This Day in Quotes

“Workers of the World, Unite!”

noreply@blogger.com (SubtropicBob) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:35:38 PST

You can find many lists of “books that changed the world” on the Internet. Although these lists vary, there are some books that show up on most of them. One is The Communist Manifesto, which was written primarily by Karl Marx with contributions from Friedrich Engels. It was first published on February 21, 1848 in London. And, of course, it did indeed change history and the world by serving as a key philosophical foundation for socialism and communism. This seminal work by Marx...

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“I know nothing!” – the memorable catchphrase of a forgotten political party

noreply@blogger.com (SubtropicBob) — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 14:38:06 PST

Many people associate the catchphrase “I know nothing!” with the television character Sergeant Schultz (actor John Banner). It was one of his frequent lines in the 1960s comedy series Hogan’s Heroes, along with “I see nothing.” However, more than a century before Hogan’s Heroes first aired in 1965 “I know nothing” was popularized by a now largely-forgotten political group. It was commonly called the “Know Nothing Party” and its members were dubbed “Know Nothings” for short. The Know...

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“Each man kills the thing he loves.” (Sometimes with a straight razor.)

noreply@blogger.com (SubtropicBob) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 16:30:55 PST

On February 13, 1898, the first edition of Oscar Wilde’s now famous poem “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” was published in London by publisher Leonard Smithers. Those initial copies of the slim volume of poesy did not mention Wilde’s name. The author was given as “C.3.3.,” a reference to Wilde’s cell number while he was in the Reading prison from 1895 to 1897, serving a two year sentence for being a homosexual. C.3.3. was prison shorthand for Block C, third floor, third cell. Because of his...

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“It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”

noreply@blogger.com (SubtropicBob) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:16:27 PST

On February 7, 1968, American bombs, rockets and napalm obliterated much of the South Vietnamese town of Ben Tre — killing hundreds of civilians who lived there. Later that day, an unidentified American officer gave Associated Press reporter Peter Arnett a memorable explanation for the destruction. Arnett used it in the opening of the story he wrote: “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it,” a U.S. major said Wednesday. He was talking...

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“Only God can make a tree.” But Joyce Kilmer’s poem inspired many people to plant and preserve them…

noreply@blogger.com (SubtropicBob) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 07:53:03 PST

On a chilly winter afternoon in 1913, at his home in New Jersey, poet Joyce Kilmer jotted down the first two lines of a new poem in his notebook, along with the date — February 2, 1913. Those two lines went on to become among the most famous, most inspiring and most mocked bits of American verse in history: “I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree.” The rest of Kilmer’s well-known poem...

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“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

noreply@blogger.com (SubtropicBob) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 11:26:51 PST

The quote “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty” is often mistakenly attributed to the Irish lawyer and politician John Philpot Curran and frequently to Thomas Jefferson. In fact, Curran’s line was somewhat different. What he actually said, in a speech in Dublin on July 10, 1790, was: “The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance.” And, according to Jefferson scholars there is “no evidence to confirm that Thomas...

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“I love it when a plan comes together.”

noreply@blogger.com (SubtropicBob) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:07:09 PST

You may or may not be a fan of the Eighties TV series The A-Team, but you probably know the famous catchphrase from the show: “I love it when a plan comes together.” It was used frequently throughout the show’s five-season run from 1983 to 1986 by the team’s cigar-chomping leader, Colonel John “Hannibal” Smith, played by actor George Peppard. Peppard first uttered the line in the 2-hour pilot episode “Mexican Slayride,” which originally aired on...

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How a political backlash turned “a grand old rag” into “a Grand Old Flag”...

noreply@blogger.com (SubtropicBob) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:52:55 PST

On January 19, 1906, American composer, playwright and performer George M. Cohan copyrighted a new song he’d written titled “You’re a Grand Old Rag.” It was one of the songs Cohan created for his upcoming Broadway musical George Washington, Jr. The chorus of the song went like this: “You’re a grand old rag, You’re a high flying flag And forever in peace may you wave. ...

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“The business of America is business” – a famously unfair misquote…

noreply@blogger.com (SubtropicBob) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:19:16 PST

When President Warren G. Harding died from a heart-related problem in 1923, Vice President Calvin Coolidge became the 30th President of the United States. The following year, with his popularity buoyed by a strong economy, Coolidge handily won the 1924 presidential election, using the campaign slogan “Keep Cool With Coolidge.” Unlike some presidents, “Silent Cal” Coolidge wasn’t known for making memorable statements. The most famous quote associated with him is a line about business...

