Origin of Some of World's Most Popular Quotations

1914

Famous Words That Will Endure

Cynical Old Diogenes Told the World "Habit Is Second Nature"

It is recorded that an ignorant person, explaining her distaste for Shakespearean performances, said that his plays were too full of quotations. Yet we, too, though we may pride ourselves upon our learning, probably do not know the origin of half the common phrases we use as carelessly as verbs in our daily conversation.

No less a person than Cicero first made use of the expression, "While there's life there's hope," in a letter he wrote to Atticus. "We are in the same boat" is not modern slang, but occurs in a letter written by Clement I., bishop of Rome, to the Church of Corinth in the first century. This letter is extant and is one of the prized documents of the early church.

"I never put off till tomorrow what I can do today," was Lord Chesterfield's explanation of how he managed to do so much work. "Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well" he wrote later in the famous letters to his son.

In some of the expressions we use habitually may be crystallized an epoch of history. Such is the motto of the Order of the Garter, "Honi soit qui mai y pense" ("Shamed be he who thinks evil of it"), which was given by Edward III. of England. Wishing to draw the best soldiers in the world to him, he proposed a revival of the round table of King Arthur, holding a tournament at Windsor castle on New Year's day, 1344. After the contest of arms the guests were entertained at his expense at a round table. Philip, king of France, was jealous over the interest this aroused and forbade his subjects to attend, at the same time misrepresenting Edward's motives. Several years later, when Edward founded the Order of the Garter, he chose a motto that seemed to challenge his rival monarch to think wrong of it if he dared.

Later English history has not been laggard in increasing the supply of apt remarks that have grown into everyday sayings. Lord Eldon, lord chancellor of England during the first twenty-six years of the nineteenth century, continually mispronounced the name of Henry Brougham, afterward to be a successor in the chancellor's office. Brougham objected to be called Broffam, and in this regard Eldon was the chief offender. Once, after Brougham had made an excellent speech, Eldon by way of apology pronounced his name correctly and made a proverb, "New brooms sweep clean."

The same expression occurs frequently to different people who could have no knowledge that their thought had been given utterance before. "No man is a hero to his valet" has been paraphrased by scores, from Mme. du Cornuel, a witty Frenchwoman of the seventeenth century, to Dr. Johnson and Napoleon. The first record of it, however, is found in Plutarch, who states that when Hermodotus addressed a poem to Antigonous I., king of Sparta, hailing him as son of the sun and a god, the monarch replied, "My body servant sings me no such song."

It was Diogenes, the cynic, who declared that "habit is second nature." The phrase "circumstances over which he has no control" was used by the Duke of Wellington in a letter concerning some affairs in which his son was mixed up and with which be declined to interfere. Dickens also used the expression a few years later when he had Micawber write to David Copperfield. "Circumstances beyond my individual control," etc.

"Conspicuous by their absence" has been used on many occasions in modern oratory. It was first used by Tacitus in relating that in the funeral procession of Julia, niece of Cato, sister of Brutus, wife of Cassius, many of the images of the most famous families in Rome were seen, but "Cassius and Brutus shone pre-eminent because their images were not displayed."

"Nothing is certain but death and taxes," wrote Benjamin Franklin, stating that the constitution of the United States was in operation and to all appearances would last.

"Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones" was said by James I. of England when his favorite, the Duke of Buckingham, complained that a mob had broken his glass windows, which were at that time a luxury.

"Mind your p's and q's" is said to have been taken from an old French phrase at the time of Louis XIV. A very low bow was in fashion, and the dancing master in instructing his pupils would warn them to look out for the position of the feet and the movement of the head lest their cue wigs be disarranged. The French word for foot is pied. "Mind your pieds and queues" soon came to be transplanted into English and abbreviated.

Wallace Irwin once complained that when he had been invited to be funny at a banquet his real gems of wit were addressed to the back of his chauffeur on the way home. But what's the difference? According to the Latin poet, upheld by modern investigation, everything you could possibly say has been said before. — Anna Bird Stewart in Minneapolis Journal.