Misattributed quotes

Doubt is the origin of wisdom and Latin: Dubium sapientiae initium. This has been attributed to Descartes, including here previously, but no original attribution has been found. Descartes Meditationes de prima philosophia has been cited as the source of Dubium sapientiae initium, but this quote is not found in this work.

The Latin version may be found in a footnote of the 1880 edition of "Publilii Syri mimi Sententiae". Read the full notes

The eyes see only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.

Robertson Davies as quoted in The White Bedouin‎ (2007) by George Potter, p. 241 Read the full notes

William "Stuttering Bill" Denbrough recites this in IT (1985), but the line is not originally King's, as is often believed. It is part of a tongue-twister that dates at least to its publication in "Exercises in Articulation" in The Dayspring (March 1874), p. 39

Amid the moist and coldest frosts, With barest wrists and stoutest boasts, He thrusts his fists against the posts, And still insists he sees the ghosts. Read the full notes

He plants trees to benefit another generation.

Caecilius Statius, Synephebi, as quoted by Cicero in De Senectute, VII. Read the full notes

Better Counsel comes overnight.

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Emilia Galotti (1772), Act IV, scene III Read the full notes

Small things I handled and caressed and loved.
I let the stars assume the whole of night.
But the big answers clamoured to be moved Into my life. Their great audacity
Shouted to be acknowledged and believed.

This is from the poem "Answers" by Elizabeth Jennings, which has wrongly been attributed to Sitwell at a few sites on the internet. Read the full notes

Love in my bosom like a bee
Doth suck his sweet:
Now with his wings he plays with me,
Now with his feet.
Within mine eyes he makes his nest,
His bed amidst my tender breast;
My kisses are his daily feast,
And yet he robs me of my rest:
Ah! wanton, will ye?

Thomas Lodge, "Rosalind's Madrigal", st. 1; Rosalynde: Euphues Golden Legacy (1590) and Englands Helicon (1600). Misattributed to Greene in the ODQ (ed. 1968) p. 231 Read the full notes

Just step aside for me to enjoy the sunshine.

Plutarch, Parallel Lives, "Alexander", ch. 14, section 4. Read the full notes

I was a young man with unformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything, and to my astonishment, the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of them.

Attributed to Darwin in another version of the Lady Hope fabrication. Read the full notes

And it's too late, baby, now it's too late
Though we really did try to make it
Somethin' inside has died and I can't hide
And I just can't fake it.

Though King wrote the music for "It's Too Late", the lyrics were entirely written by Toni Stern. Read the full notes

Infernal gods, who rule the shades below,
Chaos and Phlegethon, the realms of woe;
Grant what I've heard I may to light expose,
Secrets which earth, and night, and hell inclose!

Richard Maitland, 4th Earl of Lauderdale, The Works of Virgil, Translated Into English Verse (1709), Aeneid, Book VI, lines 328–331, p. 210 Read the full notes

We can't destroy the inequities between men and women until we destroy marriage.

Actually from 1969 leaflet by The Feminists, "Women: Do You Know the Facts About Marriage?". Its text was reprinted in the anthology Sisterhood is Powerful edited by Robin Morgan. Read the full notes

The Constitution is a piece of rotten parchment that ought to be trodden under foot.

Several Democrats accused Lovejoy of saying this, but he denied ever saying so. Read the full notes

Would you please publish the enclosed manuscript or return it without delay, as I have other irons in the fire.

A covering note sent with a manuscript submission, which was supposedly returned with the answer, "Put this with your other irons." The same story had much earlier been told about Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Piozzi in Kate Sanborn Home Pictures… Read the full notes

Better do a good deed near at home than go far away to burn incense.

Chinese proverb, as quoted in The Homiletic Review, Vol. 90 (1925), p. 363 Read the full notes

I'm in love with cities I've never been to and people I've never met.

Incorrectly attributed to John Green on various quotation sites and on social media. Actual author is Melody Truong. Read the full notes

You don't always get what you ask for, but you never get what you don't ask for... unless it's contagious!

Franklyn Broude, as quoted in Sitting on a File Cabinet, Naked, with a Gun: True Stories of Silicon Valley (2009) by Linda McFarland, Joanne Linden and Sharon Turnoy Read the full notes

Other arms reach out to me
Other eyes smile tenderly
Still in peaceful dreams I see
The road leads back to you.
Georgia, oh Georgia, no peace I find...
Just an old sweet song
Keeps Georgia on my mind.

Though renditions by Ray Charles are among the most popular and famous, the lyrics of "Georgia On My Mind" (1930) were written by Stuart Gorrell and the music by Hoagy Carmichael. Read the full notes

I have the right ideas, but my words are too ... complicated. I need to simplify them, so that people won't get lost in the dark when they see and hear them. I want them to shine like beacons of light in a world of overly complicated darkness. One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.

This appears not to be a Kerouac quote. Apart from a variation of the final sentence (see above), it has not been found in any of Kerouac's published work. Read the full notes

So in this way of writing without thinking,
Thou hast a strange alacrity in sinking.

Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset "On Mr Edward Howard, upon his British Princes"; cited from Geoffrey Grigson (ed.) The Oxford Book of Satirical Verse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980) p. 74 Read the full notes