Today we mark the 1938 birth of comedian Rich Little. Folks know Rich Little is the real thing when it comes to impressions: the master mimic found his calling at age twelve, when he began "talking back" to teachers in their own voices, and he now claims a repertoire of more than two hundred personalities.

You'll be glad to know our tribute to Little does not include doing our own impressions: instead we invite you to impress yourself by identifying the speaker of the following quotation. "Imitation is the sincerest of flattery." (No, we didn't leave out the word form; that's the earliest known version of the saying.) So can you guess which British clergyman is credited with putting that thought to paper? Was it Charles Caleb Colton, John Donne, or Joseph Priestley?

The correct response is Charles Caleb Colton, a churchman and eccentric who published a book of aphorisms in the early 1800s. Colton also advised readers, "Silence is foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish."

Ready for one more question? Which satirist observed that "To do just the opposite is also a form of imitation?" Was it Francois Rabelais, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, or Jonathan Swift? It was Lichtenberg, the same man who also noted, "A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents."

My favourite "wisdom" quote goes something like this:
"Use your wisdom like a pocket watch. Only take it out when someone asks you the time." ...and I don't for the life of me know who said it!

Just one more note about Rich Little. He went to Alfred State University in New York, the first university my husband attended!