"two reasons for doing anything"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Thanks for the citation, Fred. But it isn't in the index under "reason."

JL


On Mon, Feb 10, 2014 at 8:38 PM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "two reasons for doing anything"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The Yale Book of Quotations has the following:
>
> A man always has two reasons for what he does -- a good one, and the real
> one.
> J. P. Morgan, Quoted in Owen Wister, Roosevelt: The Story of a Friendship
> (1930)
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of
> Laurence Horn [laurence.horn at YALE.EDU]
> Sent: Monday, February 10, 2014 8:27 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: "two reasons for doing anything"
>
> On Feb 10, 2014, at 8:23 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
> > I don't see this in the archives, though I've been thinking about it for
> a
> > long time.
> >
> > Many years ago I was told that Sigmund Freud had once said, "There are
> > always two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and the real
> reason."
> >
> > Sounds like Freud in principle, but not in style.
> >
> > Google Books wants to attribute it to J. P. Morgan, but Morgan died in
> 1913
> > and the "reported" quote doesn't show up till 1940.
> >
> > A few minutes ago I was watching a short film on TCM called "Teddy the
> > Rough Rider" (1947). It shows Theodore Roosevelt insisting, "A man always
> > has two reasons for whatever he does: a good one and the real one."
> >
> > This attribution is presumably bogus as well, but evidently the quote
> > gained traction in the 1940s.
> >
> Or three reasons for doing anything--the right reason, the wrong reason,
> and the Army reason?
>
> LH
>
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