Quote Investigator® – Page 211

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.

Quote Origin: No One Can Make You Feel Inferior Without Your Consent

Eleanor Roosevelt? Reader’s Digest? Apocryphal? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: There is a remarkably insightful statement about self-esteem that is usually credited to Eleanor Roosevelt, the diplomat and former First Lady:

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

This is one of my favorite quotations, but I have not been able to determine when it was first said. One quotation dictionary claimed that the saying was in the autobiography “This is My Story” by Roosevelt, but I was unable to find it.

Did Eleanor Roosevelt really say this? Could you tell me where I can locate this quotation?

Reply from Quote Investigator: This popular aphorism is the most well-known guidance ascribed to Roosevelt. Quotation experts such as Rosalie Maggio and Ralph Keyes have explored the origin of this saying. Surprisingly, a thorough examination of the books the First Lady authored and her other archived writings has failed to discover any instances of the quote.¹

Yet, the saying has been attributed to Roosevelt for more than seventy years. The earliest example located by QI appeared in the pages of the widely-distributed periodical Reader’s Digest in September of 1940:²

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Eleanor Roosevelt

Thus, from the beginning the phrase was credited to Roosevelt. However, no supporting reference was given in the magazine, and the quote stood alone at the bottom of a page with unrelated article text above it.

Recently, QI located some intriguing evidence, and he now believes that the creation of this maxim can be traced back to comments made by Eleanor Roosevelt about an awkward event in 1935. The Secretary of Labor in the Roosevelt administration was invited to give a speech at the University of California, Berkeley on the Charter Day of the school. The customary host of the event was unhappy because she felt that the chosen speaker should not have been a political figure. She refused to serve as the host and several newspaper commentators viewed her action as a rebuff and an insult.

Eleanor Roosevelt was asked at a White House press conference whether the Secretary had been snubbed, and her response was widely disseminated in newspapers. Here is an excerpt from an Associated Press article:³

“A snub” defined the first lady, “is the effort of a person who feels superior to make someone else feel inferior. To do so, he has to find someone who can be made to feel inferior.”

She made clear she didn’t think the labor secretary fell within the category of the “snubable.”

Note that this statement by Roosevelt in 1935 contained the key elements of the quotation that was assigned to her by 1940. One person may try to make a second person feel inferior, but this second person can resist and simply refuse to feel inferior. In this example, the labor secretary refused to consent to feel inferior.

The precise wording given for Roosevelt’s statement varied. Here is another example that was printed in a syndicated newspaper column called “So They Say!” the following week. The columnist stated that the following was the definition of a “snub” given by Roosevelt:⁴

I think it is the effort of a person who feels superior to make someone else feel inferior. First, though, you have to find someone who can be made to feel inferior.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

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?

**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?

Question for 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?

Reply from Quote Investigator: 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?

Question for 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.

Reply from 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.² Both publications included this story about Holmes: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:

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.