“Inside every fat man there is a thin man trying to get out.”

CYRIL’S PRECURSOR TO THE FAMOUS SAYING: “Imprisoned in every fat man a thin one is wildly signalling to be let out.”        Cyril Connolly (1903-1974)        English writer, editor and critic         An oft-cited line from Connolly’s book The Unquiet Grave, pt. 2 (first published in 1944)         Cyril Connolly is frequently credited as the originator of the modern proverbial saying “Inside every fat man there is a thin man trying to get out,” also heard with the ending “…struggling to get out.” Some sources trace it to an earlier quote by English author George Orwell. In fact, neither of the commonly-used versions of the quip are what Connolly or Orwell actually wrote.          Connolly’s line in his book of essays The Unquiet Grave is: “Imprisoned in every fat man a thin one is wildly signalling to be let out.”        Orwell’s earlier quote mentions the idea of a thin man inside a fat one, but says nothing about the thin man signaling (to use the modern American spelling) or struggling to get out. In his 1939 novel Coming Up For Air the central character, George Bowling, says: “I’m fat, but I’m thin inside. Has it ever struck you that there’s a thin man inside every fat man, just as they say there’s a statue inside every block of stone?”

KINGSLEY’S COROLLARY: “Outside every fat man there was an even fatter man trying to close in.”         Kingsley Amis (1922-1995)        English novelist, critic and poet        In his novel One Fat Englishman (1963)

THE BELLY WISDOM THEOREM: “The old saying is wrong: It’s not that ‘Inside every fat woman there's a thin woman screaming to get out.’ The reality is that inside EVERY woman, there's a FAT woman trying to get out and breathe, relax her belly center, undo her pants, let her thighs roar with thunder, and her breasts feel the breeze!”        Bell Pine Art Farm        From the company’s description of its “Belly Wisdom” statuette

THE RUPAUL RULE: “Inside every gay man, there is a big, soulful, divalicious black woman vying to get out.”        From a post on The Way I See It Theatre Blog (Aug. 26, 2011)

THE NATIONAL LAMPOON LETTER: “Sirs: Outside every thin Canadian, there's a fat American, screaming to get in.”        A letter to the editor published in National Lampoon, June 1964, attributed to Canadian reader Chris Kelly, but probably written by the editors

THE OLD AGE AXIOM: “Inside every old person is a young person wondering what the hell happened.”        Modern proverbial saying and t-shirt slogan, sometimes attributed to American gospel singer Cora Harvey Armstrong and sometimes to the British fantasy and science fiction novelist Terry Pratchett.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Comments? Corrections? Questions? Email me or post them on my Famous Quotations Facebook page.

Related reading…

“Every nation has the government it deserves” – and the criminals, drugs and donuts…

THE FAMOUS MISINTERPRETED QUOTE: “Every nation has the government it deserves.” (“Toute nation a le gouvernement qu’elle mérite.”)        Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821)        French-speaking Savoyard philosopher, writer, lawyer and diplomat        Comment in a letter he wrote in August 1811, later published in Lettres et Opuscules Inedits (1851)        Whenever Election Day draws near, I am reminded of this famous quote by Joseph de Maistre. He wrote this aphorism in 1811 when he was serving as the King of Piedmont-Sardinia’s envoy to Russian Czar Alexander I. At that time, Alexander was introducing reforms that were moving Russia toward a European-style constitutional government. It’s ironic that Maistre’s quote is now commonly used to suggest that citizens should get more involved in politics, actively push for more democratic governments and rebel against tyrants. Maistre disliked democracy and believed that hereditary monarchies were a divinely-sanctioned, superior form of government. For example, he opposed the French Revolution and supported restoration of the French monarchy. And, in his 1811 letter, Maistre was actually expressing his negative views of Alexander’s reform policies in Russia. He said a European-style constitutional system would be “over the heads” of the Russian people. One early translation of Maistre’s aphorism in that letter was: “Every nation has the government which it is fit for.” This paternalistic translation may best capture what Maistre really meant. The more familiar translation — “Every nation [or ‘country’] has the government it deserves” — is often wrongly attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville and Abraham Lincoln. They never said it. Maistre did, but what he meant by it is probably different than what most people think.

THE FAMOUS VERSION ABOUT CRIMINALS: “Society has the criminals it deserves.” (“La société a les criminels qu’elle mérite.)        Alexandre Lacassagne (1843-1924)        French physician and criminologist                           A remark he made in his article “L’homme criminel comparé a l’homme primitif,” in the Bulletin du Lyon médical (1882)        This quote by Lacassangne is often translated as “Every society has the criminals it deserves,” to parallel Maistre’s quotation. It actually comes from a longer comment Lacassagne made about the justice system: "Justice shrivels up, prison corrupts and society has the criminals it deserves." (“La justice flétrit, la prison corrompt et la société a les criminels qu’elle mérite.”)

ROBERT KENNEDY’S RESPONSE: “Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on.”        Robert F. Kennedy (1925-1968)        U.S. Attorney General and Democratic politician        In his book The Pursuit of Justice (1964)

GEORGE ORWELL’S FAMOUS FACE VARIATION: “At 50, everyone has the face he deserves.”        George Orwell (1903-1950)        Last words in his notebook, April 17, 1949        Published posthumously in The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell (1968)

THE WOODSTOCK GENERATION VARIATION: “Everybody gets the drugs they deserve. Everyone gets the god they deserve. Everyone gets the electrons they deserve. Go for it all.”           Dr. Timothy Leary (1920-1996)          American psychologist, writer and psychedelic drug guru         In the spoken word piece “Fifty Million Years,” on his posthumously released CD Beyond Life (1996)

