25
votes
Does Don Quijote in fact say "Facts are the enemy of truth"?
As the OP noted, this quote does not appear in Don Quijote de la Mancha by Cervantes. It does, however, appear in a different version of Quijote: the musical based on Cervantes' work, with libretto by ...
- 8,861
18
votes
Accepted
Where did Asimov say this quote, about women becoming lawyers vs doctors or engineers because math was not required?
Asimov indeed wrote this. It's from his editorial "Feminism," published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Mid-December 1988:
Some time ago, I met a young woman who introduced ...
- 536
17
votes
What is the background of the epigram "I'm not a nitpicker nor a nitpicker's son, but I'll pick your nits 'til the nitpicker comes"?
This seems to be a bowdlerization of a well-known tongue-twister:
Repeat 3 times: “I’m not a pheasant plucker, I’m a pheasant plucker’s son, and I’m only plucking pheasants till the pheasant plucker ...
- 53.5k
17
votes
Accepted
"There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings" — where does this Dostoyevsky quote come from?
I believe that this derives, via a game of whispers, from a line in The Idiot, where Ippolit Terentyev says:
— Нет, а за то, что недостоин своего страдания.
Fyodor Dostoevsky (1869). The Idiot, part ...
- 53.5k
14
votes
Did George Bernard Shaw write the poem "Living Grave"?
The earliest appearance of this poem that I was able to locate is in Religion & Peace (1957) by S. C. Diwaker:
In this regard the words of George Bernard Shaw are ever memorable:
We are the ...
- 53.5k
14
votes
Accepted
“Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important.” Is this a genuine TS Eliot quote?
It is not a word-for-word match, but in his 1949 work The Cocktail Party, Eliot wrote:
Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want
to feel important.
The full text is ...
- 8,861
7
votes
Accepted
Where did Rousseau say, "There is nothing better than the encouragement of a good friend"?
This is from a letter by Katharine Butler Hathaway:
I thank you for your letter. It was generously written and beautiful, better than Thomas à Kempis because it is not too insistent upon things which ...
- 53.5k
7
votes
Does the phrase "Jack of all trades, often times better than a master of one" come from Shakespeare?
A version of this phrase was possibly said about Shakespeare, but not by him.
In 1592, a pamphlet entitled "Greenes Groats-worth of Witte" was published in London. It is attributable to the ...
- 1,514
6
votes
Accepted
Seeking origin and original wording of a quotation attributed to Shakespeare
This is very similar (but not quite identical) to Ernst Ortlepp’s translation of The Two Gentlemen of Verona:
Proteus. Cease to lament for that thou canst not help,
And study help for that which thou ...
- 53.5k
6
votes
Accepted
Quote from Chekhov about a person who does not answer a letter
Mentioned in Korney Chukovsky's diary entry for Jan. 23, 1910:
Вас. Ив. Немирович-Данченко был у меня сегодня и рассказывал между
прочим про Чехова; он встретился с Чеховым в Ницце: Чехов отвечал на
...
- 1,591
6
votes
Did Koestler coin "mimophant"?
Koestler certainly did describe Bobby Fisher as a "mimophant". In a column published in the Sunday Times on the 3rd of September 1972, he wrote:
... Bobby is a mimophant. A mimophant is a ...
- 8,861
5
votes
What is the origin of this quote about God, Flies, and Spiders?
I asked the person who posted the YouTube comment if it was a quote from somewhere. Easy solution, really. Their reply:
@user-iu7do1xw1i Nicely phrased. Is that original, or are you quoting ...
- 2,221
5
votes
Did Eliezer Yudkowsky read the original Harry Potter books?
He probably read them at some point
There is some evidence to suggest that Yudkowsky finished reading the original books sometime before he finished writing Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality....
- 743
5
votes
What is the source of the quote "You can see a lot, just by looking"?
The Yale Book of Quotations (Fred R. Shapiro, ed.) attributes it to Yogi Berra "Quoted in N.Y. Times, 25 Oct. 1963" in the form:
You can observe a lot by watchin'.
- 2,917
4
votes
Who wrote this poem?
