Oscar Wilde? Frank Harris? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The following passage from a philosophical magazine of 1815 asserts that intellectual gifts are innate:[1]January 1815, The Philosophical Magazine And Journal, Volume 45, Dr. Spurzheim’s demonstrative Course of Lectures, Start Page 50, Quote Page 52, Printed by Richard and Arthur Taylor, Shoe Lane, … Continue reading That genius …
Search results for: Oscar Wilde
Britain and America Are Two Nations Divided by a Common Language
George Bernard Shaw? Mallory Browne? Raymond Gram Swing? Oscar Wilde? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The influential Irish playwright and commentator George Bernard Shaw has been credited with a humorous remark about language. Here are four versions: 1) Britain and America are two nations divided by a common language. 2) The English and Americans are two …
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If You Want To Tell People the Truth, You’d Better Make Them Laugh or They’ll Kill You
George Bernard Shaw? Oscar Wilde? Cecile Starr? Billy Wilder? Richard Pryor? James L. Brooks? Dustin Hoffman? Charles Ludlam? Dear Quote Investigator: Dramatists have discovered that challenging material often elicits hostility or boredom. This is dangerous for creators because jobs in the entertainment industry are precarious. Yet, a provocative production leavened with humor is often embraced …
Obscene and Not Heard
Groucho Marx? Ethel Barrymore? Maurice Barrymore? Paul M. Potter? Gertrude Battles Lane? John Lennon? Joe E. Lewis? Robert Heinlein? Marilyn Manson? Augustus John? Oscar Wilde? Dear Quote Investigator: There is well-known and often repeated admonition directed at young people who are making too much noise: Children should be seen and not heard. Wordplay has produced …
Lovers: They Sing a Song Only You Can Hear
Oscar Wilde? CosmoGIRL? L. G. McVean? William J. Locke? Elizabeth Cooper? Holiday Mathis? Apocryphal? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a popular saying about the intimate connection between people who are in love that has been attributed to the famous wit Oscar Wilde. The closeness is expressed using an auditory metaphor: You don’t love someone …
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I Spent All Morning Taking Out a Comma and All Afternoon Putting It Back
Oscar Wilde? Gustave Flaubert? Robert H. Sherard? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: A famous writer who was punctilious about punctuation described an arduous day of work as follows: I spent all morning putting in a comma and all afternoon taking it out. In some versions of the anecdote the operations were reversed: I spent all morning …
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Youth Is Wasted on the Young
George Bernard Shaw? Oscar Wilde? Irvin Cobb? Michel de Montaigne? John Brunner? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: A very popular acerbic adage combines wisdom and wistfulness together with a modicum of jealousy: Youth is wasted on the young. These words have been attributed to two famous Irish wits: George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde. Oddly, I …
Missionaries and Cannibals
Oscar Wilde? Richard Le Gallienne? Reverend Sydney Smith? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: One of the more outrageous remarks attributed to the famous wit Oscar Wilde concerned missionaries, cannibals, and the supply of food. Did Wilde really make this facetious remark? Quote Investigator: Oscar Wilde died in 1900, and the earliest evidence located by QI appeared …
Life Is Too Important To Be Taken Seriously
Oscar Wilde? G. K. Chesterton? H. L. Mencken? Sebastian Melmoth? Dear Quote Investigator: The following cryptic paradox has been attributed to the famous wit Oscar Wilde: Life is too important to be taken seriously. Yet, I have not found this statement in Wilde’s plays or essays. Would you please examine its provenance? Quote Investigator: Oscar …
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A Gentleman Is a Man Who Never Gives Offense Unintentionally
Oscar Wilde? Margaret Butler? Geraldine Grove? Lord Chesterfield? John Wayne? Christopher Hitchens? John Cleese? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Books of etiquette once provided a definition of a gentleman that included the following assertion: A gentleman never insults anyone intentionally. The clever addition of a two-letter prefix humorously spun the definition: A gentleman never insults anyone …
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