[Ads-l] Quote: Put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

The Quote Investigator website has a new entry about the quotation in
the subject line.
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/02/16/eggs/

Fred Shapiro and Barry Popik are acknowledged. The key early citation
for Carnegie is listed in The Yale Book of Quotations. Fred made the
following remark in his entry for the quotation:

[Begin excerpt from YBQ]
The quotation is almost universally attributed to Mark Twain, but
Twain’s usage was later, and he probably picked it up from Carnegie.
[End excerpt from YBQ]

My incremental contribution to this topic is a confirmation of Fred's
hypothesis. Sometime between April 10, 1893 and April 23, 1893 Mark
Twain recorded in one of his personal notebooks the following:

[Begin note]
“Put all your eggs in one basket—and watch that basket.” Andrew Carnegie.
[End note]

Thus, Twain credited Carnegie when he learned about the saying. This
information is based on "Mark Twain's Notebook" (1935) edited by
Albert Bigelow Paine.

Garson

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