Misattributed quotes

Associate yourself with people of good quality, for it is better to be alone than in bad company.

"Associate yourself with Men of good Quality if you Esteem your own Reputation; for 'tis better to be alone than in bad Company." This was a French maxim, late 16th century, as quoted by George Washington in his "Rules of Civility and… Read the full notes

Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.

The earliest attributions of this remark to anyone are in 1941, to Mortimer Adler, in How To Read A Book (1940), although this actually a paraphrased shortening of a statement in his preface: Reading — as explained (and defended) in this… 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

We are no longer a Christian nation; we are now a nation of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists.

President Obama actually said, in his keynote address to Sojourners magazine's "Call to Renewal" conference on (see above), "Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation — at least, not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a… Read the full notes

Any idiot can face a crisis; it is this day-to-day living that wears you out.

Missattributed misquotation of "Just about anybody can face a crisis. It’s that everyday living that’s rough." This occurs in the screenplay of The Country Girl (1954) screenplay by George Seaton, based on a play by Clifford Odets, which… Read the full notes

When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.

Another early quote is that of Halford E. Luccock, in Keeping Life Out of Confusion (1938): "When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled 'made in Germany'; it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called… Read the full notes

Be awful nice to 'em goin' up, because you're gonna meet 'em all comin' down.

Be nice to people on your way up, because you're going to meet them all on your way down. | As quoted in A Quote for Every Day (2011) edited by Peter A. LaPorta, p. 41 | Be nice to people goin' up, because you're going to meet them all… Read the full notes

A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.

A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of… Read the full notes

Only one thing could have stopped our movement – if our adversaries had understood its principle and from the first day smashed with the utmost brutality the nucleus of our new movement.

Only one danger could have jeopardised this development – if our adversaries had understood its principle, established a clear understanding of these ideas, and not offered any resistance. Or, alternatively, if they had from the first day… Read the full notes

Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged.

This was the lead sentence in an article "Democrats Usher in An Age of Treason" by conservative author J. Michael Waller in Insight magazine (23 December 2003) which a copyeditor (http://www.factcheck.org/misquoting_lincoln.html)… Read the full notes

Pretty much all the honest truth-telling there is in the world is done by children.

A paraphrase of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., in "The Poet at the Breakfast-Table" in The Atlantic Monthly Vol. 29 (1872), p. 231: "I like children, — he said to me one day at table. — I like 'em, and I respect 'em. Pretty much all the… Read the full notes

The readiest and surest way to get rid of censure, is to correct ourselves.

εἰ γὰρ οἴεσθε ἀποκτείνοντες ἀνθρώπους ἐπισχήσειν τοῦ ὀνειδίζειν τινὰ ὑμῖν ὅτι οὐκ ὀρθῶς ζῆτε, οὐ καλῶς διανοεῖσθε· οὐ γὰρ ἐσθ᾿ αὕτη ἡ ἀπαλλαγὴ οὔτε πάνυ δυνατὴ οὔτε καλή, ἀλλ᾿ ἐκείνη καὶ καλλίστη καὶ ῥᾴστη, μὴ τοὺς ἄλλους κολούειν ἀλλ᾿… Read the full notes

Oh, the comfort —
the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person —
having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words,
but pouring them all right out,
just as they are,
chaff and grain together;
certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them,
keep what is worth keeping,
and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.

Oh, the comfort — the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person — having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will… Read the full notes

Military men are "dumb, stupid animals to be used" as pawns for foreign policy.

The only evidence that Kissinger ever said this was a claim in the book, The Final Days, by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, in chapter 14 (p.194 in the 1995 paperback edition). Woodward & Bernstein claimed that one of Kissinger's… Read the full notes

If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.

Attributed to Goebbels in Publications Relating to Various Aspects of Communism (1946), by United States Congress, House Committee on Un-American Activities. No reliable source has been located, and this is probably simply a further… Read the full notes

The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.

Twain did write, in Roughing It | The climate of San Francisco is mild and singularly equable. The thermometer stands at about seventy degrees the year round. It hardly changes at all. You sleep under one or two light blankets Summer and… Read the full notes

I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa, that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.

Obama actually wrote, in Dreams from My Father, p. 220 | Yes, I'd seen weakness in other men — Gramps and his disappointments, Lolo [my adoptive father] and his compromise. But these men had become object lessons for me, men I might love… Read the full notes

My earlier views on the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures have become clearer and stronger with advancing years, and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them.

Letter to Judge J. A. Wakefield, after the death of Lincoln's son Willie in 1862, as cited in Abraham Lincoln: was he a Christian? (1893), p. 292, by John Eleazer Remsburg. Historian Merrill Daniel Peterson states in Lincoln in American… Read the full notes

God would be unjust if we were not guilty.

Blaise Pascal, Pensées: It is necessary that we were born guilty, or God would be unjust [Il faut que nous naissions coupables, ou Dieu serait injuste]. This is Pensée 431 in the Édition Gallimard, 1962. It is found in the section entitled… Read the full notes

I dream my painting, and then I paint my dream.

Je rêve mon tableau, et plus tard je peindrai mon rêve. | As cited in Bible Mystery and Bible Meaning (1918) by Thomas Troward, p. 207 | I dream my picture and then I paint my dream. | As translated in Musical Courier Vol. 57, No. 21 (18… Read the full notes