"Great minds think alike"

[Alan Baragona]

Just found this on a British web site called Phrase Finder
(http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/32/messages/338.html).  Does
anyone know this book and whether it is authoritative?
GREAT MINDS THINK ALIKE -- "Often quoted in jest today, this saying
originated in the seventeenth century as the comic-sounding 'Great wits
jump.' Daubridgecourt Belchier first recorded the saying in 'Hans Beer-Pot'
(1618) as 'Good wits doe iumpe (agree).'...The expression 'Great minds jump'
appeared in the late 1800s..." From "Wise Words and Wives' Tales: The
Origins, Meanings and Time-Honored Wisdom of Proverbs and Folk Sayings Olde
and New" by Stuart Flexner and Doris Flexner (Avon Books, New York, 1993).

Alan B.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Quinion" <wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2005 2:53 PM
Subject: Re: "Great minds think alike"


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
> header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Michael Quinion <wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG>
> Organization: World Wide Words
> Subject:      Re: "Great minds think alike"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>> Does anyone know the origin or earliest usage in English of "great
>> minds think alike" or "great minds tend to think alike"?  It's not
>> in my Bartlett's (15th edition).  The Columbia World of Quotations
>> (1996) gives "all great heroes think alike" as a Chinese proverb.
>
> Newspaperarchive.com has an example from the Paxton Weekly Record of
> 24 Dec. 1874, in which it is described as an adage.
>
> --
> Michael Quinion
> Editor, World Wide Words
> E-mail: <wordseditor at worldwidewords.org>
> Web: <http://www.worldwidewords.org/>