Earlier attributions include: "a high government official", Annual Report, North American Gas Tax Conference, Federation of Tax Administrators, 1967; Jerry Lewis (a sign pasted on the camera during a movie shoot), by Dick Kleiner… 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.
Elif Şafak, The Forty Rules of Love (2010) — The book is about Rumi, but the quote is the author's own words. Read the full notes
I would have bartered a diamond mine for a glass of pure spring water!
This sentence, like many others in the Griffin and Farran translation of the book, has no source in the original French text. Read the full notes
Tell me, I forget. Show me, I remember. Involve me, I understand.
This had been cited to Orff at various places on the internet, but though it has been reported that he often used the expression without claiming to have devised it, the Quote Investigator states that it seems to be a variant of… Read the full notes
If I had another face, do you think I would wear this one?
Attributed in Jean Dresden Grambs (1959), Abraham Lincoln Through the Eyes of High School Youth Read the full notes
Not by Twain, but from Edward Abbey's A Voice Crying In The Wilderness (1989). Read the full notes
The ancients stole all our great ideas.
Now, the Devil confound those Ancients, for they have stolen all my good thoughts from me! Read the full notes
The more a man knows, the more he forgives.
Widely attributed to Catherine II online, this has been attributed to Confucius in published books, but no print sources attribute this to Catherine. Read the full notes
He who would see old Hoghton right
Must view it by the pale moonlight.
William Carew Hazlitt, English Proverbs and Provincial Phrases, (London, 1882) Read the full notes
According to Irrwege einer Metapher ("The Vagaries of a Metaphor"), an article published in the Wiener Zeitung (The Vienna Times), this quote is a shortened version of a sentence in a speech delivered in the French Parliament by Socialist… Read the full notes
Cited in Read the full notes
G. P. R. James Henry Masterton (1832; repr. London: Richard Bentley, 1837) p. 297 Read the full notes
A man can never quite understand a boy, even when he has been the boy.
Wisdom and Innocence: A Life of G.K. Chesterton, Joseph Pearce Read the full notes
Earliest citation to Paine appears to be in "Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism Vol. XXIV". Not found in any of his works. Read the full notes
People often forget that in 1940 there was no guarantee that we were going to win.
This quote is actually from Churchill's daughter, Lady Soames. See "The Beacon of the Western Way of Life" Read the full notes
Has been ascribed to Epictetus since the late 1990s, (e.g. The Nassau Herald (1999), page 220). The first sentence ("Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes") appears in the 1995 book: The Art of Living: the classic manual on virtue… Read the full notes
The quote is attributed to Chrysostom in the Malleus Maleficarum (Part I, Question VI), published by Heinrich Kramer in 1486. He cites Chrysostom's homily on Matthew ch. 19 (which would be his Homily LXII on Matthew), but no such quote… Read the full notes
Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.
Actually said by Napoleon Hill, Stone later added the line "...with P.M.A." (Positive Mental Attitude) to the end of this quote. Read the full notes
Edna St. Vincent Millay, in "First Fig" from A Few Figs from Thistles (1920); said to be a motto Roald Dahl lived by. Read the full notes
If Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house.
Attributed as a remark during the Crown Heights riot (August 1991), but denied by Sharpton's attorney. See Jake Tapper (20 June 2003) "The Skeletons and Suits in Sharpton's Closet" Salon.com. Read the full notes