Put All Your Eggs in One Basket, and Then Watch That Basket. Mark Twain? Andrew Carnegie? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Proverbial wisdom tells us never to put all our eggs in one basket, but a humorous inversion of that advice has been ascribed to the renowned humorist Mark Twain and the business titan Andrew Carnegie.

Who should receive credit? Quote Investigator: On June 2.

Andrew Carnegie addressed the students of Curry Commercial College of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He gave pungent advice to the learners which included a repudiation of the traditional adage about baskets and eggs. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI: 1. The concerns which fail are those which have scattered their capital, which means that they have scattered their brains also. They have investments in this, or that, or the other, here, there and everywhere. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” is all wrong. I tell you “put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket.” Look round you and take notice; men who do that do not often fail.

Mark Twain? Andrew Carnegie? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Proverbial wisdom tells us never to put all our eggs in one basket, but a humorous inversion of that. Nine people are dead, including the suspected gunman, and a 10th is hospitalized after a gunman opened fire at an NFL watch party over the weekend in Plano, Texas. Watch "Manafort Pleaded Not Guilty To His Charges", a CBSN video on CBSNews.com. View more CBSN videos and watch CBSN, a live news stream featuring original CBS News. If you’re currently relying on your smartphone, laptop, or some kind of monitor setup for your TV time, you can still get your red carpet fix by streaming the 69th.

It is easy to watch and carry the one basket. It is trying to carry too many baskets that breaks most eggs in this country. He who carries three baskets must put one on his head, which is apt to tumble and trip him up. One fault of the American business man is lack of concentration. The text above was from a collection of speeches and essays published by Carnegie in 1.

The date and location of the speech were specified in the book. Contemporaneous news accounts also mentioned the event. For example, on August 1. The Yonkers Statesman” of Yonkers, New York described the talk under the title “Success in Business”. The phrasing varied: “I tell you” versus “We tell you”, but the adage was identical: 2“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” is all wrong.

We tell you “put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket.”Mark Twain heard about Carnegie’s remark, and he was intrigued enough to record it in one of his notebooks. Later, he employed the reversed adage as a chapter epigraph in his tale titled “Pudd’nhead Wilson”. Below are additional selected citations in chronological order including detailed citations for Twain.

The metaphorical danger of placing eggs into too many baskets was mentioned in 1. Carnegie’s address. The “New- York Tribune” editorialized against providing relief to merchants and others who acted unwisely: 3. And yet, from the striking coal miner and locked- out puddler to the bankrupt speculator and insolvent merchant who has his eggs in too many baskets, they all blame the party in power. Not only that, but Congress itself as soon as it meets falls to work on all sorts of ridiculous schemes for the “relief” of the country. Carnegie’s speech of June 1.

The Bulletin of The American Iron and Steel Association” in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on October 2. Southern Standard” of Mc. Minnville, Tennessee on November 7, 1. The tycoon’s address included a summation during which he reiterated a slightly altered version of the egg remark; he deleted the word “then”. On November 2. 1, 1. The Greenville Times” of Greenville, Mississippi printed this précis without the rest of the speech: 6. To summarize what I have said: Aim for the highest; never enter a bar- room; do not touch liquor, or, if at all, only at meals; never endorse beyond your surplus cash fund; make the firm’s interest yours; break orders always to save owners; concentrate; put all your eggs in one basket, and watch that basket; keep expenditure always within revenue; lastly, be not be impatient, for, as Emerson says, “no one can cheat you out of ultimate success but yourselves.”In 1.

Andrew Carnegie addressed students at the Pierce School of Business and Shorthand, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: 7. There is always room at the top in every pursuit. Concentrate all your energy and thought upon the performance of your duties. Put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket. Do not scatter your shot. Watch Killer At Large Online Forbes here. The man who is director in half a dozen banks, half a dozen railroads and three or four manufacturing companies rarely amounts to much. He may be director of many, but these should all be of the one kind which he understands.

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The great successes in life are made by concentration. Albert Bigelow Paine was a close friend of Twain’s, and he wrote a lengthy biography of the man. He also posthumously published “Mark Twain’s Notebook” which contained a sampling of the material that the humorist had penned in a set of personal notebooks. The quotation and attribution below were recorded by Twain between April 1. April 2. 3, 1. 89. Put all your eggs in one basket—and watch that basket.” Andrew Carnegie.

Twain’s story “Pudd’nhead Wilson” was serialized in “The Century Magazine” beginning in December 1. The April 1. 89. 4 issue contained chapter 1. Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.—Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar. Behold, the fool saith, “Put not all thine eggs in the one basket”—which is but a manner of saying, “Scatter your money and your attention”; but the wise man saith, “Put all your eggs in the one basket and — WATCH THAT BASKET.”— Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar. When Carnegie died in 1. Detective Conan Special Episode One.

Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie” and published in 1. Carnegie’s manuscript updated the adage by changing “your eggs” to “good eggs”: 1.

I had become interested, with my friends of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, in building some railways in the Western States, but gradually withdrew from all such enterprises and made up my mind to go entirely contrary to the adage not to put all one’s eggs in one basket. I determined that the proper policy was “to put all good eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.”In 1. The New Dictionary of Thoughts: A Cyclopedia of Quotations” included Carnegie’s variant: 1. Put all good eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.—Andrew Carnegie.

In conclusion, Andrew Carnegie deserves credit for the sayings he employed in the 1. Mark Twain also used the adage and aided its popularization; however, Twain credited Carnegie in his notebook.

Image Notes: Picture of eggs in a basket from Unsplash at Pixabay. Caricature of Andrew Carnegie from Vanity Fair magazine on October 2. Wikimedia Commons. Images have been resized, retouched, and cropped.(Great thanks to Daniel Gackle whose inquiry led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration. Thanks also to researchers Fred Shapiro, editor of “The Yale Book of Quotations”, and Barry Popik.

Popik located the August 1. In addition, thanks to the volunteer editors of Wikiquote.)Update History: On February 1. August 1. 9, 1. 88. November 2. 0, 1.