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

Resculpting an Empire, Through Kitchen Scraps

Artists Enzo Camacho and Ami Lien turn a colonial symbol from Cambodia inside out.

America’s Past, Opera's Future: 11 New Books from Harvard Authors

These newly released novels, histories, and memoirs grapple with identity in all its forms.

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.

Most popular

The Year a Beat Poet Squatted at Harvard

In 1954, Gregory Corso moved into Eliot House. How he stayed there is a literary legend.

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

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

How Philosophy at Harvard Saved Itself

As humanities shrink across higher education, one department is flourishing. Is its success a fluke, or a roadmap?

Explore More From Current Issue

Delicate green cocoa pods and small white flowers on a tree branch, surrounded by soft greenery.

Harvard researchers investigate climate’s impact on cocoa crops, innovations in nasal vaccines, and links between pain and skull marrow.

Panoramic view of Harvard University with autumn foliage and a river under a cloudy sky.

The University is expanding industry ties and investing its own funds to support research, but neither will replace lost federal dollars.

Illuminated hanging sculptures resembling organic forms, casting warm light in a dim space.

Artists Enzo Camacho and Ami Lien turn a colonial symbol from Cambodia inside out.