Tracing Quotations
Nathaniel Hawthorne? Henry David Thoreau? L.? Apocryphal? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: An ingenious and lovely simile about happiness is confusingly attributed to two prominent literary figures: Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau. Here are two versions: Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which, if you will sit …
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Blaise Pascal? John Locke? Benjamin Franklin? Henry David Thoreau? Cicero? Woodrow Wilson? Dear 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 …
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Albert Jay Nock? Ralph Waldo Emerson? Oliver Wendell Holmes? Henry David Thoreau? Henry Stanley Haskins? William Morrow? Expelled Wall Street Stock Trader? Dear Quote Investigator: I attended a graduation ceremony last year and was genuinely impressed by a quotation used in the keynote address: What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are …