The Fascinating Origin of “Clothes Make the Man”

Indeed Mark Twain (who made quite a fashion statement when be began wearing white suits late in his career in 1906, only to be outdone by Tom Wolfe who began wearing his iconic white suit early in his career in 1962) did write: “Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society” (More Maxims of Mark by Mark Twain, edited by Merle Johnson, 1927). But Twain was not the first to observe the human propensity to judge a book by its cover, as it were. That proverb actually originated over 400 years earlier during the Middle Ages. The most notable use of the proverb is found in the works of Erasmus (Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, 1466–1536)) a Catholic priest, theologian, and social critic. Erasmus published Collectanea Adagiorum (1500), an annotated collection of 800 Greek and Latin proverbs, and years later, an expanded version, Adagiorum Chiliades (1508, 1536), containing 4,251 essays — a proverbial encyclopedia of proverbs. <a href="https://alex-65670.medium.com/the-fascinating-origin-of-clothes-make-the-man-af5b525acfea">Read More</a>