paradoxical Commandments” function as the foundational text, and other sets have been directly or indirectly derived from them.

The commandments have been incorrectly ascribed to other individuals including: Dempsey Byrd, Howard Ferguson, E. T. Gurney, and Mother Teresa. The earliest misattribution located by QI appeared in 1972. Details are given further below. Note that incorrect attributions often occur even when a person does not actively seek to claim credit.

The frequent ascription to Mother Teresa stems from the misreading of a book about the famous Catholic charity worker called “A Simple Path” that was compiled by Lucinda Vardey and released in 1995. The page preceding the appendices was titled “ANYWAY”, and it presented versions of eight of the ten statements under investigation. Statements 06 and 07 were omitted. A note at the bottom of the page said:²

From a sign on the wall of Shishu Bhavan, the children’s home in Calcutta.

So the words were not directly attributed to Mother Teresa. Instead, some person at a children’s home operated by her charity organization posted a note with the sayings. Nevertheless, one or more readers of the book decided incorrectly to credit Mother Teresa with the sayings.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Everything Is Energy and That’s All There Is To It. Match the Frequency of the Reality You Want

Albert Einstein? Darryl Anka? Bashar? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: Many odd quotations are credited to the brilliant scientist Albert Einstein, and recently I have seen another peculiar example featured on Facebook and multiple websites:

Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics.

I do not think this is physics, and I do not think these are Einstein’s words. The statement appears similar to tenets popularized in New Age books and magazines. Can you find out more about this quotation?

Reply from Quote Investigator: There is no substantive evidence that Albert Einstein said this. It does not appear in the comprehensive collection of quotations “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein” from Princeton University Press.¹

The earliest evidence QI can find for this quote is in a digital archive captured in April 2000 of a webpage from a site called bashar.org. The data can be viewed by using the “Wayback Machine”, a service provided by the Internet Archive, a non-profit organization which offers permanent storage and access to massive collections of digitized materials.

A set of computers at the Internet Archive regularly crawl the web and download accessible webpages. The data is stored for later examination by researchers, historians, and the curious. The “Wayback Machine” provides a front-end to a search engine that allows a user to view the contents of an individual webpage as it appeared on dates from the past. However, only a limited number of webpages and dates are available for study.

On April 8, 2000 a computer at the Internet Archive visited the website bashar.org and downloaded a webpage that included the quotation under investigation in the last paragraph. The title at the top of the page was “The Ides of March”. The words on the page were not attributed to Albert Einstein. Instead, the name Darryl Anka appeared at the bottom of the page along with a copyright symbol and a 1996 date. The webpage was likely created sometime between 1996 and April 2000.

The Wikipedia entry for Darryl Anka states that he worked as a special effects artist for several motion pictures. In addition, it states that Anka is known as a channeler:²

Anka claims that he began to communicate, through trance-channeling, with an extra-terrestrial entity called Bashar in 1983. He describes Bashar as existing in a parallel reality, in a time frame that we perceive as the future.

The webpage at bashar.org from April 2000 explicated the philosophy of Bashar as channeled by Anka. The page stated: “Everything you could ever want, it has already been given to you”. Here is an additional excerpt to illuminate the viewpoint being espoused:³

Everything is here and now, but in various states of visibility and invisibility depending upon the frequency that you are operating on, and that means the belief system, the definitions that you buy into most strongly.

The background given above might help the reader to interpret the final paragraph on the webpage:⁴

Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is physics.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Denial Is Not a River in Egypt

Florence Kerns? Ray Hallinan? Herb Caen? Pauline Tymon? Larry Pickard? David Crosby? Joe Bob Briggs? Al Franken? Stuart Smalley? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: The Saturday Night Live television program once featured skits with a character named Stuart Smalley who was played by the comedian and former senator Al Franken. Smalley was enamored with self-help programs and often used the following catch phrase:

Denial is not a river in Egypt.

I have also heard a very similar phrase credited to Mark Twain:

Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.

Could you explore the origin of this quotation?

Reply from Quote Investigator: There is no substantive evidence that Mark Twain used this expression. Al Franken, in the persona of Stuart Smalley, did use this saying, but his satirical character was introduced to the television audience in 1991. Franken was employing a phrase that was already in circulation in the domain of self-help and addiction counseling.

