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Home  »  Respectfully Quoted  »  Prince Clemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar von Metternich (1773–1859)

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.

 
NUMBER: 559
AUTHOR: Prince Clemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar von Metternich (1773–1859)
QUOTATION: When France has a cold, all Europe sneezes.
ATTRIBUTION: KLEMENS VON METTERNICH.—This quotation could not be verified in the English translations of his Mémoires. It is attributed to him in George P. Gooch, The Second Empire, p. 18 (1960) and, in variant form, in Alan W. Palmer, Quotations in History, p. 154 (1976).

An American variation on this is: “There are those in South Carolina, and Mr. Pickens among the number who do not ‘sneese when Mr. Calhoun takes snuff.’ We are always amused when we hear the oft repeated slang—that South Carolina never speaks until Mr. Calhoun is heard.”—The Charleston Mercury, June 20, 1846, p. 2, referring to former Representative Francis W. Pickens and to Senator John C. Calhoun.
SUBJECTS: Europe