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.

Good things, when short, are twice as good.

Tom Stoppard Misattributed

Baltasar Gracián, The Art of Wordly Wisdom (Oráculo Manual) Maxim #105 Read the full notes

Debate is the death of conversation.

Emil Ludwig Misattributed

In Lilless McPherson Shilling, Linda K. Fuller, Dictionary of Quotations in Communications (1997), p. 13. Most likely a variation of "Argument, again, is the death of conversation, if carried on in a spirit of hostility", William Hazlitt… Read the full notes

All there is to thinking is seeing something noticeable, which makes you see something you weren't noticing, which makes you see something that isn't even visible.

Leo Strauss Misattributed

Attributed to Strauss at many sites on the internet, this is actually Norman Maclean, in A River Runs Through It (1976) Read the full notes

It is a barren kind of criticism which tells you what a thing is not.

Alfred Whitney Griswold Misattributed

Rufus Wilmot Griswold, as quoted in Intuitions and Summaries of Thought (1862) by Christian Nestell Bovee, p. 132. Read the full notes

Welcome to President Bush, Mrs. Bush, and my fellow astronauts.

Dan Quayle Misattributed

Thank you very much Bob, Mr. President, Mrs. Bush, Dick Truly and fellow astronauts, and ladies and gentlemen. Read the full notes

Divine visions and shadows of things that are.

Sophocles Misattributed

φαντάσματα θεῖα καὶ σκιὰς τῶν ὄντων. | First attributed to Sophocles in Cassell's, 1907, p. 480. Read the full notes

A good lawyer knows the law; a clever one takes the judge to lunch.

Mark Twain Misattributed

Attributed to Twain but never sourced, this quotation should not be regarded as authentic. Read the full notes

Think like a man of action, and act like a man of thought.

Sallust Misattributed

Henri Bergson, as quoted in The Forbes Scrapbook of Thoughts on the Business of Life (1950), p. 442; this only seems to have become attributed to Sallust in the early 21st century. Read the full notes

Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe,
Old age flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of death.

Edith Wharton Misattributed

Walt Whitman, "Song of the Open Road", 12, Leaves of Grass (1855) Read the full notes

Ingersoll knew that he must make his appeal to man's brain.

Robert G. Ingersoll Misattributed

Alice Moore Hubbard, An American Bible (1912), Introduction. Read the full notes

Well, I’m gonna show you, baby, that a woman can be tough.
I want you to come on, come on, come on, come on and take it,
Take another little piece of my heart now, baby!

Janis Joplin Misattributed Piece of My Heart (1968)

"Piece of My Heart" (1968); though this song became well known because of her performances, and as one of her greatest hits, it was actually written by Jerry Ragovoy and Bert Berns · Live performance in Germany (1968) Read the full notes

More children from the fit, less from the unfit — that is the chief issue in birth control.

Margaret Sanger Misattributed

Editors of American Medicine in a review of Sanger's article "Why Not Birth Control Clinics in America?" published in Birth Control Review, May 1919 Read the full notes

To all the girls that think you're fat because you're not a size zero you're the beautiful one it's society who's ugly.

Marilyn Monroe Misattributed

Attributed to Monroe in self-help books and on social media, this quotation is of unknown origin and date. Read the full notes

"Only three people," said Palmerston, "have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business—the Prince Consort, who is dead—a German professor, who has gone mad—and I, who have forgotten all about it."

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston Misattributed

Compare Seymour Vesey-FitzGerald 1863 quote | See quoteinvestigator Read the full notes

Ignorance is not a simple lack of knowledge but an active aversion to knowledge, the refusal to know, issuing from cowardice, pride or laziness of mind.

Karl Popper Misattributed

Principle attributed to Popper by Ryszard Kapiscinski in New York Times obituary, 1995. Read the full notes

It is better to be silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.

Abraham Lincoln Misattributed

Variously attributed to Lincoln, Elbert Hubbard, Mark Twain, Benjamin Franklin and Socrates Read the full notes

Alvin Schwartz presents a slightly different version of the tongue-twister in his collection A Twister of Twists, A Tangler of Tongues (HarperTrophy, 1972, p. 80)

Stephen King Misattributed

Amidst the mists and coldest frosts With barest wrists and stoutest boasts He thrusts his fists against the posts But still insists he sees the ghosts. Read the full notes

What we were striving for was a kind of modified form of communism.

Harold L. Ickes Misattributed

Reported in Paul F. Boller, Jr., and John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions (1989), p. 52, indicating that President Ronald Reagan had attributed this quote to Ickes in December 1981. Read the full notes

Action expresses priorities.

Mahatma Gandhi Misattributed

Apparently a rephrasing of "Actions express priorities," from Peak Performers (1987) by Charles A. Garfield. The phrase is adjacent to a Gandhi quote in at least one list of quotations alphabetized by last name. Read the full notes

It's fine if the law bans books because government won't really enforce it.

Elena Kagan Misattributed

Reported as having been said by Kagan during the Supreme Court oral argument in the Citizens United case in September, 2009; however, this quote does not appear in the actual transcript of the oral argument. Read the full notes