The line opens “The Paradox of Our Age,” an essay by Dr. Bob Moorehead printed in his 1995 collection Words Aptly Spoken (Kirkland, WA: Overlake Christian Press), pp. 197–198. It reached the internet as an anonymous forward in 1998 and was pinned on Carlin, on the Dalai Lama, and on an unnamed Columbine student; Snopes rates the Carlin attribution False ↗ and Carlin denied it flatly in his lifetime.
“The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings, but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints” not George Carlin. From "The Paradox of Our Age" by Dr. Bob Moorehead, in Words Aptly Spoken (Kirkland, WA: Overlake Christian Press, 1995), pp. 197–198. Carlin publicly denied writing it. Via Quotle.info
⚠ The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to George Carlin. Use the credit shown above instead.
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In context
Evoking the world of Bob Moorehead — senior pastor, Overlake Christian Church, 1970–1998. Theme: "The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings, but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints". 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 "The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings, but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints". 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 documented source
Piece
“The Paradox of Our Age”
Collection
Words Aptly Spoken
Published
Kirkland, WA: Overlake Christian Press, 1995 — pp. 197–198
Author
Dr. Bob Moorehead, Overlake Christian Church
We have taller buildings but shorter tempers; wider freeways but narrower viewpoints; we spend more but have less; we buy more but enjoy it less…
the essay runs on for two printed pages
That is the wording of the printed essay, which Snopes reproduces beside the forwarded email ↗. Two differences are worth noting: in print the piece is titled “The Paradox of Our Age,” and the famous framing clause — “The paradox of our time in history is that” — belongs to the circulated version rather than to the book text.
Words Aptly Spoken was published in 1995, so the essay is well inside US copyright — nothing about its viral, unattributed circulation changes that. The excerpt above is quoted for identification and comment; rights rest with the author and Overlake Christian Press.
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
Who it gets pinned on
Few texts have been recredited as often as this one. The essay travelled for years as an anonymous forward, and each wave of email attached whichever name made it land hardest.
✕
The whole essay, as “The Paradox of Our Time”George Carlin Denied by Carlin
Forwards from 1999 carried the header “GEORGE CARLIN (His wife recently died…)” — a hook referring to Brenda Carlin, who died on 11 May 1997. Carlin rejected it outright, calling it “a sappy load of shit” and adding that it was “not only bad prose and poetry, it’s weak philosophy.” Wikiquote files it under Misattributed and credits Bob Moorehead ↗.
✕
The whole essayAn unnamed Columbine High School student
The whole essayThe Dalai Lama (and, elsewhere, Octavian Paler or plain “Anonymous”)
The homiletic cadence reads as generically spiritual once the church context is stripped away, and the piece has been recirculated under all three credits. Wikiquote lists them among the web hoaxes ↗.
✕
First internet posting, not authorshipJeff Dickson
✓Credit belongs to Dr. Bob Moorehead: “The Paradox of Our Age,” in Words Aptly Spoken (Kirkland, WA: Overlake Christian Press, 1995), pp. 197–198 — the citation Snopes prints in full ↗.
Context
Why this one stuck to Carlin
The essay was written for a pulpit, not a stage. Moorehead used it as a monologue in sermons and on the radio, and it sat quietly in a church-press paperback until Jeff Dickson posted it to an online forum in May 1998. From there it became one of the defining chain emails of the early web — a text with no author attached, forwarded into a vacuum that readers kept filling in.
Carlin was a natural guess and a terrible one. He was famous for scanning modern life and finding it absurd, so the shape of the piece fit; its earnest, consoling tone did not fit him at all. That mismatch is exactly what he objected to. The forward also came with a grief hook — a claim he had written it after his wife’s death — and Brenda Carlin had in fact died on 11 May 1997, which made the story feel checkable to people who never checked it.
A text with no author attached, forwarded into a vacuum that readers kept filling in.
Read the full story
Snopes first addressed the essay on 19 March 2001, in a fact check by Barbara Mikkelson, and rated the Carlin claim False. Its source list cites the Moorehead book directly, down to the page range.
The most instructive detail is the wording drift. The book text begins “We have taller buildings but shorter tempers”; the version everyone quotes begins “The paradox of our time in history is that…”. The famous opening clause was welded on somewhere in transmission, along with a retitling from “The Paradox of Our Age” to “The Paradox of Our Time.” The quote most people can recite is therefore a lightly edited forward of a printed sermon — which is part of why tracing it back to a 1995 church-press paperback took a fact checker to do.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
American pastor & author · senior pastor, Overlake Christian Church, 1970–1998
Dr. Bob Moorehead led Overlake Christian Church in the Seattle suburbs from January 1970 until June 1998, building it from a small congregation into one of the region’s largest churches. Words Aptly Spoken (1995) gathered the prayers, homilies and monologues he used in sermons and on the radio — among them “The Paradox of Our Age,” which would go on to circulate worldwide under other people’s names. He resigned in 1998 amid allegations of sexual impropriety, and church elders later concluded he had violated the standards required of the office.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Primary source
Bob Moorehead, “The Paradox of Our Age,” in Words Aptly Spoken (Kirkland, WA: Overlake Christian Press, 1995), 197–98. Attribution to George Carlin rated False by Snopes, 19 March 2001.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings, but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints’?” Last verified 3 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-paradox-of-our-time-in-history-is-that-we-have-taller/