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The origin of the movie cliché: “We have ways of making you talk!”

noreply@blogger.com (SubtropicBob) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:49:12 PST

Nowadays, it’s a cliché usually said for comedic effect, often with a German accent as if said by an evil Nazi, and delivered as a personalized threat: “Ve haf vays of making you talk!” As classic film buffs know, the origin of this comedic line can be traced back to an old Gary Cooper movie and, with or without the German accent, “We have ways of making you talk” is actually a misquote of the original line in that movie. The film, titled The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, is based on the 1930...

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10 famous quotes and phrases linked to the date January 10

noreply@blogger.com (SubtropicBob) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:56:29 PST

1. and 2. “The die is cast.” and “cross the Rubicon” “The die is cast” was Julius Caesar’s famous remark on January 10, 49 B.C. as he led his troops across the Rubicon River to start a civil war for control of the Roman Empire. This event also led to the idiom “to cross the Rubicon.” Both phrases are now commonly used as way of saying “pass the point of no return.” 3. “Insanity runs in my family. It practically...

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Should auld acquaintance (or old lyrics) be forgot…

noreply@blogger.com (SubtropicBob) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 05:53:46 PST

Contrary to what you sometimes hear, Scottish poet and lyricist Robert Burns (1759-1796) didn’t create the song “Auld Lang Syne.” And, Canadian bandleader Guy Lombardo didn’t start the tradition of singing the song at New Year’s Eve parties. However, Burns did flesh out and popularize the lyrics of the song as we know it today (or, at least, kind of know it) in a poem he wrote in 1788. And, Lombardo did popularize the tradition of playing and singing “Auld Lang Syne” (or, at least,...

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“Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.”

noreply@blogger.com (SubtropicBob) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 14:07:01 PST

On December 29, 1890, some 500 U.S. Seventh Cavalry troopers gunned down more than 200 Lakota Indians — including men, women and children — at Wounded Knee Creek on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The Army initially called it “The Battle of Wounded Knee.” In truth, it wasn’t a battle. Today, it’s generally called what it really was — the Wounded Knee Massacre. The famous quote that’s now associated with this tragic event is “Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.” But those...

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“Silent Night” – the origin and evolving words of the famous Christmas carol...

noreply@blogger.com (SubtropicBob) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 12:21:06 PST

In 1818, during the annual Christmas Midnight Mass at the St. Nicholas Church at Oberndorf, Austria, the song we know as “Silent Night! Holy Night!” (or just “Silent Night”) was performed in public for the first time. Depending on which source you consult, this happened on the night of December 24, 1818 or sometime after midnight on December 25. The lyrics of the song were written in German by Joseph Mohr (1792-1848), an Austrian Catholic priest who sang tenor during the song’s debut. ...

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Times that try men’s souls, summer soldiers, and sunshine patriots…

noreply@blogger.com (SubtropicBob) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 20:24:51 PST

During the Revolutionary War, getting soldiers to stay in the Continental Army was one of the biggest problems facing the American commander in chief, General George Washington. Many American soldiers were non-professional militiamen who volunteered for a limited number of months, usually during the spring or summer. After a short stint, they were legally allowed to go back their farms to harvest their fall crops — and typically did. There were regular soldiers in the Continental Army. But...

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“‘Tis strange – but true…”

noreply@blogger.com (SubtropicBob) — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 13:55:42 PST

Most people know that Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron; 1788-1824) was a famous English poet. You may also know that Byron had an infamously wild personal life. As put by one of his lovers, Lady Caroline Lamb, he was “mad, bad and dangerous to know.” But unless you’re a true poetry aficionado you probably can’t recall many lines from Byron’s poems. About the only bit of Byron poetry most of us remember is “She walks in beauty, like the night,” from his poem “She Walks in Beauty”...

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“An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support.”

noreply@blogger.com (SubtropicBob) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 05:56:19 PST

There’s a famous quotation about atheists associated with the date December 14 that is widely attributed to Bishop Fulton J. Sheen: “An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support.” The source that’s usually cited for this quote is the December 14, 1955 issue of LOOK magazine. Sheen did say this line in an article in LOOK magazine and his use of it may be the most famous. But the record needs to be set straight about a couple of...

