A friend of mine posted this quotation on Facebook the other day: “If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it the first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.” This was attributed, of course, to Mark Twain. I wrote him back that I had never seen this one anywhere in Twain’s works, which didn’t prove much, but that it didn’t sound like him to me. I told him I would do a search and try to find out its provenance (today’s word of the day du jour!). 

I could not find it at www.twainquotes. A Google search, though, gave me hundreds of hits: blogs, Pinterest, quote sites, etc., all with the same quote, all attributing it to Twain, but not one of them giving a source in his writing. All roads seemed to lead to a book by Brian Tracy, Eat That Frog!, which is a short book of advice on avoiding procrastination, very popular with writers, self-help folks, business advice, etc.

I have a time-wasting hobby (good to employ when I am procrastinating) of tracking down spurious Mark Twain quotations. I was surprised I had not encountered this one, since it is so widespread. So I call on the collective wisdom here to tell me if it is indeed from Mr. Mark Twain,and if so, where. I will be so surprised if it is that I will eat a live frog, in front of witnesses. 
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John Bird
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