[Ads-l] Mark Twain Does It Again

[Jonathan Lighter]

Thanks, Garson.  One giveaway (usually) is that Twain, as a writer of his
time, is rarely as plain and direct as he might be today.

JL

On Fri, Aug 8, 2025 at 6:50 PM ADSGarson O'Toole <
00001aa1be50b751-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:

> Thanks JL. I have received requests in the past for all three of those
> remarks. I created a QI article for the first misquotation. The other
> two inquiries are in my queue of thousands. I will add these requests
> to my electronic files. Here is a link to the pertinent QI article:
>
> Quote Origin: It’s Easier to Fool People Than to Convince Them That
> They’ve Been Fooled
> https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/12/23/fooled/
>
> Twain did make a comment which semantically aligned with the statement
> above although it was distinct. In December 1906 Mark Twain dictated
> remarks for his autobiography which was being published in
> installments in "The North American Review".
>
> [ref] 1907 January 4, The North American Review, Volume 184, Chapters
> From My Autobiography--IX by Mark Twain, (Dictated December 2, 1906)
> Start Page 1, Quote Page 12, The North American Review Publishing
> Company, New York. (Google Books Full View) [/ref]
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to
> undo that work again!
> [End excerpt]
>
> Reuters published a Fact Check about "The truth has no defense against
> a fool determined to believe a lie" in 2023:
> https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-twain-fools-idUSL1N385208
>
> Garson
>
> On Fri, Aug 8, 2025 at 8:23 AM Jonathan Lighter
> <00001aad181a2549-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Mark Twain  keeps coming up with new, brilliant aphorisms despite being
> > long dead. This makes him a greater writer than Shakespeare.
> >
> > I found three of the latest in one place. A quick search suggests
> > (strongly) that he never said or wrote any of them while alive:
> >
> > "It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been
> > fooled."
> >
> > "No amount of evidence will ever convince an idiot."
> >
> > “The truth has no defense against a fool determined to believe a lie."
> >
> > Over to you, Garson.
> >
> > JL
> >
> > --
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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