Tracing Quotations
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. J. Liebling? H. L. Mencken? Norman Woelfel? Arthur Calwell? Dear Quote Investigator: There exists a famously sardonic remark about the media and control. Here are four versions: 1) Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one. 2) Freedom of the press is confined to the people who own one. 3) Freedom of …
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Mary Pettibone Poole? W. E. Nesom? George F. Worts? H. L. Mencken? Joe Laurie Jr.? Franklin P. Adams? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a famous proverb that asserts the last person to laugh is the person who laughs the best or the longest. I am interested in a cleverly modified statement emphasizing the connection …
Julian Huxley? H. L. Mencken? Lewis Browne? Eric Temple Bell? William James? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: The QI website has an article tracing a quip about a problematic absurdist quest: A metaphysician is a man who goes into a dark cellar at midnight without a light looking for a black cat that is not …
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Victor Hugo? H. L. Mencken? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Melancholy is a complex and sometimes puzzling emotion. The composite nature of the sensation is expressed by the following: Melancholia is the joy of feeling sad. Melancholy is the happiness of being sad. Melancholy is the pleasure of being sad. I believe that this statement was …
Erica Jong? Oscar Wilde? Robert Webster Jones? H. L. Mencken? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: As a single person I enjoy the following joke about bigamy. Here are two versions: (1) Bigamy is having one husband too many. Monogamy is the same. (2) Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same. The first …
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Ambrose Bierce? H. L. Mencken? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a comically acerbic remark about elections that is often attributed to the famous cynic Ambrose Bierce: An election is nothing more than the advanced auction of stolen goods. Several of my friends have told me that these are actually the words of the influential …
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H.L. Mencken? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The following saying is credited to H.L. Mencken on several websites, and I found it in some quotation dictionaries. But I cannot find it directly in any works written by Mencken. Could you tell me if the attribution is correct? The urge to save humanity is almost always a …
Vladimir Lenin? Winston Churchill? George Riddell? H. L. Mencken? Fictional? Dear Quote Investigator: I was thumbing through The Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations to try and find a good saying about freedom of the press and I was stunned to see this hostile sentence [OPQ]: As to freedom of the press, why should any man …