Sometimes ascribed to Virginia Woolf, but it appeared as early as 1854 in Anna Jameson's A Commonplace Book of Thoughts, Memories and Fancies, where it is ascribed to William Wordsworth. 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.
Attributed to Kafka in Ambiguous Spaces (2008) by NaJa & deOstos (Nannette Jackowski and Ricardo de Ostos), p. 7, and a couple other publications since, this is actually from Report to Greco (1965) by Nikos Kazantzakis, p. 434 Read the full notes
To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.
Sometimes attributed to Lincoln since a 1950 speech of Douglas MacArthur citing him as its author, this is actually from a poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Read the full notes
The last sentence is from the 16 October 1854 Peoria speech, slightly paraphrased. No known contemporary source for the rest. It first appears, attributed to Lincoln, in US religious/inspirational journals in 1907-8, such as p123, Friends… Read the full notes
Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.
Misquotation of a line from Walden cited above, with the addition of a spurious ending. For this and other misattributions, see: The Henry D. Thoreau Mis-Quotation Page Read the full notes
(Unlikely to be by Leopold, who knew that ethics involves not only doing the right thing, but also determining the right thing in the face of competing desirable criteria.) Read the full notes
This misattribution is sourced from John Toland. In Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography (1976), it is attributed to Hitler in a speech of May 1, 1927. It is recorded in Thoughts about the Tasks of the Future by Gregor Strasser on June… Read the full notes
Pray, speak quietly, every sound you make is such exquisite agony to me.
Variously misattributed to Price's performances in the films Witchfinder General and House of Usher, but this line appears in neither of these films. The quote appears to have been based on a misremembering by Stephen Fry on an episode of… Read the full notes
Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm
Attribution debunked in Langworth's Churchill by Himself. The earliest close match located by the Quote Investigator is from the 1953 book How to Say a Few Words by David Guy Powers. Read the full notes
Paul McFedries, Word Spy: The Word Lover's Guide to Modern Culture (New York: Broadway Books, 2004) ch. 4, p. 58. Amplifying the title of Auden's long poem The Age of Anxiety (1947). Compare: Douglas Bush, Engaged & Disengaged (1966) p. 18 Read the full notes
Attributed as a quote in Charles W. Hudlin, "Morality and the Military Profession: Problems and Solutions", Military Ethics (National Defense University Press, 1987); but Hudlin cites the biographical dramatization Patton (1970 film) which… Read the full notes
Trust no friend without faults, and love a maiden, but no angel.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, as quoted in Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern English and Foreign Sources (1899) by James Wood, p. 499 Read the full notes
Illusion is the first of all pleasures.
Voltaire, "L'illusion est le premier plaisir" from the satirical poem "La Pucelle d'Orléans" [The Maid of Orleans]. For a complete review see the misattributed quotation entry at Oscar Wilde in America. Read the full notes
An Irish gentleman is someone who can play the bagpipes but won’t.
First ascribed to Wilde by The Boston Globe in 1991. The joke probably appeared for the first time in 1917, when The Atchison Weekly Globe attributed it to a local man named Frank Fiest. Read the full notes
Claimed by atheist Franklin Steiner, on p. 144 of one of his books to have appeared in Manford's Magazine but he never gives a year of publication. Read the full notes
When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.
These are paraphrases of Muir's quote from My First Summer in the Sierra (1911) - the actual quote is listed above: "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." See Sierra Club… Read the full notes
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
This is actually from Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks On the Road, though it is widely attributed to Ms. Angelou's book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Read the full notes
How do you feel about Hitler sharing yours?
Alleged response by Ali to a reporter who asked how he felt about sharing the Islamic faith with the suspects of the World Trade Center terrorist attack, as debunked at Snopes.com. Read the full notes
You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.
Commonly attributed to Mere Christianity, where it is not found. Earliest reference seems to be an unsourced attribution to George MacDonald in an 1892 issue of the Quaker periodical The British Friend. Read the full notes
We need not think alike to love alike.
This attribution seems to have begun in the 1960s, and has been debunked at "Who really said that?" by Peter Hughes at UU World (15 August 2012); previously misattributed in A Chosen Faith (1991) by John A. Buehrens; also in Unitarian… Read the full notes