From allinspiration.com, the devastatingly inspirational Pooh quote "No doubt Jack the Ripper excused himself on the grounds that it was human nature." There is a tendency on the Net to attribute this quote to A. A. Milne. Even in ostensibly academic texts such as Baer, Kaufman, & Baumeister's "Are we free? Psychology and free will" (2008, published by Oxford University Press, p.312) Milne is presented as the progenitor of this quote. However, I have my suspicions. Where and when Milne was supposed to have said or written this is never reported. Nonetheless, this is definitely not something Pooh ever muttered to Piglet to deal with his general Woozle-related anxieties. Can't wait to see this one as a wall decal to put in a newborns bedroom.
Postscript: 1/3/15. This quote has been niggling at me for the last three months. I've finally got back to doing some more Internet mining, and have come up with a published source which directly links it to Milne. This quote does indeed appear in an essay by Milne entitled "Intellectual Snobbery", which probably first appeared in the magazine Punch (although I can't quite confirm the exact year, issue, and page number) but which definitely appeared in a collection of Milne essays entitled "Not That It Matters" (published 1920) - a free copy of which can be download from the Project Gutenburg website. It was also reproduced in the American magazine Littell's Living Age (published August 23, 1919, p. 462-463), a full pdf of which can be sourced here.
So definitely Milne; definitely not Pooh. Phew! Now I can sleep again.
Postscript: 1/3/15. This quote has been niggling at me for the last three months. I've finally got back to doing some more Internet mining, and have come up with a published source which directly links it to Milne. This quote does indeed appear in an essay by Milne entitled "Intellectual Snobbery", which probably first appeared in the magazine Punch (although I can't quite confirm the exact year, issue, and page number) but which definitely appeared in a collection of Milne essays entitled "Not That It Matters" (published 1920) - a free copy of which can be download from the Project Gutenburg website. It was also reproduced in the American magazine Littell's Living Age (published August 23, 1919, p. 462-463), a full pdf of which can be sourced here.
So definitely Milne; definitely not Pooh. Phew! Now I can sleep again.