The underlying pun has a long history. The earliest evidence known to QI appeared in the “Reading Times” of Reading, Pennsylvania in April 1931. Eighth grade student Florence Kerns won a contest by submitting the following wordplay joke which fit a question-answer template:¹

Question: Do you know how to use “denial” in a sentence?
Answer: Denial river runs through Egypt.

Thanks to ace researcher Bill Mullins who located the citation above and shared it with QI. Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Everybody Steals in Commerce and Industry. I’ve Stolen A Lot Myself

Thomas Edison? Martin André Rosanoff? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: While reading a novel about the remarkable inventor Nikola Tesla I came across a statement credited to Thomas Edison that I find very hard to believe:¹

Everyone steals in commerce and industry. I’ve stolen a lot, myself. But I know how to steal! They don’t know how to steal!

Did Edison really say something like this? I know that Tesla and Edison were rivals, and perhaps the author of this Tesla book is biased against Edison. I hesitate to believe that this quotation is accurate.

Reply from Quote Investigator: A remark that was nearly identical to the one above was attributed to Edison in an article published in Harper’s magazine in September 1932 titled “Edison in His Laboratory”. The statement began with “everybody” instead of “everyone”. Note that Edison died in 1931, the year before the Harper’s article was printed. The author of the article was Martin André Rosanoff who performed chemical investigations for Edison.

Rosanoff stated that Edison asked him to test the composition of a wax that was used by a rival company because Edison suspected that the other company had stolen a secret formula for the wax. In the following excerpt Rosanoff referred to Edison as “the Old Man”:²

The first I knew of this was when the Old Man asked me to investigate it and ascertain whether the rival’s wax was really new. He said I might be called upon to testify in court and urged me to make my experimental study thorough.

Rosanoff performed an exhaustive analysis of the wax and concluded that the rival’s wax was identical in composition to that used by Edison’s company. Rosanoff was angered by this apparent commercial theft, and described the data to Edison:³

When I reported my results to the Old Man with spirited indignation at the unsavory ways of his rival, he asked with a merry twinkle of amusement, “What are you so excited about? Everybody steals in commerce and industry. I’ve stolen a lot myself. But I knew how to steal. They don’t know how to steal—that’s all that’s the matter with them” I said nothing; my breath was taken away.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Life is What Happens To You While You’re Busy Making Other Plans

John Lennon? Allen Saunders? Quin Ryan? Walter Ward? Henry Cooke? Robert Balzer? L. S. McCandless? Publilius Syrus? Thomas a Kempis? William Gaddis?

Question for Quote Investigator: Recently, a medical emergency threw all my carefully constructed plans into complete disarray. I was reminded of a remarkably astute and ruefully humorous saying credited to the musical superstar John Lennon:

Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.

When did he say this? Was he the first to express this idea?

Reply from Quote Investigator: John Lennon did compose a song containing this saying and released it in 1980. The song was called “Beautiful Boy” or “Darling Boy” and it was part of the album “Double Fantasy”. Lennon wrote the lyrics about his experiences with his son Sean whose mother is Yoko Ono. In 2012 YouTube had a streamable version of the song, and the phrase could be heard at 2 minutes 16 seconds into the track which had a total length of 4 minutes 12 seconds. Lennon sang the following. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:¹

Before you cross the street take my hand.
Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.

But the general expression can be traced back more than two decades before this time. A partial match occurred in September 2, 1956 within the comic strip “Mary Worth” which was written by Allen Saunders and distributed by Publishers Syndicate. The character Guy expressed ambivalence about a relationship, and the character Mary Worth delivered an insightful comment:²

I GUESS I WAS JUST TOO SLOW MRS. WORTH! I WANTED TO BE SURE … AND I WANTED SUZANNE TO BE SURE!

THERE IS AN OLD SAYING, GUY, THAT LIFE IS SOMETHING WHICH HAPPENS WHILE WE’RE WAITING FOR SOMETHING ELSE!

A full match occurred on December 18, 1956 in the “Stockton Record” of Stockton, California:³

And In Conclusion
Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.—Publishers Syndicate.

QI hypothesizes that the statement above was derived from the statement in “Mary Worth” although the phrasing was somewhat different. The title of the Stockton newspaper article was “Scissors: A Roundup of Best Humor” which indicated that the statement was reprinted from another periodical.

