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My Favorite QuoteBut there is one quote that it seems can be attributed to anybody:
Yesterday is history
Tomorrow is a mystery
Today is a gift,
That is why it is called the present.
On the internet you may find it attributed to:
Babatunde, Bippin, Bill Keane, Joan Rivers, Loretta LaRoche, Brian G. Dyson, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Kennedy, Nancy White Kelly, HamiltonAirport, Author Unknown, Spencer Johnson, or Crystal Boyd
Simply follow the links to see who says who said it: (18 Links were operating October 21, 2002. a year later it was down to 15, but there are plenty more not listed here - 3,060 according to a quarter second "exact phrase" search on Google.)
Ah! Finally, my speech is finished.
“Don’t you think that you should source that quote?” Trish was looking over my contented shoulder.
“Didn’t I make that up?” I asked.
“No, it was in that book you gave me the Christmas before last,” my wife insisted. “Wait, I’ll go get it.”
Why wait for a hard copy of a book when everything that has ever been said can be displayed on the screen in front of me.
Into the trusty search engine: “yesterday, history, mystery, present, gift, promise”
Wow. 38,903 pages have that combination of words. If it wasn’t me that said it first, I should be able to find the originator here.
Wisdomquotes.com identified the source as Babatunde Olatunji.
Words of Wisdom 4 U agreed.
Babatunde Who? I searched for a biography and discovered that he was the Nigerian percussion virtuoso whose 1959 album, DRUMS OF PASSION, first opened American ears to the power and spirituality of Nigerian music.
While it was nice to think that a spiritual percussion virtuoso and I thought alike, I needed just a little more confirmation that he hadn't heard me say it first.
Another musician to incorporate the words in a song is Rick Tippe. His words of Keepin' The Faith, published by Moon Tan Music are dedicated to a cancer survivor.
In a very different song, written by Under A Mountain, it forms the intro and the outro.
The Psycho Proverb Zone sounded like a good source of inspirational thought. They were sure that Bill Keane created the gem.
Perhaps we had all seen it on a greeting card. At www.wilcherish.com/cardshop/quotes, it is attributed to Joan Rivers, while the poster shop at www.inspire21.com got it from Eleanor Roosevelt.
Robert Schuller describes it as “the saying that I believe Jackie Kennedy gave us” at www.possibilityliving.org/feature/detoxify_stress1.html
Just who did say it first?
With at least two former first ladies given credit, perhaps Abraham Lincoln etched it a table near the Oval Office.
Loretta LaRoche gets the credit at “Anand, Kulbir & Anmol's Spot On The Web” while “Coca-Cola CEO, Brian G. Dyson”, ended Georgia Tech's Commencement Address with it. I have that on the authority of The Chiropractic Resource Organization. Since 1995 their site www.chiro.org has provided useful information to chiropractors. Was this the cure for what was rapidly becoming a pain the lower back?
Nancy White Kelly uses the thought to open her journal of a living lady while it goes down in Hamilton City (New Zealand) History without any quotation marks or source right after the equally profound statement that
The Hamilton>Airport connects to all popular destinations around the country and several in Australia. It is currently being upgraded to provide other international destinations.
Other New Zealanders have said it too, it seems. In the Health & Fitness column which is written exclusively for the Bay News by Peter Davis, the Manager of BetaBody Health & Fitness - Kaitaia, again it appears without citation.
Other attributions include my cousin Howie (not mine, the contributor to a September 11 memorial). Paul Waters (in a guide to let you practice Hawaiian Huna kupua healing methods wherever you are, with instant results) says he first heard it at a Deepak Chopra talk.
Great minds think alike.
www.motivational-messages.com/liveinthemoment.html, bengalonline.sitemarvel.com/gift.html and Truth in media all have it as Anonymous.
Perhaps closer to the truth is www.happynews.com/time.html where it is credited as “Author Unknown”.
Meanwhile at www.christianwomentoday.com/workplace/timewaits.html, the expression is included in the text of the page, without any indication it is a quote from elsewhere.
The source of this aggravation returned with the name of the book: “The Precious Present by Spencer Johnson".
“Show me,” I begged. “Ummmn, Sorry, I don’t have it any more,” she replied. “I thought it was just what Fran needed. She liked it so much she gave it to Rodney. He gave it to Kim, and they’re not speaking any more.”
I can understand why.
It seems to be one of those books that nobody needs themselves, but everybody knows someone who could benefit from it.
It’s just a shame that if Spencer really did have the original thought he is being of robbed of royalties. If people are not helping themselves to his insight then they are passing on his book. What a wretched ending to such a noble brain wave.
No wonder that a search of the Dymocks site returned "availability to be confirmed" their euphemism for "not in stock."
The book out of reach, and my interest provoked, back to Internet Explorer. Add “Spencer Johnson” to the keywords.
Yesssssss!!!!!
Spencer is given credit at www.healpastlives.com, self-proclaimed as “the biggest site on past lives, karma, & reincarnation you will find in this life”.
It is all coming back to me, now. In a past life I was either Mark Twain or Dorothy Parker – the only two leading lights who are not given credit.
In a previous life, at a seminar attended by the precedents of all the above, I first said it in such a way that they all were all inspired. Wow!!!! I must have been good back then.
But how am I going to tell to the editors of the site www.todaysseniorsnetwork.com.
They have already apologised once:
“When we first published this article, we mistakenly attributed it to the wrong author. Thanks to Ms. Crystal Boyd for the correction, as she explains:
‘I wrote this in 1998. It first appeared in an internet list server called "Prose for the Weekend." where it was called “Happiness”. Later it was incorporated in my locally published book called, Midnight Muse.’”
Having an original thought is not easy. And even when you do, someone else will brazenly plagiarise it.
And you can quote me on that.
