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.
The only way to abolish war is to make peace heroic.
Widely misattributed on the internet to Dewey, who actually attributes it to Hinton in Human Nature and Conduct: An Introduction to Social Psychology (New York: 1922), [//books.google.com/books?id=Ws0RAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA115 p. 115]. Read the full notes
Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once.
It seems that this quote has only begun to be attributed to Einstein recently, the earliest published source located being the 2008 book Visualization for Dummies by Bernard Golden, p. 85. Before that it was often attributed to the… Read the full notes
A misquotation by Ronald Reagan in a 9 March 1982 speech, reported in Paul F. Boller, Jr., and John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions (1989), p. 13-14. In fact, Churchill used a very… Read the full notes
Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Anonymous saying, this is an inversion of the third of Arthur C. Clarke's three laws : "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." It has been attributed to Niven, and even called "Niven's Law" by some, and to… Read the full notes
We recognize no sovereign but God, and no king but Jesus!
Originally attributed to the “Rev. Jonas Clarke or one of his company” in “No King But King Jesus” (2001) (cache at Internet Archive) by Charles A. Jennings on his website Truth in History, and subsequently attributed to Adams in books… Read the full notes
God made beer because he loves us and wants us to be happy.
The quote, and its many variants, has been widely attributed to Franklin; however, there has never been an authoritative source for the quote, and research indicates that it is very likely a misquotation of Franklin's words regarding wine… Read the full notes
There is nothing more uncommon than common sense.
Anonymous saying, dating back at least to its citation in Natural Theology (1836) by Thomas Chalmers, Bk. II, Ch. III : On the Strength of the Evidences for a God in the Phenomena of Visible and External Nature, § 15, where the author… Read the full notes
Ford has also been quoted as having made a similar statement many years earlier, as a representative to the US Congress: "If the government is big enough to give you everything you want, it is big enough to take away everything you have."… Read the full notes
This quotation, which cannot be found in any of da Vinci's writings, was first used in print (and misattributed to Leonardo da Vinci) in a science fiction story published in 1975, The Storms of Windhaven. One of the authors, Lisa Tuttle… Read the full notes
Men grow tired of sleep, love, singing and dancing, sooner than of war.
Πάντων μὲν κόρος ἐστὶ καὶ ὕπνου καὶ φιλότητος μολπῆς τε γλυκερῆς καὶ ἀμύμονος ὀρχηθμοῖο, τῶν πέρ τις καὶ μᾶλλον ἐέλδεται ἐξ ἔρον εἷναι ἢ πολέμου· Τρῶες δὲ μάχης ἀκόρητοι ἔασιν. | Men get Their fill of all things, of sleep and love, sweet… Read the full notes
According to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum President Kennedy got his facts wrong. Dante never made this statement. The closest to what President Kennedy meant is in the Inferno where the souls in the ante-room of hell… Read the full notes
A theory that explains everything, explains nothing.
It was well observed by Playfair, some 90 years ago, that "a theory that explains everything explains nothing." Read the full notes
This quotation, often attributed on the Internet to Plato, cannot be found in any of Plato's writings, nor can it be found in any published work anywhere until recent years. If it really were a quotation by Plato, then some author in the… Read the full notes
Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
In 2022, an image of Wilde and the quote started spreading online. He died in 1900, and Quote Investigator has found no significant evidence that the quote originated from him. The earliest match was attributed to one of the British author… Read the full notes
Actually written by E. F. Schumacher in a 1973 essay titled "Small is Beautiful" which appeared in The Radical Humanist: volume 37, p. 22. Earliest published source found on Google Books attributing this to Einstein is BMJ: The British… Read the full notes
Contempt prior to investigation is what enslaves a mind to Ignorance.
This or similar statements are more often misattributed to Herbert Spencer, but the source of the phrase "contempt prior to investigation" seems to have been William Paley, A View of the Evidences of Christianity (1794): "The infidelity of… Read the full notes
Education is that which remains, if one has forgotten everything he learned in school.
Very popular in French: "La culture est ce qui reste lorsque l'on a tout oublié" (Culture is that which remains, if one has forgotten everything). Attributed in French to Édouard Herriot (1872-1957) and, in English, sometimes to Ortega y… Read the full notes
Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
Albert Einstein liked to underscore the micro/macro partnership with a remark from Sir George Pickering that he chalked on the blackboard in his office at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton: "Not everything that counts can be… Read the full notes
Google shows that the internet often attributes this statement to Einstein, but never with a source. The English version of the quote not occur in any book in Google Books, but a forum post dated February 2010 indicates this is a… Read the full notes
Sometimes misquoted as "If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." | Sometimes misattributed to Anatole France | Note that Russell does say something similar in Marriage and Morals (1929): "The fact that an… Read the full notes