bogus Horatian quote?

[Garson O'Toole]

A good scare is worth more to a man than good advice

This quote was printed in several newspapers in 1899. The earliest
cite I have found so far was dated March 25 and it acknowledged the
Atchison Globe newspaper. The full title of the 1911 citation given
earlier was "Country Town Sayings: A Collection of Paragraphs from the
Atchison Globe" by E. W. Howe. So the earliest cites suggest an
initial appearance in the Atchison Globe.

Cite: 1899 March 25, Hutchinson Daily News [Hutchinson News],
[Paragraph length advertisements interleaved with short quotations],
Page 3, Column 1, Hutchinson, Kansas. (NewspaperArchive)
[Begin excerpt]
A good scare is worth more to a man than good advice.-Atchison Globe.
[End excerpt]

Howe was often credited across the decades, but it not clear to me if
he crafted the saying or simply compiled it. Here are some variant
phrasings for the adage.

Cite: 1906 January 30, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Quaker Reflections,
Page 4, Column 3, Fort Worth, Texas. (Genealogybank)
[Begin excerpt]
Good advice won't profit a man half so much as a good scare.
[End excerpt]

Cite: 1906 May 20, New York Times, Musings of the Gentle Cynic, Page
SM4, Column 3, New York. (ProQuest)
[Begin excerpt]
Good advice seldom profits a man as much as a good scare.
[End excerpt]

Cite: 1911 December 17, New York Times, Musings of the Gentle Cynic,
Page SM6, Column 4, New York. (ProQuest)
[Begin excerpt]
A good scare is often efficacious where good advice fails.
[End excerpt]

Cite: 1912 March 8, Washington Post, Pointed Paragraphs: From the
Chicago News, Page 6, Column 6, Washington D.C. (ProQuest)
[Begin excerpt]
A good scare is of more benefit to some men than good advice.
[End excerpt]

Here is an attribution to Howe a few decades later.

Cite: 1947 October 20, Time, THE NATIONS: Prophylaxis, Time, Inc., New
York. (Online Time magazine archive)
http://www.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,804311,00.html
[Begin excerpt]
As Ed Howe used to say: "A good scare is worth more to a man than good advice."
[End excerpt]

The adage was ascribed to Horace by 2003. A bit late.

Cite: 2003 September 1, Sun-Sentinel, Section: Your Business, A Bit of
Humility Won't Hurt by Joyce Lain Kennedy, Page 8, Broward, Florida.
(NewsBank)
[Begin excerpt]
A good scare is worth more than good advice, sayeth Horace, an Italian
poet of antiquity.
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 10:03 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: bogus Horatian quote?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Great sleuthing, G-man!  But how did Horace get the credit?
>
> It's good to be back. The mysteries of war in literature are starting
> to take up most of my thinking time.
>
> JL
>
> On Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 8:33 PM, Garson O'Toole
> <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: bogus Horatian quote?
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>> 86,000 websites claim that the Roman poet Horace once said, "A good
>>> scare is worth more than good advice."
>>>
>>> He may have said it, but I doubt he wrote it down. Origin?
>>>
>>> The earliest appearance I find is in the form of a humorous, anonymous
>>> squib on p. 1 of the Frederick, Md., _News_ (Oct. 6, 1953).
>>
>> Thanks Jonathan for sharing this interesting quotation with a
>> suspicious attribution. And welcome back! Great to see your posts
>> again.
>>
>> Quick preliminary search says credit goes to Edgar Watson Howe by 1911
>> (for a close variant):
>>
>> "Country Town Sayings" by E. W. Howe
>> http://books.google.com/books?id=6KAfAQAAMAAJ&q=scare#v=snippet&
>>
>> A good scare is worth more to a man than good advice.
>>
>> Garson
>>
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>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
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