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The Wonderful World of Nothing Worthwhile

January 26, 2011 //  by David Keyes

the laughorist said…

Speaking of obesity, as I just told Meloncutter, I heard a radio report saying the obesity of Americans is, well, growing. We’re getting phatter, or at least fatter. And something like 7 of the 8 top-fat states be in the South. Jump on dat, folks. (You could look it up, as Casey Stengel sorta said according to Ralph Keyes’s The Quote Verifier book.)

https://www.wjst.de/blog/2007/06/10/too-much-checking-on-the-facts-has-ruined-many-a-good-news-story/

SCIENCE SURF

But let your communication be Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil

Too much checking on the facts has ruined many a good news story

So far, I naively quoted others – “only to better express myself” (Michele de Montaigne). This will, however, change after having read now “The Quote Verifier – who said what, where and when” by Ralph Keyes. He nicely explains in the foreword

The misattribution process is not random. Patterns can be discerned. If a comment is saintly, it must have been made by Gandhi (or Mother Teresa). If it’s about honesty, Lincoln most likely said it (or Washington), about fame, Andy Warhol (or Daniel Boorstin), about courage, John Kennedy (or Ernest Hemingway). Quotations about winning had to have been made by Vince Lombardi (or Leo Durocher), malaprops by Yogi Berra (or Samuel Goldwyn). If witty, a quip must have been made Twain’s concoction, or Wilde’s, or Shaw’s, or Dorothy Parker’s.

I would really like to recommend this book for reading. I am only hesitating as I learned that “A man is known by the books he reads, by the company he keeps, by the praise he gives”. Yea, yea.

Category: internet-quote

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