[Ads-l] Pauling quote?

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Thanks for suggesting an interesting topic, sg.
It appears that Linus Pauling employed the saying on multiple
occasions. Here is a partial match in 1960.

Date: April 1960
Magazine: Fortune
Article: Great American Scientists: The Chemists
Author: Lawrence Lessing
Start Page 131, Quote Page 134, Column 2
Publisher: Time Inc., Chicago, Illinois
Database: Open Library Internet Archive

[Begin excerpt]
Pauling energetically pursued his ideas in many directions. “The best
way to have a good idea,” he says, “is to have a lot of ideas.”
[End excerpt]

A full match occurred in 1969 when Dickinson College of Carlisle,
Pennsylvania awarded Linus Pauling the Priestley Memorial Award. The
local newspaper published a remark from Pauling which matched the
complete quotation under examination:

Date: March 28, 1969
Newspaper: The Evening Sentinel
Newspaper Location: Carlisle, Pennsylvania
Article: Priestley Award Winner Says Deployment of ABM’s “Silly”
Start Page 1, Quote Page 6, Column 1
Database: Newspapers.com

[Begin excerpt]
“I was once asked ‘How do you go about having good ideas?’ and my
answer was that you have a lot of ideas and throw away the bad ones.
Train your subconscious to discard the bad ones,” he suggested.

“Often a flash of inspiration gives scientists answers and ideas.
Later the scientist looks for a logical derivation and often succeeds
in finding one.”
[End excerpt]

Here is a Google Snippet match circa 1972 in which Linus Pauling
suggested that he used the saying in 1935. This citation must be
verified with scans or hardcopy. Maybe someone with access to a large
database of medical publications can check this.

Year: 1973
Title: Sickle Cell Disease: Transactions. Held on Jan. 20 and 21, 1972
Volume 53 of Thrombosis et diathesis haemorrhagica. Supplementum
Editors: Eberhard F. Mammen, Gordon F. Anderson, Marion I. Barnhart
Contributor: Wayne State University. School of Medicine
Publisher: F.K. Schattauer
Database: Google Books snippet which may be inaccurate; Data must be
verified with scans or hardcopy

[Begin extracted text which may be inaccurate]
On my 60th birthday, in 1961, I received a letter from one of my
former students, David Harker, in which he wrote that in 1935 he had
asked me how you go about having good ideas, and that I had answered
that you have a lot of ideas and throw away the bad ones.
[End excerpt]

Garson O’Toole
QuoteInvestigator.com

On Sat, Mar 18, 2023 at 9:56 AM Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu> wrote:
>
> Elsewhere I wrote:
>
> "A saying (with variations) attributed (maybe truly, though I don't have absolute proof) to Linus Pauling (or maybe Thomas Edison) is, in any case:
> "The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas and throw away the bad ones."
>
> Whether it's a good idea to post it here, I leave open.
> sg
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org