[Ads-l] Quote: We have not got any money, so we have got to think (Attributed to Ernest Rutherford)

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Way back in September 2011 Jonathan Lighter initiated a thread about
old sayings, and he included a version of the expression in the
subject line. Dan Goncharoff and I replied.

Some of the items we uncovered were only visible as snippets in Google
Books. The enormously valuable controlled digital lending mechanism of
the Internet Archive allowed me to recently verify some crucial
citations with scans. Sadly, this online library may be shut down in
the future.

The Quote Investigator article on this topic is here:
Abbrev: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2023/09/27/got-to-think/
Full: https://quoteinvestigator.medium.com/7b22f68876c4

[Begin acknowledgement]
Great thanks to Jonathan Lighter and Dan Goncharoff who participated
in a mailing list thread about old sayings back in 2011 which
ultimately led QI to formulate this question and perform this
exploration. Goncharoff pointed to the intriguing 1943 citation.
Thanks also to Bill Sweetman’s email inquiry which helped to motivate
this research. Additional thanks to Barry Popik for his helpful
investigation.
[End acknowledgement]

Here are some links to the 2011 discussion.
https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2011-September/112886.html
https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2011-September/112914.html
https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2011-September/112953.html
https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2011-September/112953.html

Barry Popik created a helpful entry on his website back in 2013. Here
is a link to a snapshot in the Way Back machine:
http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/we_havent_the_money_so_weve_got_to_think/

Fred, has a valuable entry on page 707 of the New Yale Book of Quotations.
Garson

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