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Who really said it

A Kiss Is A Trick of Nature to Stop Speech When Words Are Superfluous

Not Ingrid Bergman — an anonymous 1943 definition Anonymous First documented 1943 · author unknown
Disputed Rights unconfirmed

The earliest known printing is a 1943 entry in Esar’s Comic Dictionary, where it is one of the unsigned comic definitions the compiler Evan Esar described as “of popular origin and therefore unattributed” — so even that book does not claim an author. Ingrid Bergman’s name was attached twenty-seven years later, in a 1970 syndicated column by Hal Boyle that gave no date or occasion for her supposedly saying it. Note too that the 1943 wording is “when words become superfluous”; the “are superfluous” form in circulation today is a later drift.

Last verified 5 Oct 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“A Kiss Is A Trick of Nature to Stop Speech When Words Are Superfluous” Anonymous — earliest documented in Esar's Comic Dictionary (1943), p. 154, as "A trick of nature to stop speech when words become superfluous"; not Ingrid Bergman, whose name was attached only in 1970 — traced by Quotle.info · Verbatim: “Kiss. A trick of nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.”

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Ingrid Bergman. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the themes of love, simplicity and truth. Theme: "A Kiss Is A Trick of Nature to Stop Speech When Words Are Superfluous". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "A Kiss Is A Trick of Nature to Stop Speech When Words Are Superfluous". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The earliest printing

Earliest documented appearance
“Esar’s Comic Dictionary” by Evan Esar (1943), p. 154
Publisher
Harvest House, New York
Attribution in that book
None — the definitions are printed unsigned as “of popular origin”
First credited to Bergman
1970 — a syndicated column by Hal Boyle, 27 years later

kiss. A trick of nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.

The 1943 entry as Quote Investigator transcribes it from the book, which it verified on paper. The line was reprinted unsigned for years — the Boston Globe and the Los Angeles Times both ran it as a “Comic Dictionary” item in 1954 — before any name was attached.

Quote Investigator: A Kiss Is A Trick of Nature to Stop Speech When Words Are Superfluous

How we verified this

  • Quote Investigator’s investigation ↗ is the anchor here, and its verdict is explicit: “the earliest known instance of this saying appeared in 1943 and was anonymous. The connection to Ingrid Bergman was established at a relatively late date, 1970.”
  • The 1943 source is given as Esar’s Comic Dictionary, page 154, Harvest House, New York, which QI marks “Verified on paper”. We confirmed the book itself exists — the Internet Archive holds a 1943 scan ↗ — but it is lending-restricted and its text returns an authorisation error, so the page is QI’s reading, not ours.
  • QI quotes Esar’s own foreword disclaiming authorship of the entries, and complaining about exactly what later happened to this one: “Now more than ever is it a wise crack that knows its own father, for the general practice of apocryphal ascription has been aggravated by the rise of radio.”
  • Ingrid Bergman’s life dates, 29 August 1915 to 29 August 1982, are confirmed against her Wikipedia entry ↗. She was alive in 1970, so she could in principle have repeated the line — QI allows for that, and for a publicist simply assigning it to her.

No rights claim is made here, because there is no identifiable author to hold them. The wording’s origin is unknown, and the earliest printing anyone has produced — the 1943 Comic Dictionary — falls after the 1931 United States public-domain cut-off and carried an Evan Esar copyright notice when the Los Angeles Times reprinted it in 1954. quotle.info therefore makes no public-domain claim for this line.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Often misattributed

Three names get attached to this definition. One is an accident of newspaper filler, one is the man who printed it first and disclaimed it, and one is a columnist who passed it along.

Ingrid Bergman No evidence

Her name appears only from 1970, in a syndicated Hal Boyle column ↗ that gave no date, place or occasion — twenty-seven years after the line was already in print unsigned. QI suggests she may have repeated it, or that a publicist simply assigned it to her to make a quotable item.

Evan Esar Compiler, not author

His 1943 Comic Dictionary is the earliest known appearance, but he printed its definitions unattributed on the stated grounds that they were “of popular origin”, and apologised in advance ↗ for any he had unknowingly borrowed from living writers. Being first in print is not authorship.

Paul H. Gilbert Reprinted it

Gilbert ran the definition in a 1963 “Daffynitions” column in the Long Island Star-Journal, twenty years after the Comic Dictionary entry, which is sometimes read as a byline for the joke rather than a reprint of it.

Quote Investigator’s conclusion ↗: the line was anonymous in 1943 and nobody has produced an author since. The honest credit is unknown.

Context

Why it mattered

This is a textbook case of how a good line finds a famous mouth. For twenty-seven years the definition circulated as newspaper filler with nobody’s name on it — front pages of the Boston Globe and the Los Angeles Times in 1954, a Schenectady grocery advertisement in 1962. Unsigned filler is unmemorable, and a quotable line wants an owner.

Bergman was a plausible owner: glamorous, articulate, and already associated with a famous comic moment about kissing. Once a 1970 column printed her name under it, later collections copied the column rather than the 1943 book, and the attribution hardened by repetition alone.

Unsigned filler is unmemorable, and a quotable line wants an owner.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Love Simplicity Truth

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Investigator: A Kiss Is A Trick of Nature to Stop Speech When Words Are Superfluousquoteinvestigator.com

The anchor investigation. Dated citations from the 1943 Esar entry through the 1954 newspaper reprints to Hal Boyle’s 1970 Bergman credit, concluding the saying was anonymous in 1943.
Internet Archive: Esar’s Comic Dictionary (1943)archive.org

Catalogue record and scan of the 1943 Harvest House book that carries the earliest known printing on page 154. Lending-restricted, so the page itself could not be read here.
Wikipedia: Ingrid Bergmanen.wikipedia.org

Biography confirming her life dates, 29 August 1915 to 29 August 1982 — she was alive when the 1970 column credited her.
Quote Investigator: a second kiss definition investigatedquoteinvestigator.com

A companion QI investigation into another comic definition of a kiss, useful for seeing how densely this particular joke-form was reworked.

The author

About Ingrid Bergman

Ingrid Bergman

1915–1982 · Swedish actress; three-time Academy Award winner

Ingrid Bergman (1915–1982) was a Swedish actress whose career spanned five decades and three Academy Awards, in films from Casablanca and For Whom the Bell Tolls to Autumn Sonata. She is one of the twentieth century’s most quotable screen presences — which is part of the problem here: lines about love and kissing drift toward her name whether or not she ever said them. There is no evidence she originated this one, and the credit appears only in 1970.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The earliest documented printing (Chicago)

Esar, Evan. Esar’s Comic Dictionary. New York: Harvest House, 1943, 154. Transcribed and verified on paper by Quote Investigator, “A Kiss Is A Trick of Nature to Stop Speech When Words Are Superfluous,” 25 August 2012. The entry is unsigned; no author has been identified.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘A Kiss Is A Trick of Nature to Stop Speech When Words Are Superfluous’?” Last verified 5 Oct 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/a-kiss-is-a-trick-of-nature-to-stop-speech-when-words-are/

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