“Never underestimate the power of a woman.”

THE FAMOUS LADIES HOME JOURNAL SLOGAN: “Never underestimate the power of a woman!”         A saying popularized by the Ladies Home Journal through its use as an slogan for the magazine and the headline of a recurring cartoon feature        The Ladies Home Journal was first published in 1883 and has been in print ever since. The editors launched “Never underestimate the power of a woman” as a promotional slogan in the March 1941 issue, which featured a painting of a ballerina on the cover.        The editors didn’t use the term “power” exactly as it might be used today. It wasn’t meant to suggest that women have the power to be equal to men in all ways. It was used to mean that women are smarter than men in many ways and have a superior sense of morality. Thus, they have the power to point men “to the right decisions.”        After being launched, the slogan was used for years in each issue as the headline of a cartoon feature. The cartoons demonstrated the power of women to set examples for men and guide them in the right direction.        Interestingly, the March 1941 issue also had a full-page ad for Chesterfield cigarettes inside, showing that tobacco companies and their pre-Mad Men era ad agencies were at least eager to give women an equal right to smoke.

V.I. WARSHAWSKI’S VERSION: “Never underestimate a man’s ability to underestimate a woman.”        Kathleen Turner        American actress        A quip she makes as the title character of the 1991 movie V.I. Warshawski (based on the series of detective novels written by Sara Paretsky)

AN OPTIMIST’S INSPIRING QUOTE “Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us.”        Wilma Rudolph (1940-1994)         American athlete who overcame leg damage from childhood polio and went on to became an Olympic gold medalist        This quote by Rudolph is widely cited, though usually without any specific source or date. In his great book Neverisms, quote maven Dr. Mardy Grothe says it was a remark she made shortly after the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, during which she became the first American to win three track-and-field gold medals.

A PESSIMIST’S COUNTERQUOTE: “Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.”        Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988)        American author best known for his science fiction stories and novels        A quip from his time travel novel Time Enough for Love: the Lives of Lazarus Long (1973)

THE FRIENDS (WITH BENEFITS) UPDATE: “Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.”         Brendan Bradley        American actor             One of the 100 rules about life of his character Brad in the movie Friends (With Benefits) (2009)

THE TRUE BELIEVERS AXIOM: “Never underestimate the power of the human mind to believe what it wants to believe, no matter the conflicting evidence.”          A quote attributed to the fictional character Caedmon Erb in the sci-fi novel Dune: House Harkonnen (2001), written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson        (The image at left is the logo of The Flat Earth Society.)

THE TESLA CAR RENTAL VARIATION: “Never underestimate the human urge to look like a big-time operator, at least to the valet parking guy.”        Jim Motavalli        American journalist, speaker and book author        In a post on the Mother Nature Network site about Hertz’s recent addition of pricey Tesla electric cars to its rental fleets in certain cities, to appeal to wealthy customers — and wannabe poseurs.

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“The definition of insanity...”

THE FAMOUS EINSTEIN QUOTE HE DIDN’T SAY: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”        Albert Einstein (1879–1955)        German-born theoretical physicist        A saying that is commonly – and wrongly – attributed to Einstein        As noted by quotation scholars like Fred Shapiro (in the Yale Book of Quotations), Garson O’Toole (on his Quote Investigator site), and Barry Popik (on his Big Apple language site), there’s no evidence that Einstein ever wrote or said any such thing. It’s a misattribution.                      The line has also been wrongly attributed to Benjamin Franklin and George Bernard Shaw.         The current evidence suggests that the saying is of anonymous origin and was originally popularized through its use in narcotics and alcohol addiction pamphlets and literature in the early 1980s. During that decade it was used and further popularized by several famous writers and celebrities, such as author Rita Mae Brown (in her 1983 book Sudden Death) and EST guru Werner Erhard (who used a version of it in a 1986 interview).                     By the 1990s, it was being credited it to Einstein. Since then, the erroneous attribution to Einstein is the one most often repeated in books and online posts. It’s quite popular in graphic memes posted on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.         The use and reuse of false and misattributed quotes is frustrating and annoying to nerds like me who care about the accuracy of information about quotations. To me, the definition of inanity is reposting the same false, misattributed quotes over and over again in social media.

THE PASSION PARADOX: “How can someone be busy and not accomplish anything? Well, that’s the passion paradox. If the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results, then passion is a form of mental retardation...The critical work that you want to do will require your deliberation and consideration. Not passion.”        Ryan Holiday        American author, marketer, and media strategist        In a 2017 article on Salon.com arguing that many people who follow the popular advice to find and pursue “your passion” often end up failing, because their “passion” is really just “self-absorption at the expense of reality.”

