Misattributed quotes

I take it that the question of employees is only a question of private and corporate economy, and individuals or companies have the right to buy labor where they can get it cheapest. We have a treaty with the Chinese government which should be religiously kept until its provisions are abrogated by the action of the general Government, and I am not prepared to say that it should be abrogated until our great manufacturing and corporate interests are conserved in the matter of labor.

This politically motivated misattribution was contained in a forged letter circulated during the 1880 presidential campaign. Reported in Paul F. Boller, John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading… Read the full notes

There is no greater freedom than the freedom to obey.

Paraphrase of various teachings, primarily from 'Confessions'. Read the full notes

International law exists only in textbooks on international law.

The anthropologist Ashley Montagu said it in an interview with Einstein. (Source: .) Read the full notes

Lord, what an organ is human speech when it is played by a master! All these speeches may look dull in print, but how the lightning glared around them when they were uttered, and how the crowd roared in response!

Mark Twain, in a letter to his wife "Livy" (14 November 1879). Read the full notes

I have two great enemies, the southern army in front of me and the financial institutions, in the rear. Of the two, the one in the rear is the greatest enemy.

. Not found in Lincoln's works. This earliest this quote has been found is 1941. Read the full notes

Creative people have to be fed from the divine source.

Johnny Cash, interview by the Academy of Achievement (25 June 1993) Read the full notes

Catch a man a fish, and you can sell it to him. Teach a man to fish, and you ruin a wonderful business opportunity.

Attributed to Marx (possibly in jest) in W. C. Privy's Original Bathroom Companion (2003). Read the full notes

Three chords and the truth — that’s what a country song is.

Nelson clarified in his autobiography, It's A Long Story: My Life that it was an original phrase from songwriter Harlan Howard. An example of Nelson quoting the phrase Read the full notes

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Actually from the 1990 book P. S. I Love You by H. Jackson Brown. Read the full notes

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

Often misattributed to Nietzsche, and was actually said by Rudyard Kipling during a 1935 interview that was published in Reader's Digest in 1959. Read the full notes

A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent, without giving any sound.

John Calvin, quoted in The Westminster Collection of Christian Quotations (2001) by Martin H. Manser, p. 56 Read the full notes

I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.

Not by Roosevelt, but from Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (1989). Read the full notes

If I were to run, I'd run as a Republican. They're the dumbest group of voters in the country. They believe anything on Fox News. I could lie and they'd still eat it up. I bet my numbers would be terrific.

There is no record of Trump ever saying this; sometimes "People magazine, 1998" is incorrectly given as the "source" of this quotation — snopes.com; truthorfiction.com Read the full notes

A family is a place where minds come in contact with one another. If these minds love one another, the home will be as beautiful as a flower garden. But if these minds get out of harmony with one another, it is like a storm that plays havoc with the garden.

Earliest match that could be found was in a 1962 book published by Bukkyō Dendō Kyōka titled The Teaching of the Buddha. Read the full notes

Much that we call evil is really good in disguises; and we should not quarrel rashly with adversities not yet understood, nor overlook the mercies often bound up in them.

Sir Thomas Browne, as quoted by The Pleasures of Life (1891), by John Lubbock, p. 11 Read the full notes

The rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs.

Attributed to Leo Tolstoy in Romance and Reality (1912) by Holbrook Jackson. Read the full notes

Describing her first day back in grade school after a long absence, a teacher said, "It was like trying to hold 35 corks under water at the same time."

Incorrectly attributed to Twain, this is actually a quotation from an article in The Pocono Record (18 February 1971, page 4) Read the full notes

You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection

Sharon Salzberg in an article in a magazine called “Woman of Power” in 1989 Read the full notes

Lord, grant me the strength to change the things I can, the serenity to deal with the things I cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Widely known as The Serenity Prayer this has often been attributed to St. Francis, but earliest known forms of it appeared in the early 20th century, and it is generally credited to Reinhold Niebuhr. Read the full notes

Society speaks and all men listen, mountains speak and wise men listen.

Frequently attributed to Muir without source. An extensive search of Muir's published and unpublished writings found several sharp and cogent observations concerning society (see above) but not this one. Read the full notes