Mrs. Patrick Campbell? Beatrice Stella Tanner? Helen Maud Tree? Oscar Wilde? Linkum Fidelius? Washington Irving? Alice Roosevelt Longworth? Eric Erskine Wood? Mrs. Claude Beddington? Frances Ethel Beddington? John Moore? King Edward VII? Ronald Reagan? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Enforcing societal norms and taboos is an important activity for some people. Others hesitate to proscribe …
Tag Archives: Washington Irving
Quote Origin: Even a Stopped Clock Is Right Twice a Day
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach? Lewis Carroll? Charles L. Dodgson? Joseph Addison? Richard Steele? Diedrich Knickerbocker? Washington Irving? Albany de Grenier Fonblanque? Paulo Coelho? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: An obtuse, unreliable, or incompetent person occasionally performs properly. Here are three versions of a proverb reflecting this observation: This saying has been attributed to the prominent Austrian …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Even a Stopped Clock Is Right Twice a Day”
Quote Origin: When I Want to Read a Book, I Write One
Benjamin Disraeli? Washington Irving? Question for Quote Investigator: Recently, I was reading the top-selling book “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable” and encountered this sentence: Nero did not read novels—”Novels are fun to write, not read,” he claimed. I was certain that I had read something similar before. After thinking a few …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: When I Want to Read a Book, I Write One”