THE PASSIONATE PRACTICE PRINCIPLE: “Quantity itself is a quality, and it is a quality that is the missing ingredient in so many of the things that we want and that matter to us. Ted Williams was known to spend countless hours every day working to perfect his swing. A brilliant guitarist I know played scales every night in his room growing up until his fingers bled; I’m sure we all have many other examples. These guys were doing something repetitively expecting a different result; they were expecting to get better...Because doing something over and over is not the definition of insanity. It’s the description of pursuing mastery.”        Josh Jonas        Associate Director at The Village Institute for Psychotherapy in Manhattan        In a post on his “Life Lessons” website

THE DRUG WAR PARADOX: “If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, Australia’s war on drugs is madness in its purest form. ‘Just say no’ has been an abject failure. The law enforcement approach has not deterred users, nor has it made communities safer. It has only put lives at risk.”        Jill Stark        Australian author, journalist and human rights activist                     An observation in her 2017 opinion piece on the Australian news and culture site SBS.com that seems to apply equally well to the “Drug War” in the U.S.

THE DEFINITION CONUNDRUM: “One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result. But what do you call it if you do the same thing over and over, and keep achieving different results? Is that sanity? And what do you call it when cancer kills a close friend and that hits you a whole lot harder than the fact that tens of thousands of people you don't know were killed in wars? Is that tough luck? Or just more of the same old life and death?”        Harry Hurt III        American author and journalist                      Lines from the opening paragraph of his interesting thought piece “Is Anybody Necessary? Dr. Ying and the Four Noble Truths,” in the New York Times, January 14, 2006

THE SOCIAL MEDIA CONUNDRUM: “If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, then it’s clear we need a different approach to how we govern, how we make decisions, and how we evaluate the world. Even though the world, on the whole, offers people far more rights and resources than ever before, when every bad thing that happens anywhere is put in front of all of us every minute of the day, it’s hard to feel anything but insecure. When our leaders only react rather than set an agenda and follow through on it (including negotiating and compromising), things only get worse.”        Bradley Tusk        American businessman, political strategist, and writer        Commenting on how the constant barrage of negative social media posts on sites like Twitter and Facebook hurts the American public and our country’s political process in his column on Observer.com

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“Money can’t buy love.”

THE MEMORABLE BEATLES LYRICS: “Say you don’t need no diamond ring and I’ll be satisfied Tell me that you want the kind of thing that money just can’t buy I don’t care too much for money, money can’t buy me love”        The Beatles        Lyrics from their 1964 song “Can’t Buy Me Love”        The saying “Money can’t buy love” wasn’t coined by the Beatles. It had been floating around as far back as the late 1800s and is a linguistic offspring of the earlier proverbial saying “Money can’t buy happiness,” which dates back to the early 1700s.        However, in more recent times, “Money can’t buy love” was popularized and made familiar to millions of people by the Beatles song “Can’t Buy Me Love.”                     The lyrics and music were written by Paul McCartney. He also sang the vocal alone, making it the first Beatles recording without harmony vocals by the other band members (John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr). It was released as a single in March 1964 and included on the soundtrack album for the Beatles movie A Hard Day’s Night.

AN EARLIER MUSICAL COUNTERQUOTE: “Money don’t get everything it’s true What it don’t get, I can’t use Now give me money That’s what I want.”        Lyrics from the song “Money (That’s What I Want)”        Writing credits for the song are credited to Motown founder Berry Gordy and Janie Bradford, who started out as a Motown receptionist. It was first recorded in 1959 by Janie’s friend Barrett Strong. His version became Motown’s first major hit song. Strong claimed he helped write the song and his name was originally included on the copyright registration. Three years later, after the song was being covered by various artists and Gordy realized it would continue to generate significant revenues, he had Barrett’s name removed from the copyright.        Ironically, one of the groups that covered the song was the Beatles. Their version, with John Lennon singing lead vocal, was released as a single in 1963.

A LATER MUSICAL COUNTERQUOTE: “They say that money Can’t buy love in this world But it’ll get you a half-pound of cocaine And a sixteen-year-old girl And a great big long limousine On a hot September night Now that may not be love but it is all right.”                     Randy Newman        American musician                     In his satirical song “It’s Money That I Love,” included on his 1979 album Born Again.

