Reported as being by Henry Benjamin Whipple in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 3. Actually a misquotation from Edwin Percy Whipple, "Loafing and Laboring", The North American Review… 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.
When people keep telling you that you can't do a thing, you kind of like to try it.
Margaret Chase Smith, quoted in More Than Petticoats : Remarkable Maine Women (2005) by Kate Kennedy Read the full notes
Alice Moore Hubbard, An American Bible (1912), Introduction. Read the full notes
Plagiarists, at least, have the merit of preservation.
Isaac D'Isaeli, Curiosities of Literature, "Of Suppressors and Dilapidators of Manuscripts". Read the full notes
I learned long ago never to wrestle with a pig. ... You get dirty and besides the pig likes it.
If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.
Epigraph, in Fahrenheit 451 a translation of a statement by Juan Ramón Jiménez Read the full notes
Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principles.
Hume never used the word "stereotype" (the term was not invented until 1798). Read the full notes
Never find fault with the absent.
Sextus Propertius, Elegies, II, xix, 32, also translated: "Let no one be willing to speak ill of the absent". Read the full notes
Diplomacy is the art of being able to say "nice doggie" until you have time to pick up a rock!
Quote given unattributed in a 1953 issue of the Tennessee conservationist Read the full notes
My way of joking is to tell the truth. That's the funniest joke in the world.
This is actually from Ali's autobiography "The Greatest". However, this was said by Don King to George Foreman. Read the full notes
If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?
Abigail Adams, his wife, in a letter to John Thaxter (1778-09-29). Read the full notes
Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.
According to a Snopes message board, the earliest known reference dates to the late 1990s. Read the full notes
Prof. Michael N. Nagler in his foreword to Gandhi the Man (1978) by Eknath Easwaran, p. 8 Read the full notes
This is in fact something an admirer said, which Christie quoted with disapproval in LIFE magazine (14 May 1956), p. 98 Read the full notes
Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do or die
Misquote of the lines "Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die" from The Charge of the Light Brigade Read the full notes
Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory.
Attributed in Henry Louis Mencken (1942), A New Dictionary of Quotations Read the full notes
Mediocrity can talk; but it is for genius to observe.
Isaac D'Israeli, The Curiosities of Literature, "Men of Genius Deficient in Conversation". Read the full notes
It is as easy to draw back a stone thrown with force from the hand, as to recall a word once spoken.
Euripides, fragment 1044 TrGF (tr. C. T. Ramage, 1864); misattributed to Menander due to a confusion in Stobaeus, Anthology III.36.14. Read the full notes
Alexander Pope, Thoughts on Various Subjects (1727), Published in Swift's Miscellanies (1727) Read the full notes
What we have in us of the image of God, is the love of truth and justice.
First appears in The Moralist; or a Collection of Maxims, Observations, &c. (Liverpool, 1800), p. 12, attributed to Demosthenes; not known to occur in his works. Read the full notes