Saidbook

Misattributed quotes

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.

I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world: no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.

Woodrow Wilson Misattributed Shadow Kings (2005)

I am a most unhappy man… | Attributed by Curtis Dall in FDR: My Exploited Father-in-Law, regarding Wilson's break with Edward M. House: "Wilson … evidenced similar remorse as he approached his end. Finally he said, 'I am a most unhappy… Read the full notes

Ideas are, in truth, force.

Henry James Misattributed

"Ideas are, in truth, forces. Infinite, too, is the power of personality. A union of the two always makes history." — Henry James (1879-1947), Charles W. Eliot (1930), 2 vol. This namesake was James' nephew, the son of William James. His… Read the full notes

It's not a matter of whether the war is not real, or if it is, Victory is not possible. The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia but to keep the very structure of society intact.

George Orwell Misattributed

Michael Moore declares these lines in his film Fahrenheit 9/11, preceding them with the words "George Orwell once wrote that". They are nearly identical to a block of voiceover in the 1984 Richard Burton/John Hurt movie version of 1984… Read the full notes

We carry inside us the wonders we seek outside us.

Rumi Misattributed The Tao of Dad: The Wisdom of Fathers Near and Far (2006)

The Tao of Dad: The Wisdom of Fathers Near and Far (2006) p. 62. Compare: Thomas Browne, Religio Medici (1643) pt. 1, sect. 15: "We carry within us the wonders we seek without us: there is all Africa and her prodigies in us." Read the full notes

I thank Thee first because I was never robbed before; second, because although they took my purse they did not take my life; third, because although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth because it was I who was robbed, and not I who robbed.

Matthew Henry Misattributed

First reported in Arnold Gingrich, Coronet, Volume 17‎ (1944), which characterizes the quote as a diary entry. A much earlier report in "Life of the Rev. Matthew Henry", in Christian Biography (1799), p. 66, has Henry writing: What reason… Read the full notes