THE MARLOWE MISQUOTE: “Money can’t buy love, but it improves your bargaining position.”        Attributed (wrongly) to Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)        English playwright and poet, also believed to have been a secret spy for Queen Elizabeth                    This quip is credited to Marlowe by thousands of online posts and books. In fact, he never said it. The history of how it was erroneously attributed to Marlowe was traced by quote sleuth Garson O’Toole in a post on his great Quote Investigator site.        O’Toole concluded that the remark is of anonymous origin and was in circulation in the 1950s. In 1977, Laurence J. Peter included it in one of the sets of sayings in his highly popular book Peter’s Quotations: Ideas for Our Time. It appeared in parentheses above an actual quotation by Marlowe. After that, someone mistakenly cited “Money can’t buy love, but it improves your bargaining position” as Marlowe’s line and the misattribution has lived on.

AN ALTERNATIVE ECONOMIC ASSESSMENT: “Economists assume that money can buy love, contrary to the Beatles, and will respond that love and other ‘positive’ emotions can be quantified as having an infinite value and hence beat all other interests at stake. Misery can be compensated for with money, and courts do that on a daily basis.”        Lucie Guibault        Canadian legal expert and Associate Professor of Law at Dalhousie University        A comment in a footnote of her book The Future of the Public Domain: Identifying the Commons in Information Law

OGDEN’S ECONOMIC OBSERVATION: “The only incurable troubles of the rich are the troubles that money can’t cure, Which is a kind of trouble that is even more troublesome if you are poor. Certainly there are lots of things in life that money won’t buy, but it’s very funny – Have you ever tried to buy them without money?”        Ogden Nash (1902-1971)        American poet and humorist        In his poem “The Terrible People,” which was first published in the February 11, 1933 issue of The New Yorker magazine and included in the book of Nash’s poems published later that year, Happy Days.       The poem mocks the way some rich people to downplay the advantages money gives them. It starts with the line “People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who haven't what they want that they really don't want it.”

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“He can run, but he can’t hide.”

THE BROWN BOMBER’S IMMORTAL WORDS: “He can run, but he can’t hide.”                     Joe Louis (1914-1981)                     American heavyweight boxing champion, nicknamed “The Brown Bomber”          This was Joe’s famous comment about boxer Billy Conn, shortly before their heavyweight title rematch at Yankee Stadium in New York City on June 19, 1946.                     Louis was known for his devastating punches and had defeated Conn in a previous fight in 1941. But Conn, “The Pittsburg Kid,” was lighter and faster, creating speculation that he could win their rematch.                     On June 8, 1946, during one of the daily interviews he had with reporters in the days leading up to the fight, a reporter asked Louis: “If he [Conn] runs, will you chase him?”                     Joe gave the memorable response: “He can run, but he can’t hide.” It appeared in news stories the next day in papers throughout the country.         Louis ended up winning the fight by a knockout in the eighth round. The next day, a headline in the New York Times said: “Louis Proves His Own Prediction: Conn Could Run, but Couldn’t Hide.”                     Joe’s quip became and remains a commonly-used taunt in the U.S. and other English-speaking countries and he is generally assumed to have coined it. However, quotation expert Ralph Keyes speculated in his book The Quote Verifier that Louis may have been repeating a line that was already circulating as “street talk.” And, language maven Barry Popik discovered that Louis had made a similar remark in 1939. Speaking to a reporter about an upcoming fight with Bob Pastor in Detroit, Louis said: “It’s all right to have good legs but remember one thing—when you’re in the ring you can run, but you can’t hide.”                   What does seem clear is that Louis deserves credit for popularizing the saying “He can run, but he can’t hide” and he uttered the most famous use of those words before his 1946 fight with Billy Conn.

THE GRATEFUL DEAD VERSION: “We can run but we can’t hide from it Of all possible worlds we only got one, we gotta ride on it Whatever we’ve done we’ll never get far from what we leave behind Baby we can run, run, run but we can’t hide.”        Lyrics by Grateful Dead band member John Barlow for the Dead song “We Can Run”        Music by band member Brent Mydland       “We Can Run” is included on the Grateful Dead’s 1989 album Built To Last and several later Dead compilations.

