About angelina salacinski Expertise I am always reading books and I have various books on quotations. I can answer most questions on quotations from books or other areas.
Experience i am always doing quizzes so i have a broad knowledge about most things,but i love browsing through my quotation books.
Expert: angelina salacinski Date: 1/14/2004 Subject: Source of quote
Question HI. I need to trace the origin of a quote which runs something like 'Give me 26 soldiers of lead and I will conquer the world'; it refers, of course, to printing characters of the alphabet.
It is attributed to Karl Marx and Benjamin Franklin, doubtless among others! But I can't find out more than this...
Many thanks!
Fiona
Answer Hi Fiona
The actual statement, if history and allegory are correct, was "Give me 24 soldiers of lead ..." It is a reference to the type alphabet of printers before the adoption of U and J, and is claimed to have been said by Johann Gutenberg, who is generally credited with inventing printing from moveable type. However, because of ligatures and similar printers' characters, and especially because this is all supposed to have taken place in Strasbourg and/or Mainz between 1430 and 1450, it is likely he was setting out to have an army of far more than 26.
However a lot of sources attribute it to Marx!
Hope this helps
Angelina
