Tracing Quotations
Thomas Carlyle? Benjamin Franklin? Samuel Taylor Coleridge? Johann P. F. Richter? Minna Antrim? Heinrich Heine? William Ralph Inge? Dear Quote Investigator: The most memorable and painful lessons are usually learned via direct experience, but the cost can be very high. A family of adages depict this point of view. Here are two instances: Experience is …
Continue reading “Experience Is the Best of Schoolmasters; Only the School-Fees Are Heavy”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge? Jeremiah Seed? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Advice that is shouted as a command is often ignored. A different approach is more successful: Advice is like snow – the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind. The prominent English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge has …
Samuel Taylor Coleridge? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: A fascinating fragment describes the tangible intrusion of a dream into the prosaic world: What if you slept And what if in your sleep you dreamed And what if in your dream you went to heaven And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower And what if when …
Continue reading “If He Found that Flower in His Hand When He Awoke — Ay! And What Then?”
Jonathan Swift? Samuel Taylor Coleridge? Alexander Pope? Théophile de Viau? Matthew Prior? Pierre de Ronsard? Scévole de Sainte-Marthe? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: According to legend a famous literary figure was accosted by a philistine who exclaimed that all poets were fools. The adroit spontaneous response provided a humorous comeuppance: Sir, I admit your general rule, …
Continue reading “You Yourself May Serve To Show It, That Every Fool Is Not a Poet”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge? Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley? Don Marquis? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: While perusing the book “Dim Wit: The Stupidest Quotes of All Time” I came across an entertaining topic for Halloween in the following entry about a famous poet:[1] 2010, Dim Wit: The Stupidest Quotes of All Time, Compiled by Rosemarie Jarski, Quote Page …
Continue reading “I Do Not Believe in Ghosts Because I Have Seen Too Many of Them”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge? Tryon Edwards? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: My favorite poem is “Kubla Khan; or, A Vision in a Dream: A Fragment” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. I love the poem’s opium inspired image of a “stately pleasure dome”. Serendipitously, I came across an insightful remark ascribed to Coleridge that contrasted different types of intellects: …
Continue reading “Leave Him With a Favorable Opinion of Himself”
Albert Einstein? Théophile Gautier? Alexis de Valon? Samuel Taylor Coleridge? Helena Blavatsky? Dr. Paul F.? Heidi Quade? Bonnie Farmer? Charlotte C. Taylor? Doris Lessing? Nicolas Chamfort? Horace Walpole? Question for Quote Investigator: The following statement is attributed to the brilliant physicist Albert Einstein: Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous. I have been unable to …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Chance, Coincidence, Miracles, Pseudonyms, and God”
Mark Twain? Margaret Millar? Elizabeth P. O’Connor? Rebecca West? Leo Buscaglia? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: The following entertaining remark is often attributed to Mark Twain: Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of witnesses. I have also seen these words ascribed to the award-winning mystery writer Margaret Millar. Could you determine who should …
Continue reading “Most Conversations Are Simply Monologues Delivered in the Presence of a Witness”
Locale: San Francisco, California? Paris, France? Duluth, Minnesota? Milwaukee, Wisconsin? Originator: Mark Twain? Horace Walpole? James Quin? R. Q. Grant? Lord Byron? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Living in Menlo Park near San Francisco I have heard the following witticism credited to Mark Twain many times: The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in …
Continue reading “The Coldest Winter I Ever Spent Was a Summer in San Francisco”