Attributed to Wells's book New Worlds for Old (1908) by Ferdinand Lundberg in Scoundrels All (1968), p. 126. The quote is widely repeated on the internet, but does not appear in the cited work. Read the full notes
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.
Genius is sorrow's child — to want allied — Consoled by glory, and sustained by pride. Read the full notes
A mob is still a mob, even if it's on your side.
Adams as portrayed in the HBO Miniseries John Adams (2008); this has sometimes been cited as having been actually said or written by the historical John Adams. Read the full notes
If the truth shall kill them, let them die.
Generally attributed to Kant on social media, this is actually from a quotation by Ayn Rand paraphrasing Kant. Cited in Judgment Day: My Years with Ayn Rand (1989) by Nathaniel Branden. Read the full notes
God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
"Creator — A comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh." — H.L. Mencken, A Book of Burlesques (1920), p. 203. and A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949), Ch. 30 Read the full notes
Reported as refuted in the Congressional Record: Lou Hiner, Jr., "Hitler's Phony Quotation on Law and Order", May 21, 1970, vol. 116, pp. 1676–77, reprinted from the Indianapolis News; and M. Stanton Evans, "The Hitler Quote", August 11… Read the full notes
Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.
Not found in Burke's writings. It was almost certainly first published in Charles Caleb Colton's Lacon (1820), vol. 1, no. 324 Read the full notes
However wickedness outstrips men, it has no wings to fly from God.
Derived from a longer quote in Henry V, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 283. Read the full notes
Wagner's music is better than it sounds.
Actually by Bill Nye, possibly confused due to Nye quoting Twain in More Tramps Abroad, 1897. (See also autobiography, vol. 1, p. 288.) Read the full notes
Treason is a charge invented by winners as an excuse for hanging the losers.
This is actually from the musical play 1776 (1969) by Sherman Edwards and Peter Stone, in which Franklin is portrayed as saying this. Read the full notes
Sigmund Freud, "The Future of an Illusion" (1927), ch. 8, from The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, ed. James Strachey and Anna Freud (London, Hogarth Press, 1961), vol. 21, p. 44 Read the full notes
"The Life and Teachings of Thoth Hermes Trismegistus", in The Secret Teachings of All Ages (1928) by the Canadian occultist Manly Hall; a few quotation websites credit this to Addison. Read the full notes
The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.
The unapparent connection is more powerful than the apparent one | The hidden harmony is better than the open one. Read the full notes
Sydney Smith, in a letter to Jeffrey, claimed this as his own parody of him: "If you could be alarmed into the semblance of modesty, you would charm everybody; but remember my joke against you about the Moon and the Solar System;— 'Damn… Read the full notes
Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.
As quoted in InfoWorld, Vol. 23, No. 16, 16 April 2001, p. 49. This had been attributed previously to many other sources from 1908 on, according to this analysis by Quote Investigator. Read the full notes
The statement is misquoted and removed from context so as to inaccurately simplify and overstate the authors' statement. | The exact phrase is (see also above): The probability that at ordinary temperatures a macroscopic number of… Read the full notes
Some of you are doomed to be artists.
Though often used by Graham, she credited this to Robert Edmond Jones. Agnes de Mille states in "The Life and Work of Martha Graham" (2010), p. 215: It was Jones who used to say to his classes, "Some of you are doomed to be artists."… Read the full notes
There is no such thing as a good tax.
The correct attribution is Oklahoma Senator Thomas Gore, in his speech to the National Tax Association in 1935. Though it is often attributed to Churchill, there is no evidence he ever said it. Read the full notes
As Quote Investigator explains, allegories about animals doing impossible things have been incredibly popular in the past century. But no, this one isn't from Einstein. (Source: .) Read the full notes
Evil and good are God's right hand and left.
Philip James Bailey, in Festus (1839), misattribution of this to Mann seems to have only started in recent years, on the internet. Read the full notes