Tracing Quotations
Will Rogers? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: The popular American humorist Will Rogers once made a memorable remark about liberty. Unfortunately, the precise phrasing was not memorable enough. Here are several versions: Would you please help me to determine whether Will Rogers really delivered one of these lines? Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1927 a …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Liberty Don’t Work as Good in Practice as It Does in Speech”
William Butler Yeats? Will Rogers? Edgar Guest? Margaret Lee Runbeck? Dorothy C. Wegner? Roberta Lieberman? Mitch Albom? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: The Nobel Prize winning Irish poet William Butler Yeats often receives credit for the following sentiment: There are no strangers here; only friends you haven’t yet met. Is this ascription accurate? Reply from …
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Rita Mae Brown? Will Rogers? Fred Rose? C. H. White? Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr.? Uncle Zeke? Barry LePatner? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Good judgement is rooted in experience, but a humorous addendum notes that the crucible of experience is poor judgment. This notion has been credited to humorist Will Rogers and activist Rita Mae …
Will Smith? Walter Winchell? Robert Quillen? Edgar Allan Moss? Tony Wons? Ken Murray? Emile Gauvreau? Walter Slezak? Will Rogers? Chuck Palahniuk? Tyler Durden? Question for Quote Investigator: Have you ever purchased an item and wondered the next day what motivated your inexplicable action? Here are two versions of an entertaining saying about consumerism: 1) Too …
Will Rogers? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: While searching for a quotation on the subject of government in a reference book I came across a quip from the famous cowboy and Native American humorist Will Rogers: I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts. But the supporting citation was dated …
Mark Twain? Will Rogers? Frank Scully? Arthur F. Lenehan? H. Jackson Brown? Mother of H. Jackson Brown? Shirley MacLaine? Question for Quote Investigator: To succeed one must be willing to take risks and to enter the precarious realm of punishments and accolades. Here are four versions of an expression that appears in many self-help books: …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: Why Not Go Out On a Limb? Isn’t That Where the Fruit Is?”
Josh Billings? Artemus Ward? Will Rogers? Abraham Lincoln? Mark Twain? Friedrich Nietzsche? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Here are two versions of an expression I am trying to trace: 1) It’s better to know nothing than to know what ain’t so. 2) It is better not to know so much, than to know so many …
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Will Rogers? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: We live in an age of free apps, free ebooks, and free online services, but that does not restrain criticism. The popular humorist Will Rogers once spoke about the inability to please some individuals who receive material for free. I haven’t been able to precisely locate this quotation. …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: It’s the Guy You Give Something To That You Can’t Please”
Will Rogers? J. J. Swartz? Owen Davis? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: The enormously popular American humorist Will Rogers had some ancestors who were Cherokee Indians, and apparently one of his jokes was about his forebears and the early European colonists who arrived on the Mayflower. Are you familiar with this quip? Was it really …
Theodore Roosevelt? Albert Einstein? Benjamin Franklin? Samuel Smiles? Josh Billings? Mr. Phelps? G. K. Chesterton? Robert Smith Surtees? Joseph Conrad? Will Rogers? Anonymous? Question for 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 …
Continue reading “Quote Origin: The Person Who Never Makes a Mistake Will Never Make Anything”