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by Trystan L. Bass
Thu, September 13, 2007, 3:00 am PDT

Just the facts, ma'am. That's what this page lists. Except, as Wikipedians are quick to point out, Sergeant Friday never uttered this beloved quote on the old radio and TV show "Dragnet." The detective actually said "All we want are the facts, ma'am." Likewise, Scotty beamed plenty of people up to the Enterprise on the original "Star Trek" series, but not a soul actually blurted "Beam me up, Scotty." The requests ran more to the likes of "beam me aboard" or "beam us up home." It's not just TV and movie lines that we mangle, either. Social theorist Karl Marx never said "Religion is the opiate of the masses" and no matter how much Winston Churchill might have wanted to, he never declared that "The only traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, sodomy, and the lash." Finally, the next time someone asks you for ID and you want to be clever, don't reply with "We don't need no steenking badges!" because, of course, the real quote from "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" is much longer. It's faster to show your card and just pass through.

Filed under: Movies, Quotes, History, Television

by Marty Gabel
Fri, December 30, 2005, 7:00 pm PST

"The Horror! The Horror!" cried Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" before he shuffled of this mortal coil. "Et tu, Brute?" asked Julius Caeser -- but that one's attributed to Shakespeare. So what about some real-life famous last words? Enter Wikipedia, stage left. "I am not the least afraid to die," boasted a confident Charles Darwin at the end. Sigmund Freud, meanwhile, came up with the rather less dignified "This is absurd! This is absurd!" before he finally gave up the ghost. The collection of quotes here is fascinating, from the insulting ("All right then, I'll say it: Dante makes me sick." -- Lope de Vega) to the sublime ("I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis" -- Humphrey Bogart). So if you're looking for insight into some of the world's most celebrated people (or endings), in the words of Giuseppe Zangara, "Go ahead. Pusha da button!"

Filed under: Quotes, Reference, Wikipedia


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