Lewis Carroll Stated, 'Folks With the Most Slim of Minds Appear to Have the Widest of Mouths'?

In a post dated Could 26, 2024, the Fb account Philosophical Rhythms shared a picture that includes a quote attributed to Lewis Carroll, the creator greatest recognized for the 1865 e book “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” The quote allegedly written by Carroll learn:

Why is it that individuals with the narrowest of minds appear to have the widest of mouths?

The put up had acquired greater than 3,600 shares and 6,900 reactions on the time of this writing, and the picture that includes the quote had popped up in posts on different social media websites, including X.

Nevertheless, the quote doesn’t seem in any of Carroll’s revealed works, and we’ve got rated this declare “Misattributed.”

The earliest on-line look of the precise quote from the Fb put up seems to have been a Feb. 28, 2011, post on X by the quote-sharing account @TweetyQuote, which didn’t attribute the saying to any creator. 

The primary securely dated attribution of the quote to Carroll emerged round two years later, in a 2013 X post.

Since 2013, the quote together with the Carroll attribution has appeared on a variety of standard citation meme web sites, reminiscent of AZquotes, Minimalist Quotes and Quotefancy, in addition to in posts on social media retailers like Instagram and Reddit. 

A search on the Google Books database discovered no cases of the precise quote in any revealed e book, whether or not by Carroll or one other creator.

Quite a lot of very related quotes have circulated in print for the reason that mid-Twentieth century. Searches for the phrase “a slender thoughts and a large mouth” utilizing Google Books and the Internet Archive’s full-text search function turned up dozens of cases of slight variations on the quote in magazines, joke books and quote anthologies. In all of those examples, the quote is both unattributed or attributed to “Nameless.” 

A potential clue to the origin of the adage appeared in a 1958 situation of The Worldwide Mailer, {a magazine} previously revealed by the Worldwide Mailer’s Union. For the problem’s “Thought for the Month,” the editors selected the next unattributed quote:

A slender thoughts and a large mouth go collectively; slender souled individuals are like narrow-necked bottles; the much less they’ve in them, the extra noise they make in pouring it out.

Though the primary part of the quote, “A slender thoughts and a large mouth go collectively,” can’t be attributed to any particular person creator, the remaining is a paraphrase of a quote by the English poet Alexander Pope.

The unique model of Pope’s witticism was included in his “Ideas on Numerous Topics,” which was initially revealed in 1727. Pope’s wording reads as follows:

It’s with narrow-souled folks as with narrow-necked bottles; the much less they’ve in them, the extra noise they make in pouring it out.

Finally, there isn’t any proof linking any variation of those quotes about slender minds to Carroll, regardless of the numerous social media posts incorrectly crediting the “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” creator.

We have fact-checked different quotes attributed to well-known figures, together with whether or not Abraham Lincoln said, “It is not the years in your life that rely; it is the life in your years.”

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