Okay, since you've brought up the earliest usage of "mind over matter," I'll ask a related question that's been irking me a little about that spuriously attributed quotation: when did the expression "[it]...doesn't matter" first come into use? Did Twain ever use that particular construction? It doesn't sound Twain-like to my ears. It sounds to me to be a more recent version of the older construction, "[it's] of no matter", essentially turning the noun "matter" (substance) into a verb, "to matter" (to be of substance). Anyone know when that usage first appeared, and whether Twain ever used it? 

Ben Wise 



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kit Barry" <[log in to unmask]> 
To: [log in to unmask] 
Sent: Monday, February 14, 2011 11:33:19 PM 
Subject: Age & mind over matter source ? 

Forum - 

"Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't = 
matter." 

The phrase "mind over matter" goes back at least to 1863 used by an = 
English lawyer and geologist. 
(The Geological Evidence of the Antiquity of Man by Sir Charles Lyell ) = 
* 

It could be possible that it was later paraprosdokianized by ? Oscar = 
Wilde ? 



Kit Barry 
The Ephemera Archive for American Studies 


* Wikipedia=