Quote Investigator
quoteinvestigator.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2010
Quote Investigator is a research blog by Garson O'Toole that traces the true origins of famous quotations and sayings.
What HN saysCommenters call it a wonderful resource with in-depth research and sources, and cite it to check attributions of well-known quotes.
714HN people shared it
670linked it in comments
97stories submitted
2.8Kstory points
3 months agolast shared
2010people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1If I Had More Time, I Would Have Written a Shorter Letter (2012)54 people · 131 points · first shared 2013 · 44 comments on HN
- 2A Lie Can Travel Halfway Around the World While the Truth Is Putting on Its Shoe31 people · 4 points · first shared 2014 · discussion on HN
- 3Remain solvent29 people · first shared 2011
- 4Salary29 people · first shared 2018
- 5Good Artists Copy; Great Artists Steal22 people · 90 points · first shared 2013 · 22 comments on HN
- 6Misbehave20 people · first shared 2018
- 7Misbehaving children in ancient times17 people · first shared 2015
- 8Anecdote Origin: Knowing Where to Tap16 people · 1 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
- 9“640K Ought to Be Enough for Anyone” (2011)15 people · 2 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 10Too crowded14 people · first shared 2016
- 11Quote Investigator13 people · 4 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
- 12If You Want Jobs Then Give These Workers Spoons Instead of Shovels13 people · 2 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
- 13Clever lazy13 people · first shared 2015
- 14History Does Not Repeat Itself, But It Rhymes12 people · 6 points · first shared 2014 · discussion on HN
- 15The Best Minds of My Generation Are Thinking About How to Make People Click Ads11 people · 4 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
dang · 2016-01-28
But do trust this one, it's fab: http://quoteinvestigator.com. I mean the top post there right now is that "a million deaths is a statistic" traces to Beilby Porteus, a classics scholar from 1759. How can you beat that?
Also, Wikiquote is good as a base.
huskyr · 2015-06-10
A wonderful resource for quotes and their origin is Quote Investigator:
http://quoteinvestigator.com/
They have countless posts with in-depth research and sources. Lovely to browse for a couple of hours.
gruseom · 2011-07-29
This post is a follow-up to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2747106. The author of http://quoteinvestigator.com does a really good job of tracking these things down.
TMWNN · 2026-08-11
>Where can you find another non-linear servo-mechanism weighing only 150 pounds and having great adaptability, that can be produced so cheaply by completely unskilled labor?
—Scott Crossfield, 1954 <https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/02/01/computer/>
ben_w · 2026-07-27
> achieved great success with ad-based business models because of the ability to target ads better
There's an old saying in advertising, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, and the trouble is I don’t know which half." - https://quoteinvestigator.com/2022/04/11/advertising/
The supposed benefit of the current model is to find and eliminate that wasted half.
Facebook has shown me ads for dick pills and boob surgery, ads I can't read because I don't know the Cyrillic alphabet, and ads for services that only apply to citizens of nations I've never been a citizen of who moved to a country I had in fact moved out of.
The reports I hear from people who buy ad slots are mostly unimpressed with the results; the word on the grapevine is that the "success" cases are not even average customers, but those who are vulnerable to getting scammed.
throw0101d · 2026-07-22
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.” — https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/02/03/you-can/
An effective form of 'treatment' for depression/anxiety is to recognize that negative feels often don't come first, but rather we are doing actions that cause them, so you should do the positive things and this will reduce one's negative emotions:
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54930681-feeling-great
throw0101c · 2026-05-19
* https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/12172510-for-my-friends-everything-fo…
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
At least it's not Abraham Lincoln or Albert Einstein. semi-/s For contentions ones I do a search, especially https://quoteinvestigator.com
adzm · 2026-04-02
> I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one.
First known use in English comes from a 1658 translation of Blaise Pascal in 1657
> Je n’ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.
translated to
> I had not made this longer then the rest, but that I had not the leisure to make it shorter then it is.
(note the archaic then)
This was a popular piece of wit at the time.
Mark Twain wrote something similar a hundred years later
> You'll have to excuse my lengthiness - the reason I dread writing letters is because I am so apt to get to slinging wisdom & forget to let up. Thus much precious time is lost.
But it's still quite different.
There is a great article about this one on quoteinvestigator! https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/
YZF · 2026-03-26
"Everything That Can Be Invented Has Been Invented"
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2023/06/23/invented/
The actual quote from 1884 seems to have been:
"The advancement of the arts, from year to year, taxes our credulity, and seems to presage the arrival of that period when human improvement must end." - Henry L. Ellsworth
Either way we have a lot of things but it's not quite STTNG yet. There's no limit to how much more we can do.
alwa · 2025-12-02
For today’s lucky 10,000– @JKCalhoun is most likely making reference here to American humorist Mark Twain, who, in response to news stories claiming he had died, was reported to have quipped “reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
[0] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2024/06/07/report-death/
fortran77 · 2025-09-30
There are a number of websites I like, like https://quoteinvestigator.com/ but I'll never send links to them to people that I think may not have ad blockers (my Mom on her iPad, etc) because the non-adblocked experience is so awful.
jxjnskkzxxhx · 2025-07-02
> until all that is left is a person to watch the Machine, and a dog to bite the person if they touch the Machine
Hey that's actually a great line. It might be even better than the original, where the person is there to feed the dog.
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2022/01/30/future-factory/
Retric · 2025-02-03
> Maybe in 60s that kinda of classification would have been fine, but not now, right?
Thus classical, as a reference to the idea that:
As Soon As It Works, No One Calls It AI Anymore: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2024/06/20/not-ai/
It’s kind of surprising to me we still call feedforward neural networks AI.
