Samuel Smiles – Quote Investigator®

The Quarterly Review? Samuel Shaen? Wyndham Harding? Samuel Smiles? Apocryphal?

Dear Quote Investigator: While reading a humorous book containing a collection of terribly inaccurate predictions I encountered the following:

What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling twice as fast as stagecoaches?

The book asserted that this claim was made in 1825, but I have not been able to find a citation. Would you please help?

Quote Investigator: This statement was derived from a long passage in an 1825 article about “Canals and Rail-Roads” in “The Quarterly Review” of London. The unnamed author of the article was very skeptical about the claims being made for passenger travel via locomotives. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:^[1] 1825, The Quarterly Review, Volume 31, Number 62, Article V: Canals and Rail-Roads, Start Page 349, Quote Page 361, John Murray, London. (Google Books Full View) link

The gross exaggerations of the powers of the locomotive steam-engine, or, to speak in plain English, the steam-carriage, may delude for a time, but must end in the mortification of those concerned. What, for instance, can be more palpably absurd and ridiculous, than the following paragraph in one of the published proposals of what we should call a hopeless project?

The above passage introduced an excerpt from a report that proposed the construction of a railway between London and Woolwich. The report included a remark about the speed of locomotives on the proposed route:

The number of short coaches running upon this line is 150 per diem. Admitting on the average that these coaches are only half filled, their receipts for passengers alone will be 26,000 a year. As locomotive machines, moving with twice the velocity, and with greater safety, must in a very great degree supersede the coaches, the company will probably obtain from passengers alone, independently of the baggage, an income of £20,000 . . .

The statement under analysis was created via the compression of the text above. Specifically, the two sections shown in boldface were condensed and highlighted. The construction occurred through a multistep process suggested by the citations given further below.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Continue reading What Can Be More Palpably Absurd Than the Prospect Held Out of Locomotives Traveling Twice as Fast as Stagecoaches?

References

References
↑1	1825, The Quarterly Review, Volume 31, Number 62, Article V: Canals and Rail-Roads, Start Page 349, Quote Page 361, John Murray, London. (Google Books Full View) link

Theodore Roosevelt? Albert Einstein? Benjamin Franklin? Samuel Smiles? Josh Billings? Mr. Phelps? G. K. Chesterton? Robert Smith Surtees? Joseph Conrad? Will Rogers? Anonymous?

Dear Quote Investigator: Mistakes are unavoidable in the life of an active and vital person. Several adages highlight this important theme:

1) A man who never makes a mistake will never make anything.
2) The person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
3) A fellow who never makes a mistake must get tired of doing nothing.

Many famous names have been linked to sayings of this type including Benjamin Franklin, Theodore Roosevelt, and Albert Einstein. Would you please examine this topic?

Quote Investigator: This is a large and complex topic. Below is a summary that presents a list of expressions that fit into this family together with dates and attributions:

1832: He who never makes an effort, never risks a failure. (Anonymous)

1859: He who never made a mistake, never made a discovery. (Samuel Smiles)

1874: The man who never makes enny blunders seldum makes enny good hits. (Josh Billings)

1889: A man who never makes a mistake will never make anything. (Attributed: Mr. Phelps)

1896: It’s only those who do nothing that make no mistakes. (Joseph Conrad)

1900: The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything. (Solid Attribution: Theodore Roosevelt)

1901: Show me a man who has never made a mistake, and I will show you one who has never tried anything. (Anonymous)

1903: The man who does things makes many mistakes, but he never makes the biggest mistake of all—doing nothing. (Poor Richard Junior’s Philosophy)

1911: The fellow who never makes any failures, never makes any successes either. (Anonymous)

1927: Every man makes mistakes; they say a man who never makes mistakes never makes anything else. (G. K. Chesterton)

1936: The man who does things makes many mistakes, but he never makes the biggest mistake of all—doing nothing. (Flawed Attribution: Benjamin Franklin)

1969: The man who never makes a mistake must get plenty tired of doing nothing. (Anonymous)

1993: The man who never makes a mistake must get tired of doing nothing. (Weak Attribution: Will Rogers)

1995: A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. (Weak Attribution: Albert Einstein.)

Here are selected citations in chronological order.

Continue reading The Person Who Never Makes a Mistake Will Never Make Anything