28
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 ...
- 646
25
votes
Accepted
Did Philip Larkin use a swearword while quoting from Pym's Excellent Women?
Edited to add screenshots of parts of the letter in question at the end of this answer.
The most likely answer is (e), something else entirely. The heading to this letter says that it was transcribed ...
- 30.8k
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 ...
- 60.7k
15
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 ...
- 60.7k
15
votes
Accepted
When or where did Gustave Flaubert say that Alexander Pushkin's work was "dull"?
Thanks to CDR's answer I was able to find the original source. It is the article Воспоминанія объ И. С. Тургеневѣ (Recollections of I.S. Turgenev) by Nikolaj Vasil'evič Berg, in issue 14 of the ...
- 166
13
votes
When or where did Gustave Flaubert say that Alexander Pushkin's work was "dull"?
Early sources such as this 1896 biography cite "Istorič. Věstník 1883 p. 376" by one Prof. M. Berg. as their source for this anecdote, but they don't specify that Flaubert made the remark, ...
- 3,531
12
votes
Accepted
What is the source of this poem/song Captain Hastings quotes in Agatha Christie's "The Market Basing Mystery"?
"The Rabbit" is a poem by Lord Alfred Douglas, first published in the June 10, 1896 issue of a weekly called The Sketch (No. 176, vol. XIV, p. 264). The poem was reprinted in an 1898 ...
- 4,310
12
votes
Who said "If you don't do politics, politics will do you"?
TL;DR: The author of the quote is Charles de Montalembert, who said it sometime prior to 1870.
The first mention of the quote was in French, published in a letter from December 18th 1871 by Ximénès ...
- 221
11
votes
Accepted
Did Voltaire say, "I’m not a believer, but I prefer my barber to be a Christian"?
I think I've found it!
I want my lawyer, my tailor, my servants, even my wife to believe in God, because it means that I shall be cheated and robbed and cuckolded less often. … If God did not exist, ...
- 277
11
votes
What is the source of this cheesy quote?
The quote comes from Tom Stoppard's play Travesties, written in 1974. The consular official Carr rants about Zurich:
... was it not, after all, La Rochefoucauld in his Maximes who had it
that in ...
- 15.6k
10
votes
Accepted
Quote identification: Alles, was man lernen kann, lohnt sich nicht, gelernt zu werden
It appears to be a variant of Oscar Wilde's "Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught." (source, quote ...
- 1,236
10
votes
Who said "If you don't do politics, politics will do you"?
The specific form of this phrase quoted, using "to do" meaning "to injure", seems quite contemporary. The phrase does not get any hits on google ngrams, which further leads me to ...
- 15.6k
8
votes
Accepted
Is this quote about poet RS Thomas genuine, and if so, where is it from?
The quote appears to be genuine, and it seems that this was said by Evelyn Dennis, who held the position of parish priest in Aberdaron in the 1990s (the second priest to hold the position after Thomas ...
- 15.6k
8
votes
Accepted
Where is this quote in the book series A Song of Ice and Fire?
This must be the words of Balon Greyjoy as recalled by his daughter Asha:
"No man has ever died from bending his knee," her father had once told her. "He who kneels may rise again, ...
- 74.4k
7
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 ...
- 60.7k
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 ...
- 1,964
7
votes
Accepted
What is the source of this quote within Agatha Christie's The Mysterious Mr Quin?
The phrase "the shape of a face, the curve of a jaw" appears to be Satterthwaite recalling his own first impressions of seeing Gillian West. When he went to the opera at Covent Garden he ...
- 15.6k
7
votes
Where did Wordsworth describe Keats's poetry as "very pretty paganism"?
It's an oral episode, recounted by the B.R. Haydon, who orchestrated the meeting, and quoted often by biographers, such as Nicholas Roe. The actual wording was a bit different. (Haydon is the "I' ...
- 3,531
7
votes
Accepted
Identifying a quotation from Dulce Maria Loynaz comparing physical pain to a civil war
This describes one of Loynaz's Poemas sin Nombre, a collection of her poems published in 1953. None of the poems are given titles, but are simply assigned a roman numeral. Poem XXXV begins:
Como una ...
- 15.6k
6
votes
Rumi quotation on how dancing is not painless
I don't know any Persian, but this web page has the Persian text:
و اما شعر مولاناي عظيم الشان
رقص ان نبود كه هر زمان برخيزي بي درد چو گرد از ميان برخيزي
رقص ان باشد كز دو جهان برخيزي دل پاره كني ...
- 13.8k
6
votes
When or where did Gustave Flaubert say that Alexander Pushkin's work was "dull"?
The earliest occurrence of this phrase that I was able to find attributed to Flaubert is in the foreword to Emile Haumant’s study of Pushkin:
Nous savons de Pouchkine, par Mickiéwicz, qu’il tourne «...
- 60.7k
6
votes
Where did J.M. Barrie say that his works either "peter out or pan out"?
From what I can tell, this is an old joke that has been picked up and reported as fact. The earliest mentions I could find online were in newspapers in 1921, where it seems to have been published in ...
- 1,371
6
votes
Who said "If you don't do politics, politics will do you"?
This is possibly a misremembered quote from The Politics of Authenticity: Radical Individualism and the Emergence of Modern Society (1970) by the American philosopher Marshall Berman (1940–2013). The ...
- 48.6k
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'.
- 3,052
5
votes
Accepted
"When you commit a murder, you make about twenty-five mistakes. If you can figure out ten, you're a genius." What movie had this quote?
It does sound remarkably like the Ted Lewis character in the 1981 movie Body Heat .
With Ted Lewis saying to Ned :
Hey now, …..Are you ready to hear something? I want you to see if this sounds ...
- 1,229
5
votes
When or where did Gustave Flaubert say that Alexander Pushkin's work was "dull"?
This is something that has been repeated at least since Émile Haumant wrote the following in the preface of his Poushkine (1911):
« Il est plat, votre poète ! » disait Flaubert à Tourguénief qui le ...
- 864
5
votes
Accepted
Who coined the phrase, "the Stoic Mistake"?
In C.S. Lewis's Letters to Malcom: Chiefly on Prayer, we see, "My mistake was what Pascal, if I remember rightly, calls “Error of Stoicism”: thinking we can do always what we can do sometimes.&...
- 1,179
4
votes
Accepted
Quote identification: Schindler war ein kleiner Rabe
The only source I can find is this post
Basically the post (a news report by Taiwan's official news agency) says a Chinese writer Iris Shun-Ru Chang called Rabe as "China's Schindler" in her ...
- 1,819
4
votes
Did Voltaire say, "I’m not a believer, but I prefer my barber to be a Christian"?
Perhaps you are remembering this quote that en.Wikiquote says was misattributed to Voltaire
“There is no God, but don't tell that to my servant, lest he murder me at night”.
False quote, ...
- 1,970
3
votes
Who does this Urdu proverb originate from?
It is actually from Altaf Hussain Hali, here is the link to transliteration at rekhta.
The original is:
mard ho tum kisī ke kaam aao
varna khaao piyo chale jaao
You can search on the page for "...
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