Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

I suspect that Robert Benchley's too recent an author to be in Project Gutenberg; he died in 1945, and probably most of what he wrote is still under copyright. Anyway the quote is certainly real; I've got the book open right now to the essay. Quoting it a bit more fully:

The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him. That remark in itself wouldn't make any sense of quoted as it stands.

The average man ought to be allowed a quotation of no less than three sentences, one to make his statement and two to explain what he meant. Ralph Waldo Emerson was about the only one who could stand having his utterances broken up into sentence quotations, and every once in a while even he doesn't sound so sensible in short snatches.

Take par (for) example, one of those newspaper columns of ``Quotations of the Week,'' which has just dropped onto my desk, after a three-hour hunt for it on my part.

Granted that some of them wouldn't stack up very high even if they were quoted in full, they can't all be as fatuous as they sound:

(And Benchley goes on to give examples, such as .. .)

``Life does not come all in one piece like cheese; it more resembles linked sausages, a series of events on a string.'' -- Harold Bell Wright.

(One has a horrible suspicion that Mr Wright's remark really ended with that.)

Benchley's final advice:

The best way to do, if you are one of those unfortunate people who are likely to be quoted in print, is to say everything you have to say in one long, periodic sentence, so that it can't be broken up. Or, better yet, say nothing at all. (Don't quote me as having said that.)