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.
Ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude.
The earliest attributions of this yet found are to it being a saying of William Scott, 1st Baron Stowell, in History of the Anti-Corn Law League (1853), by Archibald Prentice, p. 54; around 1876 it began to began to be cited to W. Scott… Read the full notes
This quote's earliest known source is from Leon C. Megginson (see Charles Darwin) Read the full notes
The al-Masari affair overflows in all directions with moral relativism. My own view is that to expel a political asylum-seeker because his country threatens to cancel business contracts with Britain is absolutely wrong. And it is not only… Read the full notes
The reason that university politics is so vicious is that the stakes are so small.
Unattributed variants | Somebody once said that one of the reasons academic infighting is so vicious is that the stakes are so small. There's so little at stake and they are so nasty about it. | The Craft of Crime : Conversations with… Read the full notes
The world is divided into men who have wit and no religion and men who have religion and no wit.
This was declared without citation to have been attributed to Avicenna in A Rationalist Encyclopaedia : A Book of Reference on Religion, Philosophy, Ethics, and Science (1950), by Joseph McCabe, p. 43; it was also later wrongly attributed… Read the full notes
Sometimes a Cigar Is Just a Cigar.
Psychology professor Alan C. Elms stated in the article “Apocryphal Freud: Sigmund Freud’s Most Famous ‘Quotations’ and Their Actual Sources.” (2001): "In this case, however, not only do we lack any written record of Freud as the direct… Read the full notes
Reported as a misattribution in Paul F. Boller, Jr., and John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions (1989), p. 131-32; Boller and George note that Wilson was so fond of quoting this… Read the full notes
Unsourced variants: Well, I am fairly out and you are fairly in. Now we shall see who enjoys it the most! Ah! I am fairly out and you are fairly in! See which of us will be the happiest! Read the full notes
We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense of our great nation.
The quote is from Bush at War by Bob Woodward, but it was not said by Bush. Woodward attributes the quote to one among "about 25 men representing three different Special Forces units and three CIA paramilitary teams" during the dedication… Read the full notes
For some people, four walls are three too many.
This seems to have originated with the Spanish military leader Juan Domingo de Monteverde, who, in Francisco de Miranda, a Transatlantic Life in the Age of Revolution (2003) by Karen Racine, p. 239, is quoted as having said: "four walls… Read the full notes
We have slaughtered the wrong pig.
The International Churchill Society confirms that there is no record of Churchill saying or writing it and thus classifies it as a misattribution. Churchill never regretted fighting Hitler. Read the full notes
Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry.
"Spurious" here: https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/tyranny-defined-which-legal-government-spurious-quotation | "Not True" here… Read the full notes
Reported in an editorial in the Alton Evening Telegraph (July 14,1964), A-4; appeared in a display ad in the Los Angeles Times (September 27, 1964), D14. Reported as misattributed in Paul F. Boller, Jr., and John George, They Never Said… Read the full notes
Claimed by American Fascist William Dudley Pelley in Liberation (February 3, 1934) to have appeared in notes taken at the Constitutional Convention by Charles Cotesworth Pinckney; reported as debunked in Paul F. Boller, Jr., and John… Read the full notes
We are born between feces and urine.
Attributed to a church father in Freud's Dora; Freud seems to have found it in an anatomy textbook by Josef Hyrtl (1867), where it was attributed to a church father; it may have been invented by Hyrtl… Read the full notes
Attributed in The Rebirth of a Nation : With a Bill of Rights for America's Third Century (1978) by Robert S. Minor, p. 10; this is a paraphrase of a statement by his father John Adams in a letter to his mother Abigail Adams (27 April… Read the full notes
The true objective of war is peace.
Dr. Hiroshi Hatanaka, President of Kobe College, Nishinomiya, Hyōgo, Japan is recorded as saying "the real objective of war is peace" in Pacific Stars and Stripes Ryukyu Edition, Tokyo, Japan (10 February 1949), Page 2, Column 2. Read the full notes
Colored people are like human weeds and are to be exterminated.
The full quote is fabricated and was never written or spoken by Sanger. Individual words and phrases are found in quotes from Sanger such as "human weeds" and "exterminated" (see Sanger quotes above). Read the full notes
A day without laughter is a day wasted.
I admire the man who exclaimed, “I have lost a day!” because he had neglected to do any good in the course of it; but another has observed that “the most lost of all days, is that in which we have not laughed;” and, I must confess, that I… Read the full notes
Be you above your ancestors renown'd, Whose goodness wisely doth your greatness bound; And, knowing that you may be what you would, Are pleased to be only what you should. Read the full notes