Re: Charles H. Duell's quote

Leland Ness (lness@dgsys.com)
Thu, 29 Jul 1999 16:32:01 -0400

I have wondered about this quote for several years, since first hearing it.
It didn't sound right. The Victorians were great believers in scientific
progress and I simply cannot imagine a US patent commissioner making such a
statement.

A simple AltaVista search turned up no fewer than 980 references to that
quote. The few (10-20) I checked out did not contain any citation -- in
fact most of them appeared to be cut-and-paste collections of the same set
of quotes recycled endlessly.

I strongly suspect the quote is apocryphal. Designed to produce a "Gee,
aren't we wonderful now" warm-and-fuzzy.

Just my 1.5 cents worth.

Lee Ness