Tracing Quotations
Lewis Carroll? Cheshire Cat? J.C. Penney Department Store? Sue? Apocryphal? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: The famous English fantasy author Lewis Carroll has been credited with a statement about nonconformity. Here are two versions: (1) I’m not crazy; my reality is just different than yours.(2) I’m not strange, weird, off, nor crazy, my reality is …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: I’m Not Crazy. My Reality Is Just Different Than Yours”
Lewis Carroll? Charles L. Dodgson? Ellen Terry? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Altruists believe that the following is a deep insight about life: What is truly worth doing is what we do for others. Lewis Carroll, the famous creator of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” apparently said something like this. Would you please help me to …
Lewis Carroll? Cheshire Cat? C. S. Lewis? Jules de Gaultier? Benjamin de Casseres? Percy Bysshe Shelley? Herbert Kaufman? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Reality can be cold and disheartening. Yet, humans have the extraordinary facility to imagine a different and more entertaining universe. Here are two versions of a pertinent saying: (1) Imagination is the …
Voltaire? Lewis Carroll? George Sand? François-Marie Arouet? C. L. Dodgson? Aurore Dupin Dudevant? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: The following remark perfectly encapsulates a world-weary perspective: I have seen so many extraordinary things, nothing seems extraordinary any more. This expression has been attributed to three people who employed pseudonyms: witty philosopher Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet), fantasy …
Lewis Carroll? Charles L. Dodgson? Alice in Wonderland? White Rabbit? March Hare? Emmaleta Hicks? Gene Meihsner? Ed Sussdorff? Milton Berle? Truck Driver Named Bill? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: There is a family of statements about the difficulty of keeping up with a heavy workload. Here are four instances: This saying has often been credited …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: The Hurrier I Go, the Behinder I Get”
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach? Lewis Carroll? Charles L. Dodgson? Joseph Addison? Richard Steele? Diedrich Knickerbocker? Washington Irving? Albany de Grenier Fonblanque? Paulo Coelho? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: An obtuse, unreliable, or incompetent person occasionally performs properly. Here are three versions of a proverb reflecting this observation: This saying has been attributed to the prominent Austrian …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Even a Stopped Clock Is Right Twice a Day”
Mark Twain? Oxford Student? Frenchman? Lewis Carroll? Schoolchild? G. K. Chesterton? Israel Zangwill? Charles Lamb? Benjamin Jowett? Aldous Huxley? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Determining the accurate provenance of famous plays and poems can be a contentious topic. According to tradition the composer of the Iliad and Odyssey has been referred to as Homer, but …