THE LIVING DEAD VERSION:         “You can run from the grave, but you can’t hide.”        Headline on the back cover of Jeaniene Frost’s vampire novel One Foot in the Grave (2008)

THE GLOOMY SONG OF DAVID VARIATION: “You can run, hide, or die. But wherever you go, there you’ll be.”        Amy Harmon        American novelist        In her novel The Song of David (2015)

THE GLOOMY WHALE SONG VARIATION: “You can run but you can't hide...but I can try. I feel air catch in my lungs and I get a cramp in my side and this pain, this wonderful physical pain that I can place, reminds me that after all I am still alive.”        Jodi Picoult        American novelist        In her book Songs of the Humpback Whale: A Novel in Five Voices (2001)

REAGAN’S FAMOUS TERRORIST TAUNT: “I am proud to be the commander-in-chief of the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who deployed, supported and played the crucial role in the delivery of these terrorists to Italian authorities...These young Americans sent a message to terrorists everywhere. A message ‘you can run but you can’t hide.’”        Ronald Reagan (1911-2004)                     40th President of the United States        Remarks to the press on October 11, 1985 after American troops captured the terrorists who hijacked the Achille Lauro cruise ship and brutally murdered passenger Leon Klinghoffer.

THE KINDA CRAZY ONE-LEGGED MAN VERSION: “He can’t run, but he can hide.”        Ben Muessig                     American journalist        This is Muessig’s punny opening line in an article he wrote for the Huffington Post in 2010 about a one-legged man who successfully evaded the police in Orange County, Florida on foot (literally one foot in this case) after driving recklessly through a residential community and smashing his car into a power pole.

THE KINDA CREEPY GEORGE W. BUSH FISHING VERSION: “I want to teach Gigi my young granddaughter, how to fish...Out on the boat she is captive. She can squirm, but she can’t hide. I will tell her I love her. And when she asks, ‘Are you crying?’ I’ll say, ‘Yes, but these are tears of joy. Older guys do that, Gigi.’ You can do that kind of thing when you go mackerel fishing.”        George H.W. Bush                     41st President of the United States          An excerpt from a letter Bush wrote in September 1998, included in the book Chicken Soup for the Fisherman’s Soul (2000), edited by Mark Victor Hansen, Ken McKowen and Dahlynn McKowen

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Should auld acquaintance — and 2017 — be forgot?

THE AULD FAMILIAR LINES: “Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind? We’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet, For auld lang syne.”        Robert Burns (1759-1796)        Scottish poet        The best known lines from his poem “Auld Lang Syne” (1788), which actually mean that old acquaintances should not be forgotten, they should be remembered and thought of fondly.         These lines were popularized by Guy Lombardo's musical version, but most people can’t remember the rest of the lyrics. In case you want to have them on hand on New Year’s Eve or read the backstory on the poem and the song, see this post on my This Day in Quotes site.

THE GOOD RIDDANCE TO 2017 VERSION: “Should 2017 be forgot and never brought to mind?...To start it off right we hired a buffalo chicken drummy that fell into a pile of cat hair to be the captain of the ship. Ok, yes! We let the people around us feel like second-class citizens and inhuman. We let families and children and POC and women wonder if anyone gives a shit about them or if all along we’ve been pretending at some semblance of openness and equality. Great, sounds good! And that was only in January alone! There isn’t enough time in well hey, a year, to write about how it only continued to get more wonderful from there. It was like a scene from a movie after a bomb goes off and everyone wanders around the charred landscape while pieces of burnt wood fall from on high and embers rain from the sky. Just when you thought one more bad thing couldn’t happen, somebody finds a hidden landmine and the whole thing just goes up in smoke again.”        Quinn Angelique        American blogger        Expressing what many people feel about 2017 in a post on the Medium website, December 26, 2017

MICKEY ROONEY’S FAIR WEATHER FRIENDS VERSION: “What bothers me are friends, or perhaps acquaintances, who in rough times turn out to be non-acquaintances. I'm going to write a song about their approach. You probably know the melody:    Should non-acquaintance be forgot    And never brought to mind    Should non-acquaintance be forgot    Or kicked in their behind?”        Mickey Rooney (1920-2014)        American actor        In his book I.E. An Autobiography (1965)

THE TOTAL ABSTINENCE COUNTERQUOTE: “Let drinking customs be forgot And never brought to mind. Come, moderate drinkers, topers, sots, And leave your cups behind.”        Henry Lee (1911-1993)        American journalist and author                      Quoting an old Temperance Movement song in his book How Dry We Were: Prohibition Revisited (1963)

THE ODDLY ANTI-ABSTINENCE TEMPERANCE SONG: “Can abstinence be now forgot, And never brought to mind? Can abstinence be now forgot, And mercy to mankind.”        Lyrics from the song “Poured Out By Hands Divine,” in The Standard Book of Song for Temperance Meetings (1883)

THE JANUARY 1st, MORNING AFTER MEME: “Your new, bed-related acquaintances should probably be forgot, and never brought to mind. Not that you remember them anyway.”         New Year's meme created by WildRumpus on the SomeCards.com site

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