Some of the most-shared quotes were never said by the people they are credited to. Here are the ones Wikiquote lists as misattributed, with what is known about where they really came from.
We rely on the notes and sources recorded on Wikiquote and show them next to each quote. “Misattributed” means the evidence points away from the credited person — it does not always tell us who did say it.
Beware how you take away hope from any human being.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., in his valedictory address to medical graduates at Harvard University (10 March 1858), published in The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal Vol. LVIII, No. 8 (25 March 1858), p. 158; this has also been… Read the full notes
God may not play dice with the universe, but something strange is going on with the prime numbers.
Referencing Albert Einstein's famous remark that "God does not play dice with the universe", this is attributed to Erdős in "Mathematics : Homage to an Itinerant Master" by D. Mackenzie, in Science 275:759 (1997), but has also been stated… Read the full notes
There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future.
This is sometimes attributed to Augustine, but the earliest known occurrence is in Persian Rosary (c. 1929) by Ahmad Sohrab (PDF), which probably originates as a paraphrase of a statement in Oscar Wilde's 1893 play A Woman of No… Read the full notes
They are lying. We know they are lying. They know we know they are lying. Yet, they are still lying.
Not found in any of his works. Probably from a description of a Russian custom called vranyo, used socially or politically. A recent example: "One of the ways people survived these mind-bending issues was to practice what is known in… Read the full notes
You may be whatever you resolve to be.
Note: This statement, often attributed to Jackson, is inscribed on the Jackson Arch barracks entrance at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia, where Jackson was a teacher in mathematics prior to the American Civil War… Read the full notes
The microbe is nothing. The terrain is everything.
This is misattributed to Pasteur in multiple sources, usually used as evidence that he had recanted germ theory, but it also appears in scientific literature. The actual quote is of Claude Bernard, a contemporary of Pasteur who disagreed… Read the full notes
This statement has been attributed to John A. Locke, but John Locke did not have a middle name. The words "dynamic," "boring" and "repetitive," found in this quote, were not yet in use in Locke's time. (See The Online Etymology Dictionary… Read the full notes
Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded.
What Time Is It? You Mean Now?: Advice for Life from the Zennest Master of Them All, Simon and Schuster, 2003, ISBN 0743244532, p. 81. | Found in newspapers from the early twentieth century. Not attributed to Berra until 1962. See… Read the full notes
There is also an entry in the Bible (Ecclesiastes 3:1) that says There is [a] time for everything, however this varies a lot between the different translations. Read the full notes
Socialized medicine is the keystone to the arch of the socialist state.
Whitaker and Baxter published a fifteen-page pamphlet of questions and answers entitled The Voluntary Way is the American Way, which, deep in the Q&A, concocted a quotation from Lenin | Q: Would socialized medicine lead to socialization of… Read the full notes
The human race has improved everything but the human race.
In "Wages are Going Lower!" (1951), William Joseph Baxter wrote, "One might almost say that the human race seems to have improved everything except people." Variations of this quote have appeared since both with and without attribution to… Read the full notes
Elbert Hubbard, part of a larger comment quoted from Electrical Review without further attribution in The Search for the North Pole (1896) by Evelyn Briggs Baldwin, p. 520, this was later published as part of various works by Hubbard… Read the full notes
Whenever a thing is done for the first time, it releases a little demon.
Quoted on the web sans source. Not in any published edition of Dickinson's poems. Anthony Hernandez, The Enlightened Savage (2006) – a self-help book – attributes it verbatim to Dave Sim sans source. Compare a similar quote sourced to Sim… Read the full notes
Mark Hatfield, as quoted in The Condition of Republicanism (1968) by Nick Thimmesch, p. 65 | They told me if I voted for Goldwater we'd be at war in Vietnam in six months — and I did and we were. | Anonymous voter, as quoted in It All… Read the full notes
"To play golf is to spoil an otherwise enjoyable walk" is found in H.S. Scrivener, "Memories of Men and Meetings", in Arthur Wallis Myers (ed.) Lawn Tennis at Home and Abroad New York:Charles Scribner's Sons, 1903, p. 47. Scrivener… Read the full notes
Unlike some people, I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth.
and publicized by Steve Doocy, Fox & Friends (), Fox News | President Obama actually said, in a campaign speech in Elyria, Ohio on , "Somebody gave me an education. I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. Michelle wasn't. But… Read the full notes
As quoted in The Story of Our Money (1946) by Olive Cushing Dwinell, p. 71; this is in an author's note following a quote by Alexander Hamilton. After the author's note there is the sentence "From Writings of Madison, previously quoted… Read the full notes
Prefer knowledge to wealth, for the one is transitory, and the other perpetual.
Actually from Isocrates, it can be found on p. 213 of Classical Rhetoric in English, 1650-1800: A Critical Anthology, part of a 1703 translation of a letter Isocrates wrote to his friend Demonicus which begins on p. 210. Earliest source… Read the full notes
The main object of religion is not to get a man into heaven, but to get heaven into him.
1) Rev. Edward John Hardy, known as E.J. Hardy (1849-1920), How to Be Happy Though Civil: A Book on Manners (New York, Scribners, 1909), ch. VI: A Christian Gentleman | 2) John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury, Peace and Happiness (Macmillan… Read the full notes
The darker the night, the brighter the stars, the deeper the grief, the closer is God!
Attributed to Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment in self-help books and on social media. The words are from an untitled poem (dated 1878) by the 19th century Russian poet Apollon Maykov. The full quatrain goes: "Не говори, что нет… Read the full notes