After some research, I think this was probably written by a woman named Monica Bobbitt.
Ms. Bobbit posted the poem to Facebook on September 13, 2020. Like most postings of this poem online (there are ...
- 898
4
votes
Accepted
Did Koestler coin "mimophant"?
In his 1963 introduction to Suicide of a Nation?, Koestler says that he coined the word and I think we have no reason to doubt him. Note that on its first appearance the word was misprinted!
A ...
- 53.5k
4
votes
What is the source of this David Foster Wallace quote? Can't tell if it's actually him or not
It's from an interview of David Foster Wallace conducted by Gerald Howard, his former editor, for Elle magazine volume 11 issue 6, some time in 1996, the year Wallace's magnum opus Infinite Jest was ...
- 22.1k
4
votes
Is this passage from "Speaker for the Dead" a quote or an original?
It is very hard to prove a negative, but I don't see any evidence that this line is a quote. Nothing similar seems to occur in the Bible, and Novinha, being brought up in a Catholic world, would ...
- 8,861
4
votes
Accepted
Finding the source of this quote about prediction and lying
It seems that this is just a paraphrasing of an Arabic proverb, with no specific source. See https://allauthor.com/quotes/107770/
It is often given online as "he who foretells the future lies, ...
- 61
4
votes
St. Augustine quote from Terri Cheney's Manic
A very similar quote appears in Disability in Medieval Europe: Thinking about Physical Impairment in the High Middle Ages by Irina Metzler, from 2006. Discussing Medieval attitudes to deformities, ...
- 8,861
4
votes
Accepted
Who wrote this particular poem in Zinky Boys?
This is mostly based on the comments.
Original text and auto-translation:
Я сам себя спрашивал: «Почему поехал?» Ответов сто, но главный — вот в этих стихах, не запомнил только, чьи они:
Две вещи на ...
- 1,591
4
votes
Where did this quote come from: "What is money / tis something tis nothing"
It's from Othello, Act 3, scene 3.
Iago: Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls.
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis ...
- 8,861
4
votes
What is the source of this David Foster Wallace quote? Can't tell if it's actually him or not
Luckily, people on the internet have already done the heavy lifting to track down the exact source of this quote. It's from an interview with Gerald Howard which was published in 1996 in the magazine ...
- 71.1k
3
votes
Where does this Greg Anderson quote come from?
This is from The 22 Non-Negotiable Laws of Wellness (1995):
The Law of Mindfulness reminds us to focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it. ...
- 53.5k
3
votes
Which mystery writer said they picked the murderer only after writing the book?
I'm not able to find any direct statement from Christie that it was her habit to delay the decision of who committed the crimes in any given book, but she kept a series of notebooks throughout her ...
- 18.6k
3
votes
Did Rumi actually say "Silence is the language of God; all else is poor translation"?
It was saint john of the cross who wrote, "silence is the first language of God," and the contemporary Christian mystic, Father Thomas Keating, who added, "all else is a poor ...
- 31
3
votes
St. Augustine quote from Terri Cheney's Manic
Probably City of God book 16, chapter 8 -- possibly garbled.
But supposing they are men of whom these marvels are recorded, what if God has seen fit to create some races in this way, that we might ...
- 5,957
2
votes
What is the source of this David Foster Wallace quote? Can't tell if it's actually him or not
It's in an interview by Gerald Howard in Elle magazine, February 1996, titled "Infinite Jester". It can be found reprinted in the book David Foster Wallace: The Last Interview, and Other ...
- 1,451
2
votes
Accepted
Where else did Rilke mention John on Patmos?
Martina King's article "'Pathmos ist eine dürre Insel': briefliche Selbst-Fiktionalisierung beim späten Rilke", contained in the collection Rilkes Korrespondenzen, mentions the following ...
- 751
2
votes
Accepted
Quote about the difference between talking about helping specific people and helping The People (in a political context)
Terry Pratchett, Night Watch
There were plotters, there was no doubt about it. Some had been ordinary people who'd had enough. Some were young people with no money who objected to the fact that the ...
- 156
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