Maya Angelou? Nathaniel Hawthorne? Thomas Hood? Richard Brinsley Sheridan? Charles Allston Collins? Anthony Trollope? Lord Byron? William Makepeace Thackeray? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Writers should strive to create texts that are informative, interesting, stimulating, and readable. But one of my favorite sayings reveals that this can be a remarkably difficult task: Easy reading is damned …
Tag Archives: Nathaniel Hawthorne
Happiness Is A Butterfly, Which When Pursued, Seems Always Just Beyond Your Grasp
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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