S.A. Bent, comp. Familiar Short Sayings of Great Men. 1887.

Thomas Gold Appleton

[An American wit and author, noted for his conversational powers, born in Boston, Mass., March 31, 1812; graduated from Harvard College, 1831; died April 17, 1884.]

Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris.

Perpetuated by the “Autocrat of the Breakfast Table,” chap. vi., as the saying of one of the “Seven Wise Men of Boston,” this is perhaps the most celebrated American mot. The saying of another of the “wise men,” John Lothrop Motley the historian, was, “Give me the luxuries of life, and we will dispense with its necessaries.” Voltaire made a proverbial expression when he wrote in “Le Mondain,”—

“Le superflu, chose très nécessaire.”

When one of his friends asked Scopas the Thessalian for something that could be of little use to him, he answered, “It is in these useless and superfluous things that I am rich and happy.”—PLUTARCH: Life of Cato.

In allusion to a peculiarity of the climate, Mr. Appleton said, “A Boston man is the east wind made flesh;” and with similar reference to a noted summer resort, “Nahant is cold roast Boston.”

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