Chapter and verse quotation-citation correspondence site

Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words

Aron Golberg requests a source for “I don’t mind your thinking you are a poached egg, as long as you don’t make me sit on pieces of hot buttered toast.” He notes that “the first few words may be in error, but the rest is accurate.”

David Rigney hopes someone can provide a source (Gandhi has been suggested) and original wording for the assertion, “Always act in such a way as to not reduce the self-respect of the opponent.”

“…this is supernuts” (May-June). Daniel Rosenberg located an attribution to the mathematician Richard Courant in a June 4, 2000, New York Times article, “There’s One Born Every Minute,” by the same Ed Regis who wrote Who Got Einstein’s Office.

“A generalization is useful” (July-August). Bernard Witlieb identified one potential—but less elegantly phrased— source, tracked down not in a work by Henry James but in his brother William’s lecture series published as The Variety of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. The relevant text, from “Lecture X: Conversion,” states, “One must know concrete instances first; for, as Professor [Louis] Agassiz used to say, one can see no farther into a generalization than just so far as one’s acquaintance with particulars enables one to take it in”—suggesting Agassiz as the original source.

Send inquiries and answers to “Chapter and Verse,” Harvard Magazine, 7 Ware Street, Cambridge 02138 or via e-mail to chapterandverse@harvardmag.com.

You might also like

Bringing Korean Stories to Life

Composer Julia Riew writes the musicals she needed to see.

Being Undocumented in America

Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s writing aims to challenge assumptions. 

David Leo Rice on 'The Berlin Wall'

David Leo Rice explores the strange, unseen forces shaping our world.

Most popular

How MAGA Went Mainstream at Harvard

Trump, TikTok, and the pandemic are reshaping Gen Z politics.

Shakespeare’s Greatest Rival

Without Christopher Marlowe, there might not have been a Bard.

Harvard President Alan Garber Helps First-Years Move In

As a potential settlement with the Trump administration looms, Garber gets students settled. 

Explore More From Current Issue

Vivian W. Rong sitting on bench outdoors.

Highlighting Harvard Magazine’s Fellows

The 2025-2026 Ledecky and Summer Undergraduate Fellows

Illustration of scientists injecting large syringe with mitochondria into human heart.

Do Mitochondria Hold the Power to Heal?

From Alzheimer’s to cancer, this tiny organelle might expand treatment options. 

Illustration of college students running under a large red "MAGA" hat while others look on with some skeptisim.

How MAGA Went Mainstream at Harvard

Trump, TikTok, and the pandemic are reshaping Gen Z politics.