AdieuToLogic · 2025-01-18
> There are conceivable reasons why they may be telling a half truth here. Just engaging the public is a worthy goal here.
Asserting an ulterior motive without supporting proof is to engage in conspiracy theories.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.[0]
0 - https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/08/12/just-a-cigar/
pkaye · 2024-09-12
> This vaguely reminds me of that classic "Americans will eventually do the right thing after thoroughly exploring all the alternatives" quote.
Apparently this quote originates from another quote that didn't refer to any specific country.
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/11/exhaust-alternatives/
adolph · 2024-08-22
It is difficult to get a man [ or person i.e. lawmaker] to understand something [as a problem] when his salary depends upon his not understanding it [as a problem]. [0]
Otoh, laws are often referred to as "code" and like computer code require a specificity that is quite different from idiomatic expression. Both hypothesi of "center embeddeding" and "magic spell" seem to follow what is often found in repos.
0. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/11/30/salary/
rramadass · 2024-07-27
> speaking as an overeducated Asian American
It is only people who are not educated enough that feel the need to call themselves "overeducated". That single phrase tells me all that everybody needs to know about you i.e. a self-aggrandizing "troll" hiding behind anonymity on the Internet.
Given your ignorance (both of the domain knowledge and basic communication etiquette) I had tried to educate you by pointing to actual resources but of course you are incapable to studying/debating them. To say that all are "reducible to naive cultural relativism" is the height of ignorance. Nowhere in any of your comments has there been even a indication of coherent thought and ideas but merely empty verbiage and needless vitriol. You would do well to follow this age-old advice - https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/17/remain-silent/
dctoedt · 2024-07-02
> What does “democracy” mean to you? A country where people vote, but unelected bureaucrats and lawyers actually run things and will do what they think is best?
"People" generally don't have the expertise to run things in a complex modern world. Bureaucrats and lawyers aren't always better, but pace Damon Runyon (quoting sportswriter Hugh Keough), that's the way to bet. [0]
"Democracy" in a complex modern world means that "people" periodically get an opportunity to toss out the bureaucrats and lawyers — because ballots are better than bullets.
[0] "The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; but that is the way to bet." https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/06/04/race-swift/#google_vignette
seanhunter · 2024-05-25
See my comment above. People say that Picasso said that (because Steve Jobs used to quote it as from Picasso) but there's no evidence he said that. It seems it was actually TS Elliot originally and then that was "stolen" by Igor Stravinsky, who was unquestionably a great artist but was saying it about Anton von Webern.
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/06/artists-steal/
SiempreViernes · 2024-03-26
Nobody forced Wolfram to put "Computational Astronomy" in the title, instead of something more accurate like "12 astronomy related widgets we've implemented", not sure why you get so offended by how far short they fall of the chosen title.
Also, I am not overly surprised that the origin of your quote looks to be a British aristocrat speaking about the conversational capabilities of dinner guests: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/11/18/great-minds/
eli_gottlieb · 2024-03-15
13 years ago, Silicon Valley programmers were complaining about just this.
>“The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads,” he says. “That sucks.”
It was cliched seven years ago: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/06/12/click/
It's the incentive structures that keep them in those jobs.
fanf2 · 2024-03-01
The usual recommendation is to get rid of them https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/28/clever-lazy/
jyunwai · 2024-02-13
A similar idea about the importance of planning as a way to improve your understanding of a problem was expressed by Dwight D. Eisenhower, said in a speech while he was in office as the US President in 1957 [1].
Reflecting on his experience in the Second World War, he said: "Plans are worthless, but planning is everything. There is a very great distinction because when you are planning for an emergency you must start with this one thing: the very definition of “emergency” is that it is unexpected, therefore it is not going to happen the way you are planning."
[1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/11/18/planning/
kamaradclimber · 2024-01-12
Many of the most talented artists of our time don’t do any art — they work in advertising. I think the original quote is:
The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads (source: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/06/12/click/)
which is very close to article’s paraphrase
hyperthesis · 2024-01-07
It's amazing how impressive your achievements can be if you don't mind who gets the credit. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/12/21/doing-good-selfless/?amp=1
adityaathalye · 2023-12-19
This is how my website came to be. A slow gradual accretion. The longest-in-draft post is currently clocking 4 years and counting. Though no work of art, suffice to say, I relate with the sentiment. This is a favourite quote:
_"A Work of Art Is Never Finished, Merely Abandoned"_
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2019/03/01/abandon/
philipov · 2023-11-01
To wit: "The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent"
Or in another case, there's a political scientist, whose name I don't currently remember, who's made fun of for predicting 9 out of the last 5 recessions. Sure, he may have predicted the ones that happened, but a broken clock is also right twice a day. Your predictions aren't worth much if you can't avoid false positives.
EDIT: [https://quoteinvestigator.com/2023/11/01/predict-nine/]
fsckboy · 2023-10-02
no shade, i'd heard similar before, but this time I had the urge to look it up
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/06/22/chip-away/
Quote Investigator has located no substantive evidence that Michelangelo or any other great sculptor made this remark. A comment of this type was published in 1858 in “The Methodist Quarterly Review” without any overt humor. The essay discussed poetry, and the author compared the methods of adroit sculptors and poets.
dmckeon · 2023-09-24
There is some unpalatable concoction served as "sweet tea" in various chain sit-down restaurants in the greater deep south area that I assume either uses some non-sugar sweetener or some instant tea mix. I now order unsweetened iced tea, and add sugar to taste. see also: "If this is tea bring me coffee, and if it is coffee bring me tea." https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/11/11/coffee-tea/
lproven · 2023-09-11
Blaise Pascal originally, I believe.
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/
Great line, though. I use it a lot.