THE NEW GENERATION’S VARIATION: “Not every generation gets the politics it deserves. When baby boomer journalists and politicians talk about engaging with youth politics, what they generally mean is engaging with a caucus of energetic, compliant under-25s who are willing to give their time for free to causes led by grown-ups...We need to being to formulate an agenda of our own.”        Laurie Penny         British journalist and social activist        In a chapter she contributed to the multi-author book Fight Back! (2010)

A PIONEERING PORN MAVEN’S OPINION: “Every nation gets the pornography it deserves…and if we forbid the writing of erotica to all but those willing to break the law, we have no complaint if the results are mean and inartistic.”        Ralph Ginzburg (1929-2006)        Pioneering American author, editor, publisher and free speech advocate        In his book An Unhurried View of Erotica (1958)

A PIONEERING RIGHT-WING TELEVANGELIST’S OPINION: “A godless people will chose a godless leader. A democratic people gets the kind of government it deserves!”        Father Charles E. Coughlin (1891-1979)        Controversial American radio evangelist        Comment made on his radio show on January 7, 1940, in one of his rants attacking President Franklin D. Roosevelt

THE FILM CRITIC’S PSYCHOKILLER THEORY: “Every era gets the psychos it deserves, at least in art. Our own violent culture has splattered us with real-life assassins and serial killers who have pervaded our consciousness through television and newspapers and left a disturbing, revealing, often entertaining legacy of fictional lunatics.”         Caryn James        American film critic        In an article about modern psychokiller movies, published in The New York Times, March 10, 1991

THE THEATRE CRITIC’S THEORY: “Every civilization gets the theatre it deserves.”        Michael Feingold         Theatre critic for The Village Voice        Quoted in Directors and the New Musical Drama (2008)

THE DONUT CRITIC’S VERSION: “Was it Alexis de Tocqueville or Jonathan Gold who said, ‘Every city gets the donuts it deserves’? Either way, you have to wonder what Houston did to deserve Shipley Do-Nuts. The Shipleys may be lovely people, and the corporation gets much respect for being active in the community and maintaining its Houston roots. But their donuts are consistently mediocre.”        Matthew Dresden           Food critic and journalist        In an article posted on HoustonPress.com, February 10, 2011

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *    

Comments? Questions? Corrections? Post them on the Famous Quotations Facebook page.

Related reading: books of quotations about politics and government….

Faith, hope & charity – from the Bible, to American politics, to Dale Evans & Roy Rogers...

THE FAMILIAR BIBLE VERSE: “And now abideth faith, hope, charity these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”         Saint Paul (c. 5 A.D. - c. 67 A.D.)         I Corinthians 13:13 (i.e., Chapter 13, Verse 13)         I Corinthians, usually referred to as First Corinthians or the First Epistle to the Corinthians is a book in the Bible based on a letter written around 53 A.D. by Paul, an Apostle of Jesus (though not one of the first twelve). Much of the letter provides stern guidance to the congregation of Christians Paul established in Corinth, Greece. He’d heard they were violating some of the rules for followers of the new Christian faith that he helped create. So in his letter, he warned them about various sinful things, such as getting drunk, fornicating (which he mentions many times) and allowing women to go around without covering their head (a strange rule that Muslims and early Christians had in common).        One of the less Puritanical and more inspiring parts of I Corinthians comes in Book 13. In that, Paul discusses the importance of being charitable. It ends with the line that includes the familiar triumvirate “faith, hope, charity” – of which, Paul says, the greatest is charity.         This line is preceded by two that include other famous Bible quotes about putting away childish things (Chap. 13, Verse 11) and seeing through a glass darkly (Chap. 13, Verse 12):        When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.        For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.        And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

F.D.R.’S POLITICAL VARIATION: “We are poor indeed if this Nation cannot afford to lift from every recess of American life the dread fear of the unemployed that they are not needed in the world...In the place of the palace of privilege we seek to build a temple out of faith and hope and charity.”        Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945)        American Democratic politician elected to serve three terms as President of the United States        In his acceptance speech after receiving the Democratic nomination for his second term as president, at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, June 27, 1936.

GOLDWATER’S POLITICAL VARIATION: “Freedom has been the watchword of my political life...I believe in faith, hope, and charity. But none of these is possible without freedom.”        Barry Goldwater (1909-1998)        Republican politician who served U.S. Senator from Arizona for many years and was the Republican Party's nominee for President in 1964         The quote is from his autobiography Goldwater, first published in 1988

POLITICAL VARIATION #3: “America's greatness and variety, its perpetual newness and variety, its bedrock of faith, hope and charity is all too easy to forget. Yet it is always there, rising above the cloud banks of cheap and easy rhetoric like the Rockies above the fruited plain.”        Paul Greenberg        Pulitzer Prize-winning political commentator        Commenting on the uniquely bizarre 2016 presidential campaign in an editorial originally published in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, May 27, 2016

ORWELL’S TYPICALLY PESSIMISTIC VERSION: “Now abideth faith, hope, money; but the greatest of these is money.”        George Orwell (1903-1950)        English novelist, essayist and journalist        One of his lines from the epigraph he wrote that appears at the beginning of his novel Keep The Aspidistra Flying (1936)

DALE EVANS’ TYPICALLY OPTIMISTIC VERSION: “Have faith, hope and charity That's the way to live successfully How do I know, the Bible tells me so.”        Dale Evans (1912-2001)        Lyrics from the song “The Bible Tells Me So”        Words and music by Dale Evans        Evans wrote the song to perform with her husband Roy Rogers on The Roy Rogers Show. They sang it as a duet in the episode “Ginger Horse,” which originally aired on March 27, 1955. That year it was recorded and further popularized by singer Nick Noble and bandleader Don Cornell. It eventually became one of Dale’s signature songs.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *    

Comments? Corrections? Post them on Famous Quotations Facebook page.

Related reading…