Tracing Quotations
George Orwell? Cyril Connolly? Margaret Marshall? Kingsley Amis? Kit Reed? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Societal attitudes toward body weight and body image have changed, and this topic can be controversial. I recall the following adage from decades in the past: Inside every fat person is a slim one who wants to get out. I …
Continue reading “Adage Origin: Inside Every Fat Person is a Thin Person Trying to Get Out”
Upton Sinclair? W. E. B. Du Bois? George Orwell? George Bernard Shaw? Ann Petry? Morris Edmund Speare? Richard Hunt? Ludwig Lewisohn? Edmund Wilson? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Advocates often extoll their visions with strong-willed certainty. Insistent artists are accused of preaching and propagandizing. Yet, this criticism is sometimes provocatively embraced. Here are three assertions: …
George Orwell? Bertrand Russell? Thomas Sowell? Nicholas Kisburg? George Will? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Intelligent individuals sometimes embrace remarkably foolish ideas. Here are four versions of an acerbic remark: (1) One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool. (2) This is one …
George Orwell? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The naïve extrapolation of current events leads to faulty predictions. Apparently, the influential English novelist and essayist George Orwell made a point of this type regarding the overestimation of victors in recent battles. Too often people view ruthless contemporary winners as invincible and are unable to recognize flaws. …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Whoever Is Winning at the Moment Will Always Seem To Be Invincible”
George Orwell? Coco Chanel? Mae West? Ingrid Bergman? Albert Camus? Abraham Lincoln? Edwin M. Stanton? Lucius E. Chittenden? Albert Schweitzer? Maurice Chevalier? William H. Seward? Edward Lee Hawk? William Shakspeare? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: A person’s true character can be deduced by the careful study of the face according to believers in physiognomy. This …
George Orwell? Eric Arthur Blair? Bernard Crick? Sonia Orwell? Norman Lear? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: George Orwell apparently once made a fascinating comment about the essence of liberty. Here are two versions: Would you please help me to determine the correct phrasing and to locate a solid citation? Reply from Quote Investigator: George Orwell …
George Orwell? Jan Kalina? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: A joke which ridicules an oppressive institution can help to undermine it. George Orwell once wrote about the subversive capabilities of humor and stated that a trenchant quip was analogous to a “tiny revolution”. Would you please help me to find a citation? Reply from Quote …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Every Joke Is a Tiny Revolution”
Bertrand Russell? George Orwell? Arthur Koestler? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Humanity faces many existential dangers: hydrogen bombs, bioweapons, asteroid impacts, nanoplagues, and artificial intelligence. Yet, most of these dangers were created by humankind, and all can be ameliorated by wise decisions. The British philosopher Bertrand Russell once said something like: The question is how …
George Orwell? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Lately, I have been seeing the following quotation about warfare attributed to the famous political writer George Orwell: War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it. I am skeptical of this attribution. Is this a genuine statement …
George Orwell? V. G. Venturini? David Hoffman? Charlotte Despard? Antonio Gramsci? Anonymous? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: In 1949 George Orwell described a nightmarish future in his classic dystopian novel 1984. There is a popular quotation that is supposed to be contained within this work, but it is not there. Here are three versions: Maybe …