Tracing Quotations
Oscar Wilde? Margaret Butler? Geraldine Grove? Lord Chesterfield? John Wayne? Christopher Hitchens? John Cleese? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Books of etiquette once provided a definition of a gentleman that included the following assertion: A gentleman never insults anyone intentionally. The clever addition of a two-letter prefix humorously spun the definition: A gentleman never insults anyone …
Continue reading “A Gentleman Is a Man Who Never Gives Offense Unintentionally”
Oscar Wilde? Ann Landers? Gershon Legman? Anonymous? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: In 1882 the coruscating wit Oscar Wilde came to the United States to see the country and to conduct a series of lectures. When he visited the Niagara Falls, a classic honeymoon destination, he was unimpressed. Here are two variants of a saying that …
Continue reading “Niagara Falls: The First Great Disappointment in Married Life”
Orson Welles? Oscar Wilde? James Aswell? Richard Lederer? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: The influence of William Shakespeare’s works on the English language has been enormous; consider the following phrases: To thine own self be true It was Greek to me Brevity is the soul of wit To be, or not to be Not a mouse …
Continue reading “Now We Sit Through Shakespeare in Order to Recognize the Quotations”
Oscar Wilde? G. K. Chesterton? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: I saw the following remark on the webpage of an educator: Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace. The phrase was attributed to Oscar Wilde, but I have not been able to find it in his oeuvre. It was listed on websites like Goodreads and …
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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 …
Continue reading “Bigamy Is Having One Spouse Too Many. Monogamy Is the Same”
William Shakespeare? Mark Twain? Oscar Wilde? Winston Churchill? Abby Buchanan Longstreet? Frank Fay? Pierre de Roman? Joey Adams? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: There exists a collection of similar jokes based on word play and the terms: battle, armed, wit, and half-wit. Here are some examples: 1) I would challenge you to a battle of wits, …
Continue reading “I Would Challenge You To a Battle of Wits, But I See You Are Unarmed”
Victor Hugo? Oscar Wilde? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a popular humorous anecdote about an exchange of letters between Victor Hugo and his publisher shortly after the publication of “Les Misérables”. Each message consisted of only a single character. Are you familiar with this story? Recently, I heard a version of the tale with …
Continue reading “Briefest Correspondence: Question Mark? Exclamation Mark!”
Oscar Wilde? Lord Paget? Henry Watterson? Apocryphal? Quote Investigator: In modern times a philistine is an uncultured anti-intellectual. In the Bible the Philistine people were enemies of the Israelites. Samson successfully fought against an army of Philistines while wielding the jawbone of an ass (donkey) as a devastating weapon. This background information allows one to …
Maya Angelou? Oscar Wilde? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Recently on Pinterest and Twitter I have seen the following quotation attributed to the famous wit Oscar Wilde: You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. However, I thought these were the words of the acclaimed poet and memoirist Maya Angelou. Would …
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Oscar Wilde? Thomas Merton? Gilbert Perreira? Menards? America Ferrera? Apocryphal? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: I have spent hours trying to determine whether Oscar Wilde wrote the following as commonly claimed: Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken. I have not found a single good citation. What do you think? Quote Investigator: There is no substantive …
Continue reading “Be Yourself. Everyone Else Is Already Taken”