— Thomas Middleton English playwright and poet 1580 - 1627
A Mad World, my Masters (1605), Compare: "From the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, 1 he is all mirth", William Shakespeare, Much Ado about Nothing, Act iii. Sc. 2.
— John Fletcher English Jacobean playwright 1579 - 1625
Act II, scene 2. Compare Thomas Middleton, A Mad World, My Masters, Act I, scene 3. Pliny, Natural History, Book VII, Chapter XVII. William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, Act III, scene 2.
— Sinclair Lewis American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright 1885 - 1951
Many variants of this exist, but the earliest known incident of such a comment appears to be a partial quote from James Waterman Wise, Jr., reported in a 1936 issue of The Christian Century: "in a recent address here before the liberal John Reed club [Wise] said that Hearst and Coughlin are the two chief exponents of fascism in America. If fascism comes, he added, it will not be identified with any 'shirt' movement, nor with an 'insignia,' but it will probably be 'wrapped up in the American flag and heralded as a plea for liberty and preservation of the constitution.'"
Another early quote is that of Halford E. Luccock, in Keeping Life Out of Confusion (1938): "When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled 'made in Germany'; it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called fascism; it will be called, of course, 'Americanism.'" (This quote is also attributed in a New York Times article from September 12, 1938, page 15 as having been given in one of Luccock's sermons.)
Harrison Evans Salisbury in 1971 remarked about Lewis: "Sinclair Lewis aptly predicted in It Can't Happen Here that if fascism came to America it would come wrapped in the flag and whistling 'The Star Spangled Banner.'"
— Jeremy Taylor English clergyman 1613 - 1667
P. 397.
— Hugh Kingsmill British writer and journalist 1889 - 1949
"Hamlet Borgianized", p. 154
— Otto von Bismarck German statesman, Chancellor of Germany 1815 - 1898
Frequently quoted in online leftist circles. Refers to the split of the First Internationale (between anarchists and socialists). The earliest mention is on page 95 of American radicalism, 1865-1901, essays and documents https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015011722785?urlappend=%3Bseq=111 (1946) by Chester McArthur Destler, but as of now the German original could not be found.
In German political parlance, "black" more often referred to Catholic interests than to anarchism; it is possible that if Bismarck did say this, it referred rather to a union between the Catholic Center and the Socialist "reds" against the German nationalist/Protestant "blues."
— Reginald Heber English clergyman 1783 - 1826
"The Son of God Goes Forth to War", st. 1 (1812).
— Torquato Tasso Italian poet 1544 - 1595
Canto III, stanza 1 (tr. Fairfax)
— Wilfred Owen English poet and soldier (1893-1918) 1893 - 1918
— William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2
King Henry, Act III, scene i.
— James Russell Lowell American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat 1819 - 1891
Epistle to George William Curtis (1874)
— Stephen Crane American novelist, short story writer, poet, and journalist 1871 - 1900
Do Not Weep, Maiden, For War is Kind, st. 4
