The famous writer is credited with the authorship of the phrase that pleasures always have a downside. We checked whether this attribution is correct.
The expression is associated with Wilde on the largest Russian-language websites with collections of quotes, including City.net, Socratify.net, "Quotes.info", Aforizm.org And Tsitaty.ru. A phrase allegedly belonging to the writer is also shared by users "VKontakte", Instagram, Twitter and other social networks.
Apparently, this phrase was associated with Oscar Wilde in Russia. At least in the English-speaking environment, it is cited either without indicating the author at all, or attributed to Alexander Woolcott - American writer and critic of the first half of the 20th century. As a statement by Wilde, this quote can occasionally be found in dubious English-language websites, and the wording (All beautiful things in this life are either immoral, or illegal, or lead to obesity) is similar to the literal translation of the Russian version. The phrase authored by Woollcott usually sounds different: “All the things I really like to do are either immoral, illegal, or fattening” - however, this is not the canonical version.
The Quote Investigator portal believes that Woolcott was not the author of this quote, but only popularized the expression. How claim our colleagues, the earliest use of the phrase dates back to September 16, 1933. That day, the Albany Evening News published an article about a radio program in which Woollcott had recently participated. The reporter recounted, in particular, a fragment of the broadcast in which the writer talked about a certain Frank Rand from St. Louis, who cared about his figure and therefore dined on bouillon cubes and lettuce leaves. According to Woollcott, Rand was once asked if he ate this way because he liked it. “No, I hate it. But it seems that everything I like is either illegal, immoral, or fattening,” he replied.
Three months later, Rand “lost” the authorship of the phrase - Reader’s Digest attributed it to Wolcott. At the same time, the wording also changed: “Everything I really like to do is either immoral, illegal, or fattening.” In 1934, a very similar phrase was used in the feature film Six of a Kind, without reference to real people.
We assume that on the Russian-language Internet the phrase began to be attributed to Wilde in the late 2000s - at least on the website “Citations.info” such an attribution appeared in July 2008, and it does not appear in earlier publications. For example, in an article in the Kommersant Power magazine in 1993 it says: “As wits like to joke, “everything good in life is either illegal, immoral, or leads to obesity.” In a similar formulation, the phrase can be found in selection, compiled in the late 1990s founder site anekdot.ru by Dmitry Werner. In 2005, in a conversation with singer Valery Leontyev, the interviewer named this expression is “one of Murphy’s laws” (probably meant humorously rule “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong,” although the connection between the two expressions is not entirely clear). Victor Sheinov in the book “Hidden Human Control. Psychology of manipulation" (2006) and at all attributed a phrase to the writer and philosopher François de La Rochefoucauld.
Incorrect quote attribution
- The Quote Investigator. It Seems As If Anything I Like Is Either Illegal, Immoral, or Fattening
- “All the things I really like to do are either immoral, illegal, or fattening”
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