Great Minds Think Alike

Posted by G.Martin on March 03, 2001

In Reply to: Great Minds Think Alike posted by R. Berg on March 02, 2001

: : I'm looking for the origin of "Great Minds Think Alike." Does anyone know it?

: Apparently no one knows what individual said it first. Eric Partridge (Dictionary of Catch Phrases: American and British, from the Sixteenth Century to the Present Day) said: "It seems to have arisen c. 1890, perhaps a decade earlier." Paul Beale, who edited the revised edition of Partridge's book, said: "And now, 1982, the 'Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs' has traced the idea, if not the exact words, back to 1618."

:Maybe this is irrelevant, but my Irish grandmother was fond of saying (more than 50 years ago), "Great minds think alike. Fools seldom differ."