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Art, Like Morality, Consists of Drawing the Line Somewhere
Oscar Wilde? G. K. Chesterton? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: I saw the following remark on the webpage of an educator: Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace. The phrase was...
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Now We Sit Through Shakespeare in Order to Recognize the Quotations
Orson Welles? Oscar Wilde? James Aswell? Richard Lederer? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: The influence of William Shakespeare’s works on the English language has been enormous; consider the...
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Niagara Falls: The First Great Disappointment in Married Life
Oscar Wilde? Ann Landers? Gershon Legman? Anonymous? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: In 1882 the coruscating wit Oscar Wilde came to the United States to see the country and to conduct a series of...
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A Gentleman Is a Man Who Never Gives Offense Unintentionally
Oscar Wilde? Lord Chesterfield? John Wayne? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Books of etiquette once provided a definition of a gentleman that included the following assertion: A gentleman never...
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Life Is Too Important To Be Taken Seriously
Oscar Wilde? G. K. Chesterton? H. L. Mencken? Sebastian Melmoth? Dear Quote Investigator: The following cryptic paradox has been attributed to the famous wit Oscar Wilde: Life is too important to be...
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Missionaries and Cannibals
Oscar Wilde? Richard Le Gallienne? Reverend Sydney Smith? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: One of the more outrageous remarks attributed to the famous wit Oscar Wilde concerned missionaries,...
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Youth Is Wasted on the Young
George Bernard Shaw? Oscar Wilde? Irvin Cobb? Michel de Montaigne? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: A very popular acerbic adage combines wisdom and wistfulness together with a modicum of jealousy:...
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I Spent All Morning Taking Out a Comma and All Afternoon Putting It Back
Oscar Wilde? Gustave Flaubert? Robert H. Sherard? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: A famous writer who was punctilious about punctuation described an arduous day of work as follows: I spent all...
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Lovers: They Sing a Song Only You Can Hear
Oscar Wilde? CosmoGIRL? L. G. McVean? William J. Locke? Elizabeth Cooper? Holiday Mathis? Apocryphal? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a popular saying about the intimate connection between...
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Obscene and Not Heard
Groucho Marx? Ethel Barrymore? Maurice Barrymore? Paul M. Potter? Gertrude Battles Lane? John Lennon? Joe E. Lewis? Robert Heinlein? Marilyn Manson? Augustus John? Oscar Wilde? Dear Quote Investigator:...
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If You Want To Tell People the Truth, You’d Better Make Them Laugh or They’ll...
George Bernard Shaw? Oscar Wilde? Cecile Starr? Billy Wilder? Richard Pryor? James L. Brooks? Dustin Hoffman? Charles Ludlam? Dear Quote Investigator: Dramatists have discovered that challenging...
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Genius Is Born, Not Paid
Oscar Wilde? Frank Harris? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The following passage from a philosophical magazine of 1815 asserts that intellectual gifts are innate: 1 That genius is born, is a trite...
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Dancing Is a Perpendicular Expression of a Horizontal Desire
George Bernard Shaw? George Melly? I. S. Johar? Ann Landers? Patrick Harte? Robert Frost? Winston Churchill? Oscar Wilde? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Here are two versions of an adage...
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Work is the Curse of the Drinking Classes
Oscar Wilde? Frank Harris? Irish Barrister? Wilton Lackaye? Margaret Waters? Well-Known Young Clubman? Gustav Traub? Mike Romanoff? Samuel George Blythe? Arthur M. Binstead? Anonymous? Dear Quote...
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Please Do Not Shoot the Pianist. He is Doing His Best
Oscar Wilde? Sign in Leadville? Minister in Pooleville, Arkansas? Dear Quote Investigator: When Oscar Wilde was touring the United States he apparently saw a sign in a saloon requesting goodwill for...
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Missionaries and Cannibals
Oscar Wilde? Richard Le Gallienne? Reverend Sydney Smith? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: One of the more outrageous remarks attributed to the famous wit Oscar Wilde concerned missionaries,...
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Youth Is Wasted on the Young
George Bernard Shaw? Oscar Wilde? Irvin Cobb? Michel de Montaigne? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: A very popular acerbic adage combines wisdom and wistfulness together with a modicum of jealousy:...
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I Spent All Morning Taking Out a Comma and All Afternoon Putting It Back
Oscar Wilde? Gustave Flaubert? Robert H. Sherard? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: A famous writer who was punctilious about punctuation described an arduous day of work as follows: I spent all...
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Lovers: They Sing a Song Only You Can Hear
Oscar Wilde? CosmoGIRL? L. G. McVean? William J. Locke? Elizabeth Cooper? Holiday Mathis? Apocryphal? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a popular saying about the intimate connection between...
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Obscene and Not Heard
Groucho Marx? Ethel Barrymore? Maurice Barrymore? Paul M. Potter? Gertrude Battles Lane? John Lennon? Joe E. Lewis? Robert Heinlein? Marilyn Manson? Augustus John? Oscar Wilde? Dear Quote Investigator:...
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