Specifically, QI believes that the statement was reprinted from the January 1957 issue of “Reader’s Digest” magazine. This date was misleading because the magazine was actually available at least two weeks before its cover date. Interestingly, The “Reader’s Digest” presented the name of the author of the statement:⁴

Allen Saunders: Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.
—Publishers Syndicate

The item above appeared in a section called “Quotable Quotes” in “Reader’s Digest”. Material for this section was sometimes submitted by readers, and it was not rigorously verified.

QI conjectures that an unknown person saw the “Mary Worth” comic strip and was impressed by the statement from Allen Saunders. The person later submitted an item to “Reader’s Digest” based on an imperfect memory. The item contained a rephrased version of the statement credited to Saunders. The magazine accepted the submission and published it.

Before the discovery of the citation in “Mary Worth” the earliest commonly known evidence was the citation in the “Reader’s Digest”. Three important reference works list the “Reader’s Digest” citation: “The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs”⁵, “The Quote Verifier”⁶, and “The New Yale Book of Quotations”.⁷

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Clothes Make the Man. Naked People Have Little or No Influence in Society

Mark Twain? Merle Johnson? Apocryphal?

Question for Quote Investigator: Comments about stylish clothing always remind me of Mark Twain’s comment:

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society.

But I cannot seem to find any direct reference for this quote. The best citation I have seen was dated more than fifteen years after Twain’s death in 1910.

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest known evidence for this saying was published in the book: “More Maxims of Mark”. This slim volume was compiled by Merle Johnson and privately printed in November 1927. Only fifty first edition copies were created, so gaining access to the work can be difficult. The Rubenstein Rare Book Library at Duke University holds book number 14 of 50. With the help of digital images captured by a friend, QI was able to verify that the quotation is present on page number 6 of this book. Below is the saying under investigation together with the preceding and succeeding entries. Maxims in the work were presented in uppercase:¹

CIVILIZATION IS A LIMITLESS MULTIPLICATION OF UNNECESSARY NECESSARIES.

CLOTHES MAKE THE MAN. NAKED PEOPLE HAVE LITTLE OR NO INFLUENCE IN SOCIETY.

DO YOUR DUTY TODAY AND REPENT TOMORROW.

Merle Johnson was a rare book collector, and he published the first careful bibliography of Twain’s works in 1910 shortly after the writer’s death. Twain scholars believe that the sayings compiled by Johnson in “More Maxims of Mark” are properly ascribed to Twain.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Quote Origin: Laughter Would Be Bereaved If Snobbery Died

James Ussher? Peter Ustinov? Arland Ussher? Apocryphal? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: The Times of London has a regular Quote-of-the-Day feature called “Last Word”. My question is about the following insightful quotation:¹

Laughter would be bereft if snobbery died.

The newspaper credited this remark to Archbishop James Ussher who lived between 1581 and 1656. Ussher was famous for intensely studying sacred and secular texts and then calculating the date of the creation of the universe which he gave as October 23, 4004 BC. Evidence today suggests that Ussher’s chronology was not completely accurate.

But this query was prompted by another anomalous chronology. According to the authoritative Oxford English Dictionary the noun “snob” was first recorded in 1785, at which time it meant: “A shoemaker or cobbler; a cobbler’s apprentice”. Also, the noun “snobbery” dates from 1833 long after after Ussher’s death. Stylistically, the quotation seems modern to me. If Ussher wrote this statement then someone else must have substantially modified it. Could you tell me who authored this quotation and when?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The UK newspaper The Times on June 16, 2011 did publish the following quote and ascription:²

“Laughter would be bereft if snobbery died.”
James Ussher, Irish prelate, 1581-1656

But Ussher had nothing to do with this aphorism. Congratulations to the questioner for her perceptive analysis of the anachronistic vocabulary. The earliest known evidence of this maxim appeared in 1955 more than three hundred and fifty years after the death of Ussher.

The English actor, writer, and humorist Peter Ustinov is the most likely creator. In March 1955 the UK Sunday newspaper The Observer printed the quotation in a section called “Sayings of the Week”. The original wording was slightly different:³

Laughter would be bereaved if snobbery died. —Mr. Peter Ustinov

What caused this bizarre mistake? There is a known error mechanism that provides a plausible explanation. In an alphabetical listing the names “Ussher” and “Ustinov” would be close to one another. In fact, in some lists of quotations the entries for the two names would be adjacent. A hurried and harried individual who was rapidly searching for a name to assign to a quotation might look above and below an entry and then select any visible name.