Tracing Quotations
Speaker: George Dixon? Ann Richards? Vito Marcantonio? Oliver Herford? Target: Harold Ickes? George H. W. Bush? Newbold Morris? Jones? Dear Quote Investigator: A person who is born into a wealthy and successful family is “born with a silver spoon in his or her mouth” according to a longstanding idiom. There is a funny variant that …
Continue reading “Born with a Silver Foot in His or Her Mouth”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe? Thomas Carlyle? Mary Shelley? Percy Bysshe Shelley? Thomas S. Monson? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a family of sayings ascribed to the prominent German literary figure Goethe. Here are two instances in the family: If you treat people as they are, they will become worse. If you treat them as …
Hyman Rickover? Martin Vanbee? Eleanor Roosevelt? Harry Myers? Laurence J. Peter? Sam Levenson? Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.? Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: These two simple adages have a long history: Learn from your mistakes. Learn from the mistakes of others. Some wit crafted a hilarious addendum for the second adage: You can’t …
Benjamin Franklin? H. K. Williams? James H. Hope? E. B. Gregory? Dalton E. Brady? Robert H. Schuller? John Wooden? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Proper planning is fundamental to success. Benjamin Franklin has been credited with an admonitory aphorism. Here are three versions using “plan” and “prepare”: Failing to plan is planning to fail. The person …
Continue reading “If You Fail To Prepare You Are Preparing To Fail”
Grace Hopper? Cardinal Barberini? Earl of Peterborough? David Hernandez? Helen Pajama? St. Benedict? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: People who are eager to initiate a task often cite the following guidance. Here are two versions: It’s easier to ask forgiveness than to get permission. It’s easier to apologize than to get permission. This notion has been …
Continue reading “It’s Easier To Ask Forgiveness Than To Get Permission”
Oscar Wilde? Michael Cunningham? Robert Klitzman? Robert Michels? Frank Underwood? Kevin Spacey? Apocryphal? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: While reading about the precipitous downfall of an influential literary tastemaker and powerbroker at “The Paris Review” I encountered once again a remark attributed to Oscar Wilde. Here are three versions: Everything is about sex except sex. Sex …
Continue reading “Everything Is About Sex Except Sex. Sex Is About Power”
Franklin P. Adams? Franklin P. Jones? H. B. Meyers? Sylvia Strum Bremer? Loring Smith? Mike Connolly? Steven Pinker? Dear Quote Investigator: Public intellectual Steven Pinker recently published the bestselling book “Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress” which includes an entertaining quotation about nostalgia attributed to a prominent newspaper columnist:[1] 2018, Enlightenment …
Continue reading “Nothing Is More Responsible for the Good Old Days than a Bad Memory”
Calvin Coolidge? Frank A. Beach? Lisbeth Jordan? Robert E. Whalen? Elliot Liebow? Dear Quote Investigator: The scientific literature on animal behavior contains the term “Coolidge Effect” which apparently was inspired by a ribald anecdote about Calvin Coolidge and his wife Grace. Would you please explore the provenance of this term and the accompanying story? Quote …
Benjamin Franklin? George Savile? Apocryphal? Anonymous Dear Quote Investigator: A popular technique in rhetoric consists of repeating a clause while permuting the words. For example: Money will do everything for you. You will do everything for money. Apparently, statesman Benjamin Franklin contended that a belief in the first clause led individuals to follow the guidance …
Vladimir Lenin? Joseph Stalin? Karl Marx? George Racey Jordan? Samuel E. Keeble? S. Dmitrijewski? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: A quotation about imprudent greed and near-sightedness has been attributed to three prominent communists: Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and Karl Marx. Here are three versions of the statement: Would you please explore the provenance …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: The Capitalists Will Sell Us the Rope with Which We Will Hang Them”