Tracing Quotations
Napoleon Bonaparte? Thomas Paine? Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle? Thomas Warton? Pierre-Jacques Changeux? James Joyce? Mark Twain? Dear Quote Investigator: Aesthetic evaluations are sometimes complex and contradictory. A well-known saying reflects this unstable nature. Here are two versions: 1) The sublime is only a step removed from the ridiculous. 2) From the sublime to the …
Continue reading “From the Sublime to the Ridiculous There Is But One Step”
Mark Twain? Tennessee Williams? Edward Gannon? Hugh A. Mulligan? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Travelers in the U.S. sometimes complain of cookie-cutter monotony. The following quip has been attributed to the prominent playwright Tennessee Williams, and the luminary Mark Twain: America has only three great cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is …
Mark Twain? Robert Ingersoll? Edgar Wilson Nye? John Phoenix? George H. Derby? Roscoe Conkling? John Fiske? Horace Porter? Henry David Thoreau? Hyman G. Rickover Dear Quote Investigator: Some writers use “we” as a form of self-reference. For example, an author might state: We base our opinion on the highest authority. A comically reproachful remark about …
Josh Billings? Artemus Ward? Will Rogers? Abraham Lincoln? Mark Twain? Friedrich Nietzsche? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Here are two versions of an expression I am trying to trace: 1) It’s better to know nothing than to know what ain’t so. 2) It is better not to know so much, than to know so many things …
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Dorothy Parker? Mark Twain? Samuel Johnson? Sidney Skolsky? Margaret Case Harriman? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: The scintillating wit Dorothy Parker once listened to an enumeration of the many positive attributes of a person she disliked. Below is the final statement of praise together with Parker’s acerbic response: “She is always kind to her inferiors.” “And …
Continue reading ““She Is Always Kind to Her Inferiors” “But Where Does She Find Them?””
Mark Twain? Richard Branson? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson has argued that imagination provides hope, drive, and inspiration. He believes it should be “intertwined in daily life”; to support this thought he referred to a quotation attributed to Mark Twain: You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out …
Continue reading “You Can’t Depend On Your Eyes When Your Imagination Is Out of Focus”
Mark Twain? F. Scott Fitzgerald? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Would you please explore the provenance of a piece of writing advice that I’ve seen several times. Here are two versions: One should never use exclamation points in writing. It is like laughing at your own joke. Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point …
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Vince Lombardi? Mark Twain? Arthur Brisbane? Vidal Sassoon? Stubby Currence? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: There is an astute saying about gaining achievements through effort that deftly refers to the alphabetical order of a dictionary. Here are two versions: 1) Success comes before work only in the dictionary. 2) The dictionary is the only place where …
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Mark Twain? E. B. White? Katharine S. White? André Maurois? Marty Feldman? Dear Quote Investigator: A cogent simile about the cerebral examination of humor has been attributed to three clever individuals: humorist Mark Twain, children’s author E. B. White, and French author André Maurois. Here are four versions: Analyzing humor is a bit like dissecting …
Continue reading “Humor Can Be Dissected, as a Frog Can, But the Thing Dies in the Process”
David Foster Wallace? Olin Miller? Lee Traveler? Ethel Barrett? Mark Twain? John Steinbeck? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: An astute quotation about insecurity is often attributed to the novelist and teacher David Foster Wallace: You’ll worry less about what people think about you when you realize how seldom they do. Versions of this statement have also …