“I cannot tell how the truth may be;
I say the tale as 'twas said to me.”
Canto II, stanza 22.
The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805)
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Walter Scott 151
Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet 1771–1832Related quotes
St. 11.
The Battle of Blenheim http://www.poetry-archive.com/s/the_battle_of_blenheim.html (1798)
Additional information may be read at the following websites:
http://dakinburdick.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/tell-me-and-i-forget/
http://www.quora.com/History/Where-and-when-did-Benjamin-Franklin-say-Tell-me-and-I-forget-teach-me-and-I-may-remember-involve-me-and-I-learn
http://gazettextra.com/weblogs/word-badger/2013/mar/24/whose-quote-really/
Misattributed
“Tell her I am seriously hurt; how seriously I cannot yet say.”
Message to his wife on being shot (2 July 1881), in The Life and Public Services of James A. Garfield (1881) by E. E. Brown, p. 217 http://books.google.com/books?id=vCAFAAAAYAAJ
1880s
Context: Tell her I am seriously hurt; how seriously I cannot yet say. I am myself, and hope she will come to me soon. I send my love to her.
“I can make affirmation; I can say "So help me God, I will tell the truth."”
Scopes Trial (1925), Day 7
“How easy it is to tell tales!”
Jacques le Fataliste (1796)
Reply when asked if he thought he was a lot like the character he plays in Big Fish in an interview with Paul Fischer at Dark Horizons (2 December 2003).