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“Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!”

noreply@blogger.com (SubtropicBob) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 07:55:32 PST

On December 7, 1941 — the day President Franklin D. Roosevelt would call “a date which will live in infamy” on the following afternoon — hundreds of Japanese warplanes made a deadly surprise attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. When the crew of the heavy cruiser USS New Orleans rushed on deck they saw devastation around them. Not far away, a huge cloud of smoke was rising from the USS Arizona and the big battleship was sinking. Beyond the Arizona, the USS Oklahoma...

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Unintelligible – and unsafe – at any speed...

noreply@blogger.com (SubtropicBob) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 11:54:27 PST

It’s just plain odd that the classic rock song “Louie Louie” and Ralph Nader are connected by both a quote and a date. But it’s true. “Louie Louie” was written in 1955 by the pioneering American R&B singer and songwriter Richard Berry (1935-1997). In a nod to the popularity Calypso music was enjoying in the mid-1950s, Berry gave “Louie Louie” a Caribbean flavor by writing the lyrics in an island-style patois. It’s basically a love song. A Jamaican sailor tells some other guy named...

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“He who destroys a good book kills reason itself.”

noreply@blogger.com (SubtropicBob) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 20:20:37 PST

In the 1630s, England’s infamous “Star Chamber” (sort of a politically-oriented version of the Spanish Inquisition) banned the printing or sale of “any seditious, scismaticall, or offensive Bookes or Pamphlets.” The Star Chamber was abolished in 1641. But two years later, the British House of Commons passed a new censorship law. Although it was was called a book “licensing” law, it was more about limiting free speech and creating publishing monopolies for politically-connected publishers...

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“We will bury you!” (Or something like that.)

noreply@blogger.com (SubtropicBob) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 08:14:38 PST

On November 18, 1956, Communist leader Nikita Khrushchev, the head of the Soviet Union, attended a party at the Polish Embassy in Moscow. It was at that event that Khrushchev uttered what became his most famous (and infamous) quote. What he said in Russian was “My vas pokhoronim.” In American news reports, those words were translated as “We will bury you.” The remark was part of some offhand comments Khrushchev made that night about two recent events. One event was the brief...

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How “God Bless America” created a musical duel between Woody Guthrie and Irving Berlin

noreply@blogger.com (SubtropicBob) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 22:08:15 PST

In 1917, during World War I, American songwriter Irving Berlin was drafted into the U.S. Army. He was already a successful songwriter at that point, known for huge hits like “Alexander's Ragtime Band” (1911) and “A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody” (1915). Berlin was stationed at Camp Upton in Yaphank, New York. Not long after he arrived, an officer asked if he’d be willing to write a musical show for the soldiers at the base to perform. Berlin agreed and composed a set of songs for a...

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The Top 10 Quotes about and by U.S. Marines

noreply@blogger.com (SubtropicBob) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 14:56:19 PST

November 10th is the official birthday of the United States Marines, which were established by the Second Continental Congress during the Revolutionary War, on November 10, 1775. So, today, I’d like to salute the U.S. Marine Corps by listing the 10 most famous quotations about and by Marines. 1. “From the Halls of Montezuma, To the Shores of Tripoli; We fight our country's battles ...

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“Spare the rod and spoil the child” is not in the Bible and may not mean what you think…

noreply@blogger.com (SubtropicBob) — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 13:02:04 PDT

It’s not surprising that many people think the quote “Spare the rod and spoil the child” comes from the Bible. There are at least five verses in the Bible’s Book of Proverbs that talk about using a rod to beat a child — for his own good, of course. The most famous is Proverbs 13:24: “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.” Proverbs 26:13-14 offers this bit of Old Testament parenting advice: “Withhold not correction from the child: for if...

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“Enjoy every sandwich.”

noreply@blogger.com (SubtropicBob) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 13:09:56 PDT

Warren Zevon’s sardonic views on life and death are apparent in many of the songs he wrote. An early example is “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead,” which first appeared on Zevon’s self-titled 1976 album. Those words were later used as the title of the posthumous biography written about him by his ex-wife Crystal Zevon and as the title of a 2-disc anthology of his music. The sentiments expressed in that song reflected Zevon’s attitude and lifestyle during his first decades of rock stardom, which...

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