The Internet is popular on the Internet about regret on the missed opportunities attributed to the American writer. We checked if he said something like that.
This statement indicating the authorship of Twain is popular on entertainment And Information portals, as well as on sites with collections Quote famous personalities and aphorisms. They are also divided by social networks (Facebook*, Instagram*, "VKontakte" X) and the platform blog ("Zen" VC). Sometimes it is given Expanded The quote version: “After 20 years, you will be more disappointed with those things that you did not do than those that you did. So desperate from a quiet pier. Feel a fair wind in your sail. Move forward, act, open. ”
Mark Twain is rightfully considered one of the most witty writers, so it is not surprising that even those who are weakly familiar with his work often use his well -aimed phrases. For more than a century that has passed since the death of an American writer, all his well -known works have been carefully studied, systematized and digitized. The largest online portals dedicated to Twain's heritage is an archive Mark Twain Projects Onlineassembled with the support of the University of California in Berkeley, the base Twain quotes, which includes texts belonging to Peru Twain or dedicated to the writer, and electronic Archive of Mark Twaincollected by the library of the University of Virginia (USA). “Verified” failed to find in these bases a disassembled statement of disappointment in the unbearable.
The popularity of this phrase, and in Russian and in English, is so great that in 2019, experts of the Center for Research of Mark Twain at the Elmyr College in New York published article With a refutation of the author of the writer. Even earlier, in 2011, project specialists Quote investigator They studied this quote and also could not find any evidence that Twain said or wrote something like that. The earliest case of publishing a phrase with an attribution to the writer they found in a note in the newspaper Miami Herald on August 9, 1998. However, her author claims that one of the readers sent him a quote with the statement that these were the words of Twain. A year later The corps of the world (the American Federal Agency, which attracts and sends volunteers to help residents of developing countries), gave a catchy announcement about the recruitment of volunteers to New York newspapers-it also contained this inspirational statement signed by Twain. Over the next years, the phrase, indicating its authorship, parted first through numerous print publications, and then on the Internet.
According to Quote Investigator, for the first time a phrase, later attributed to Twain, appeared in the book of Horace Jackson Brown - the Younger "P.S.: I love you"Released in 1990. The writer, however, indicates that the author of the statement is his mother, and not at all the classic of American literature. Apparently, the quote was remembered by one of the readers of the book, but her source was forgotten over time. And since Twain is known for his aphorisms, to assume that he could say something similar is not at all difficult.
Earlier, “verified” has already refuted the authorship of many other quotes attributed to the American writer. So, despite the prevalence of such attribution, he never warned against disputes with idiots, did not talk about simplicity Refusal of smoking and did not dispute the importance participation in the elections.
Thus, as in the case of many other popular statements, Twain has nothing to do with the phrase about the disappointment of people by the fact that they did not do something. It was first attributed to him in the late 1990s, after almost a century since his death. Researchers of Twain's work agree that he did not say anything like that.
*The Russian authorities consider Meta Platforms Inc., which owns social networks Facebook and Instagram, an extremist organization, its activities in Russia are prohibited.
Photo on the cover: unattributed, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Read on the topic:
- Center for Mark Twain Studies. The Apocryphal Twain: “The Things You Didn’t Do.”
- Did Mark Twain say: “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they are fooled”?
- Is it true that Mark Twain is the author of a phrase about three types of lies?
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