A correspondence corner for not-so-famous lost words

Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words

Carol Ochs seeks a citation for “All science, all religion began with the innovator, the nonconformist, the heretic.” She writes, “In the 1950s, it was on the front cover of the Sunday New York Times Book Review with a photo of a sculpture of a hand reaching up.”

Thomas Burrows hopes, after a half-century of searching, that someone can provide him with the source of the following assertion, delivered by Professor Frank Moore Cross during an elementary Hebrew course: “It was a saying of the ancient rabbis that you may as well learn Hebrew now because you will need it in the world to come.”

George Bason wishes to know who first declared, “Lazy people take the most pains,” and what he or she meant by it.

More queries from the archives:

“Words are walls between us / Difficult to scale— / Guardians of self / That make a jail.”

“Elephants coming two by two each as big as a launch in tow…”

“Memory is an old woman who saves dirty rags and throws away pearls and diamonds.”

“Admit impediments” (September-October). Thomas Ehrlich was the first to identify this quotation from the sonnet “Admit impediments” written by Norma (Holzman) Farber, A.M. ’32, in response to Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116.

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

Keri Russell Calls ‘The Diplomat’ a Love Letter to Public Servants

A Harvard Kennedy School event looks behind the scenes of the Netflix drama. 

Boston Ballet’s Ming Min Hui on Changing Audiences and Timothée Chalamet

The outgoing executive director and Harvard Business School graduate went from dancing The Nutcracker to growing a ballet company.

Padimut at Harvard

A rare Egyptian mummy case is on display at the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East.

Most popular

The Loneliness Pandemic

As the country isolates, are we all alone?

As Union Protests Continue, Stephen Colbert and Yo-Yo Ma Event at Harvard Cut Short

A conversation between the comedian and the celebrated cellist was interrupted by a fire alarm in Sanders Theatre.

Naval architect William Francis Gibbs, designer of the SS United States

Brief life of America’s greatest naval architect: 1886-1967

Explore More From Current Issue

A girl in blue boots stands on a cliff, holding a leash attached to a glowing, digital dog.

Establishing legal responsibility for autonomous agents

Illustration of a phone, book, hourglass, weights, and a hand reaching for a device on a blue background.

Your thoughts on how to regulate the platforms—and stop using them so much

Ancient Egyptian painted sarcophagus with detailed hieroglyphs and a woman's face.

A rare Egyptian mummy case is on display at the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East.