Henry James is often credited with the following quotation, or a version of it: Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind. If you’re ever unsure of the provenance of a quote or want to doublecheck its accuracy, Garson O’Toole’s Quote Investigator is the place to start. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Quote Investigator Traces Henry James’s “Be Kind” Advice”
Billy James was the second son of William James, so that makes him the nephew of the writer Henry James. And Billy came to England in 1902 to visit with his uncle. And years later, Billy gave an interview to Henry James’s biographer in which he described his uncle Henry as this guy with a quick wit and a great capacity for affection. And he told the biographer that what he carried away from this visit with his elderly uncle was the memory of hearing him say, three things in life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind, which is great advice, right?
Yeah.
Be kind, be kind, be kind.
The reason I set it up that way is that it’s been attributed to Henry James. You see this all over the Internet. Here’s a quote from Henry James. We don’t know for sure that Henry James said it, but our friend Garson O’Toole, a quote investigator, has done some digging.
Garson’s fantastic.
Yeah, yeah.
And he’s pretty confident that that’s where that quote originated. So we can trust Billy James’ account of this.
Yes.
Okay, that’s fantastic. I love it when we can get to all these fake quotes going around, right?
Actually, the quotes are so fake sometimes that people make them up to mock the fake quotes, right?
Right.
You put a modern quote about computers on a picture of Abraham Lincoln.
Exactly, exactly. Yeah, but that’s a great resource that you and I both use, QuoteInvestigator.com.
Yeah, QuoteInvestigator.com, right?
Mm- 877-929-9673.
