“It is the loose ends with which men hang themselves.”

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Do you have more details about the quote "It is the loose ends with which men hang themselves." by Zelda Fitzgerald?
Zelda Fitzgerald photo
Zelda Fitzgerald 33
Novelist, wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald 1900–1948

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“The past is a work of art, free of irrelevancies and loose ends.”

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“Nowdays, If a news report does not tie up loose ends as neatly as 'The A Team', it is considered a flop.”

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“If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.”

Cardinal Richelieu (1585–1642) French clergyman, noble and statesman

Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
As quoted in The Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations (1896) by Jehiel K̀eeler Hoyt, p. 763
Édouard Fournier, in L'Espirit dans l'Historie (1867), 3rd edition, Ch. 51, p. 260, disputes the traditional attribution, and suggests various agents of Richelieu might have been the actual author.
David Hackett Fischer, in Champlain's Dream (2009), Simon & Schuster, p. 704, n. 14, says it's a paraphrase of Quintilian and there is no source closer to Richelieu than Francoise Bertaut's Memoires pour servir à l'histoire d'Anne d'Autriche.
Disputed

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“When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

The earliest citation yet found does not attribute this to Roosevelt, but presents it as a piece of anonymous piece folk-wisdom: "When one reaches the end of his rope, he should tie a knot in it and hang on" ( LIFE magazine (3 April 1919), p. 585 http://hdl.handle.net/2027/wu.89063018576?urlappend=%3Bseq=65).
Misattributed
Variant: When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.

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