Each week, I’ve been inviting readers to submit quotations for which they want me to try to trace the origin, using The Yale Book of Quotations and my own research. Here is the latest round.
roughbed asked:
Perhaps you could help out famous Science Fiction author William Gibson, who recently tried to trace down the origin of the following sentence, often attributed to George Orwell: “People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
The Yale Book of Quotations has the following item:
“He [Kipling] sees clearly that men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them.” George Orwell, “Rudyard Kipling” (1942).
This is the closest passage in Orwell’s writings that has been found to the following quotation popularly attributed to him: “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” (Or sometimes, “We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us.”)
Wally asked:
Does anyone know where this quote come from: “It is not enough that I should win — my enemy must also lose.”
The YBQ quotes Gore Vidal as follows:
“It is not enough to succeed; others must fail.” Quoted in Newport Daily News, Nov. 3, 1978.
Phyllis Otto asked:
Wondering what is the exact quotation of this and from whence does it originate: “The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet it.”
The Yale Book of Quotations, which attempts to trace all famous quotations to their earliest findable occurrence, notes that this is associated with Damon Runyon, who used it in a 1937 book. However, according to the YBQ, the Chicago Tribune, May 10, 1936, printed the following: “‘The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that is the way to bet,’ as Hugh Keough used to say.” Keough was a Chicago journalist.
Do any readers have any other quotations whose origins they would like me to attempt to trace?
and 
. You can also watch it on 
“Great Scott!”
Who is Scott, and why is he the subject of an exclamation?
“Curiousity killed the cat.”
This has never made sense to me and I’d like to know where it comes from.
I’ve always heard that this quote was attributed to Josef Stalin, “The Pope? How many divisions does he have?”
Is it “out in the sticks” or “out in the Styx”?
Google has 130k hits for the former compared to 2.1k for the latter, which I nevertheless prefer.
Many thanks!
I just saw a sketch of a stamping machine from 1629 by Branca Giovanni, for which he is credited as being one of the inventors of the steam turbine. The steam appears to come out of the mouth of a human head, presumably made of metal. It brought to mind the phrase ” a full head of steam.” Is there a connection with early steam turbines or this fanciful schematic in particular?
There is a quotation that I heard a while ago which goes something like “the furthest we can travel is within the human mind.” But I’m sure I don’t have it fully correctly. I imagine it’s someone like Aldous Huxley but I’d love to both have the correct version of the quotation and its actual author. Sorry if this is a stumper, but thanks for your time!
Re: the Vidal quote is similar to “But for fools, the rest of us could not succeed!” (Mark Twain)
What about “Time is money!”