Nineteen weeks ago I invited readers to submit quotations for which they wanted me to try to trace the origins, using The Yale Book of Quotations and more recent research by me. Hundreds of people have responded via comments or e-mails. I am responding as best I can, a few per week.
Quotes Uncovered
Here are more quote authors and origins Shapiro’s tracked down recently.
Steve Long asked who said this quote:
Trust everybody. But cut the cards.
The Yale Book of Quotations, which attempts to trace all famous quotations to their earliest occurrences, has the following:
“Thrust ivrybody — but cut th’ ca-ards.” Finley Peter Dunne, Mr. Dooley‘s Philosophy (1900).
huth asked:
The grass is always greener on the other side.
The YBQ lists this as a proverb, citing as the earliest example of the wording above in the Chicago Tribune, August 28, 1923, but also noting that Ovid, in Ars Amatoria, used a Latin expression translating as “The harvest is always more fruitful in another man’s fields.”
Andrew asked:
Who said “Put all of your eggs in one basket, and watch that basket”? I have seen it attributed to Mark Twain and Andrew Carnegie.
According to The Yale Book of Quotations:
“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” is all wrong. I tell you “put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket.” Andrew Carnegie, address to students at Curry Commercial College, Pittsburgh, Pa., June 23, 1885. Printed in Carnegie’s book, The Empire of Business (1902).
The quotation is almost universally attributed to Mark Twain, but Twain’s usage was later, and he probably picked it up from Carnegie.
Do any readers have any other quotations whose origins they would like me to attempt to trace?
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I always wondered who coined the phrase “the greatest thing since sliced bread”; considering that on a scale of impressive feats, sliced bread does not seem a particularly useful yardstick.
My mother used to say in exasperation to my sisters and I, “For Pete’s sake!”
Who is this Pete fellow and why is his name used in such an expression?
“Everything and the kitchen sink.”
You might have noted that Twain’s usage of the “watch that basket” saying was as an entry in Pudd’nhead’s Calendar in “Pudd’nhead Wilson” (1894), where it appears more fully as “Behold, the fool saith, ‘Put not all thine eggs in the one basket’ — which is but a manner of saying, ‘Scatter your money and your attention’; but the wise man saith, ‘Put all your eggs in the one basket and — watch that basket!’”
What boxer said something about…Youth has too much energy to learn the economy of motion that makes for a good boxer?
Before you criticize some one, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, when you do criticize him, you’ll be a mile away, and you’ll have his shoes.
My motherinlaw would say when you can cut an even slice of bread from the loaf (she said it in plattdüütsch) you were ready to get married.
The greatest thing since slice bread might have something to do with faking a divorce???
I think Pete is st peter. I swear he hangs over my head with his rooster constantly. everytime i make a move or do something questionable there is some silly rooster or bird tweeting or crowing the ” nanny nanny boo boo, told you so before i do this three times…”
If it isn’t for jesus’ sake, it must be Pete’s!
“Good, fast, cheap: Pick any two” — or variations thereof. A design/creative/project management quip.