Great Minds Think Alike

Posted by G.Martin March 03, 2001In 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."