Everybody Talks, Nobody Listens. Good Listeners Are as Rare as White Crows Is this quotation genuinely by activist and lecturer Helen Keller, or is it apocryphal? quoteinvestigator.com/2026/10/21/w...
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Authoritative quotation information. Book: Hemingway Didn't Say That. Website receives 4.5 million visitors/year. https://quoteinvestigator.com/about/
(Also: One of the rare times the most famous person a quote is attributed to actually is the speaker! Einstein, Gandhi, and the Dalai Lama glare jealously.)
I posted the aphelis link to that Asimov Newsweek article recently. It’s depressing that it continues to be relevant 46 years later.
Your messages from 2022 and 2026 inspired the creation of a Quote Investigator article located here: quoteinvestigator.com/2026/10/20/f... @sferrara.bsky.social @lizardky.bsky.social
The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." A famous writer of science fiction and fact crafted this sentence. Who?
It Is the Supreme Art of the Teacher to Awaken Joy in Creative Expression and Knowledge Is this statement from Albert Einstein, Anatole France, or a random person nobody remembers? quoteinvestigator.com/2026/10/17/t...
I don't know, but it sure sounds like him. If he didn't, well . . . he should have.
Life Is Like a Roll of Toilet Paper. The Closer It Gets to the End, the Faster It Goes U.S. broadcast personality Andy Rooney has received credit for this folksy saying. Did he ever say it? quoteinvestigator.com/2026/10/15/r...
How old is the saying “Laws are like sausages. It’s better not to see them being made” — and who said it first? (Nope, it wasn’t Otto von Bismarck.) Those questions are addressed in the latest post on my This Day in Quotes blog. Here's the link→ bit.ly/LawsandSausa...
“Laws are like sausages” The origins of the saying Laws are like sausages. It’s better not to see them being made
What are the origins of the saying "Laws are like sausages. It’s better not to see them being made"?
bit.ly
Freedom — No Price That Is Ever Asked for It Is Half the Cost of Doing Without It Attributed to the Sage of Baltimore. Who was that and is the attribution correct? quoteinvestigator.com/2026/10/14/f...
Was the following from Oscar Wilde, a greeting card company, or someone else? Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. quoteinvestigator.com/2026/10/11/s...
(1) Even the most ingenious technologist cannot make a collection of wheels, shafts, magnets and wires think. (2) There will never be a robot schoolmaster or governess. Insights from 1927 and 1928 quoteinvestigator.com/2026/10/07/n...
Entertaining statement from popular biographer Walter Isaacson on May 13, 2007, in The New York Times within a book review titled "The Empire in the Mirror"
Also: The only sure thing that can be said about the past is that anyone who can remember Santayana's maxim is condemned to repeat it. -- Walter Isaacson Santayana’s Food Law – Those who cannot finish their repast are condemned to reheat it. -- Michael G. (via Schott's Vocab, NYT)
Exasperating comic for: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. 1905, George Santayana in The Life of Reason, Or The Phases of Human Progress
Tom Toro nails it.
honey wake up prior citation just dropped* * This is the first and last time I will activate this meme.
Update: Earlier instance of a very popular saying: "That man" people used to say in Paris when I was there, "wrote a long book because he did not have the leisure to write a short one" 1652, Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac in Socrate Chrestien quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/s...
For years I've attributed this to Oscar Wilde. Just shows you how wrong I can be.
Update: Earlier instance of a very popular saying: "That man" people used to say in Paris when I was there, "wrote a long book because he did not have the leisure to write a short one" 1652, Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac in Socrate Chrestien quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/s...
Update: Earlier instance of a very popular saying: "That man" people used to say in Paris when I was there, "wrote a long book because he did not have the leisure to write a short one" 1652, Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac in Socrate Chrestien quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/s...
A famous banker said: Heaven help America when she loses faith in slogans What prompted this remark and who delivered it? quoteinvestigator.com/2026/10/03/f...
The Day Came When the Risk to Remain Tight in a Bud Was More Painful Than the Risk It Took to Blossom Who crafted this statement: Anaïs Nin? Lassie Benton? Elizabeth Appell? Anonymous? quoteinvestigator.com/2026/10/01/b...
Art is born of constraint, lives by struggle, and dies of freedom Who composed this maxim: André Gide? Albert Camus? Leonardo da Vinci What does it mean? quoteinvestigator.com/2026/09/29/a...
QI helped the brilliant language maven Nancy Friedman @fritinancy.bsky.social find citations for vagmaxxing. Now, Nancy has posted a piece about the terms: pervert glasses, meat proxy, and vagmaxxing Before clicking, please note the content warning: ickiness
Content warning: ickiness. Ht @quoteinvestigator.com fritinancy.substack.com/p/three-word...
Blessed Are the Cracked For They Shall Let in the Light Who originated this type of wordplay joke: Groucho Marx? Spike Milligan? Lydia Augusta Arsens? John Stuart Blackie? Dr. Parr? Anonymous? quoteinvestigator.com/2026/09/24/c...
Listening to Rutherford and Fry’s Guide to absolutely everything. This quote came up but they told it’s origin could be apocryphal so I turned to @quoteinvestigator.com Einstein propably actually said it. quoteinvestigator.com/2014/11/24/h...
Quote Origin: Relativity: A Hot Stove and A Pretty Girl – Quote Investigator®
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Quote Origin: Growing Old Is Mandatory. Growing Up Is Optional Who said this: Gary Wright? Maurice Lutkin? Herb Caen? Chili Davis? Bumper Sticker? Anonymous? quoteinvestigator.com/2026/09/21/g...
It raineth by th’ eternal laws Upon the just and unjust fella; But mostly on the just, because The unjust steals the just’s umbrella.
I was gonna say “Ogden Nash has entered the chat.” but @quoteinvestigator.com ruined my post. quoteinvestigator.com/2026/02/08/s...
Did a management consulting firm make the following prediction? The world market for copiers will never exceed 5,000 units quoteinvestigator.com/2026/09/19/m...
It Is Impossible To Make Anything Foolproof Because Fools Are So Ingenious Who created the first quip of this type: English novelist Douglas Adams? Canadian cartoonist J. R. Williams? U.S. columnist Bill Vaughan? Anonymous? quoteinvestigator.com/2026/09/17/f...