"two reasons for doing anything"

[Laurence Horn]

On Feb 10, 2014, at 10:35 PM, Shapiro, Fred wrote:

> You're a tough guy to please, Jon.  It is in the index under "reasons."

Or as Pascal once (almost) said, somewhere in the YBQ, "L'index a ses 'raisons' que la raison ne connait pas."

LH
>
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Jonathan Lighter [wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM]
> Sent: Monday, February 10, 2014 8:45 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: "two reasons for doing anything"
>
> 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:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> 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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