“I usually make up my mind about a man in ten seconds, and I very rarely change it.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician
Ayala's Angel (1881), Ch. 41
“I usually make up my mind about a man in ten seconds, and I very rarely change it.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician
Hal Abelson (1947) computer scientist
Source: Lecture on Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrFkf-T-6Co
“You just refuse to leave them alone until they change their minds. Of their own free will.”
Orson Scott Card book Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus
Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus (1996)
Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN
The 1957 Ford Almanac has the quote "It's too late to read the handwriting on the wall when your back's up against it", attributed to "Anon." The quote appeared in several variations afterwards, for instance in an essay by Meredith Thring in Nature Magazine in 1965. It began to be attributed without context to Stevenson in the 1970s. According to "Adlai Stevenson: His Life and Legacy" by Porter McKeever (p. 566), Stevenson made this remark "with increasing frequency in the final months of his life"; but Stevenson died in 1965 and this book does not give a precise reference. Absent better attestation, Stevenson either used the quote from elsewhere or the association with Stevenson is a mistake.
Misattributed
“Only the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry.”
Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel
Source: Clockwork Angel
Herbert Butterfield book The Whig Interpretation of History
The Whig Interpretation of History (1931)
“It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of a man is tested.”
James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat
Abraham Lincoln http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/1lncn10h.htm (1864)
Theresa May (1956) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Speech declaring bid for the Conservative Party leadership http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-mays-tory-leadership-launch-statement-full-text-a7111026.html (30 June 2016)
Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922) scientist and inventor known for his work on the telephone
Bell Telephone Talk (1901)