# Need help with a quote! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 14, 2006, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-a-quote/348292 "2006-03-14T07:16:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2006, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-a-quote/348292/1 "2006-03-14T07:16:24Z")
The problem is I’m not realy sure what the quote says. It’s some sort of play on words: “more blank than blank.” If anyone has any idea please help me. This has been bothering me all day. ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2006, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-a-quote/348292/2 "2006-03-14T07:23:43Z")
Shakespeare 😕 ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2006, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-a-quote/348292/3 "2006-03-14T07:29:55Z")
> [@ouryL](#): > > Shakespeare 😕 Yes, I believe it was Shakespeare, but I don’t know what the blanks are. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2006, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-a-quote/348292/4 "2006-03-14T07:31:57Z")
Can that even count as a “quote”? Seems like more of a “comparison”. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2006, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-a-quote/348292/5 "2006-03-14T07:50:31Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > Can that even count as a “quote”? Seems like more of a “comparison”. I think you misunderstood the OP. Both of those blanks have the same value. So it’s a comparison, but a very specific tautological/oxymoronic comparison. eg “More real than reality”. “More Hollywood than Hollywood itself” and countles variations on the theme. The earliest occurence I can think of off the top of my head is “more real than real world” associated with the early surrelaists. A Google search shows “more real than real world behind the real” used a lot as a quote when discussing early 20th century surrelaism, but for some reason although it always appears in quotes it is never attributed to anybody. But that might be a good place to start looking if you can find who the quote is actually attributed to. IMO the feel is too modern to be Shakespeare, and my first guess was WIlde, but I wouldn’t have thought anything later than Victorian origin. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2006, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-a-quote/348292/6 "2006-03-14T07:59:23Z")
Looks like I was wrong. “More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous, truer than truth itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal” Love’s Labours Lost, Act IV, Scene I ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2006, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-a-quote/348292/7 "2006-03-14T10:29:26Z")
Ah. I thought it was going to be a trick and quote would actually be, “More blank than blank.” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2006, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-a-quote/348292/8 "2006-03-14T14:24:04Z")
“More sinned against than sinning”? ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2006, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-a-quote/348292/9 "2006-03-14T17:18:37Z")
> [@Ebenezer Scrooge](#): > > You – you can’t be a ghost. You may be an undigested bit of beef, or a blot of mustard, or a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There may be **more gravy than grave** about you, whatever you are! Ah, humbug, I tell you. Humbug! – Charles Dickens, _A Christmas Carol_ ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2006, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-a-quote/348292/10 "2006-03-14T17:29:11Z")
The expression “More Irish than the Irish themselves” (_Hiberniores Hibernis ipsis_) goes back almost a thousand years, to the time of the Norman conquest. ---
**Author:** ![duality72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duality72/32/3910_2.png) [@duality72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duality72)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2006, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-a-quote/348292/11 "2006-03-14T17:32:43Z")
You mean it wasn’t “more human than human”, the Tyrell Corporation motto (Blade Runner)? Or the song by Rob Zombie? ---
**Author:** ![Stephe96](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Stephe96](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stephe96)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2006, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-a-quote/348292/12 "2006-03-14T17:35:08Z")
How 'bout this line from\*\*\* Hamlet\*\*\*? “More honored in the breach than in the observance…” ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2006, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-a-quote/348292/13 "2006-03-14T20:13:00Z")
> [@Scarlett67](#): > > – Charles Dickens, _A Christmas Carol_ That’s it! Thank you all so much. Now I can finally stop thinking about it. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2006, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-a-quote/348292/14 "2006-03-14T21:12:34Z")
I think it was Gene Rayburn from Matchgame.