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.
The first step is to measure whatever can easily be measured. This is OK as far as it goes. The second step is to disregard that which can't be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading. The third step is to presume that what can't be measured easily really isn't important. This is blindness. The fourth step is to say that what can't be easily measured really doesn't exist. This is suicide.
Charles Handy Misattributed This quote about the McNamara fallacy appears in The Empty Raincoat (1994)
This quote about the McNamara fallacy appears in The Empty Raincoat (1994). Sometimes attributed to Handy but actually from 1971 and written by Daniel Yankelovich. Read the full notes
[909] Philosophy: Why, you Precocious Pederast! You Palpable Pervert!
[910] Sophistry: Pelt me with roses!
[910] Philosophy: You Toadstool! O Cesspool!
[911] Sophistry: Wreath my hairs with lilies!
[911] Philosophy: Why, you Parricide!
[912] Sophistry: Shower me with gold! Look, don't you see I welcome your abuse?
[913] Philosophy: Welcome it, monster? In my day we would have cringed with shame.
[914] Sophistry: Whereas now we're flattered. Times change. The vices of your age are stylish today.
(heavily rewritten and embellished tr. Arrowsmith 1962, p. 70)
This apocryphal line is found quoted only from the Arrowsmith translation. Read the full notes
I believe, Most Blessed Father, that in order to reward Mr. Duca's ardent faith in some way, Your Holiness should have the kindness to confer upon him or his brother Don Rodrigo, canon of the cathedral of Toulouse, the sacred purple, which he has already earned through his expeditions, staining it with the accursed blood of those wretches.
It is enough for his name to be heard in these countries for the Albigensian heretics to tremble from head to toe. His custom is to go around the courts, dispatching the most angry ones in one fell swoop. Those who fall into his hands are forced to profess our faith with the formula prescribed by Your Holiness. If they refuse, he has them beaten thoroughly while the stake is lit. Then he asks them if they are repentant and, upon hearing that they are not, concludes: “Either believe or die.” They are burned slowly to give them time to repent and earn eternal forgiveness.
Some of these wretched souls, though very rarely, showed signs of retraction and horror at the death they deservedly suffered as they breathed their last; and I consoled myself in the Lord by observing those acts that could be signs of repentance. The more they struggled, the more we rejoiced in
the hope that those brief sufferings would bring them eternal joy, where we hope to find them safe in holy paradise when the Lord sees fit to call us to eternal rest. As for the others who were seduced, and therefore less guilty, it is not customary to condemn them immediately, but in order to exercise the charity that our Savior commands, their lives are spared at first, and instead certain torments are used which, although severe to the flesh, are infinitely lighter than those reserved for the spirit in eternal flames. Wheels, eculei, iron beds, stretchers, pincers, and other similar mortifications of the body are used, which, according to the law of our Lord Jesus Christ, must be macerated on earth in order to be glorified in eternal life.
From the letter written in Languedoc on April 7, 1217, and sent to Pope Honorius III. The saint refers to the fight against the Albigensian heresy. Quoted in Giuseppe Garibaldi (33rd degree Scottish Rite Freemason), ‘'Il governo dei… Read the full notes
"We are a people of the crossroads of prophecy and politics, and Africa’s time is no longer coming. It is here. We are rewriting the narrative, reshaping the future, reclaiming the dignity denied to us by centuries of foreign domination and spiritual manipulation. And the church must decide where it stands, with the powers that be here, with the people who bleed. I do not write this letter to condemn. I write it to invite you, Your Holiness, into a deeper solidarity, to a solidarity that walks barefoot with the poor, that dares to speak truth in Rome as boldly as it does in Rwanda, that names the Saints not just by miracles, but by their commitment to justice. We await your voices, not from balconies, but from trenches and from favelas. From refugee camps, from behind the bars of political prisons where truth is incarcerated."
attributed as alleged letter to Pope Leo XIV source. According to numerous factcheckers, there is no evidence that Traoré wrote such letter to the Pope. It is false that Ibrahim Traoré sent a letter to Pope Leo XIV and received a response Read the full notes
We shall provoke you to acts of terror and then crush you.
The actual origin is unknown. Read the full notes
. . . Neither Washington nor Moscow but the Third Camp of Independent Socialism!
Used by Shachtman but originally formulated by Joseph Carter. Read the full notes
The white woman must cohabit with members of the dark races, white men with black women. Thus the white race will disappear, for the mixing of the dark with white means the end of the white man, and our most dangerous enemy will become only a memory.
originally attributed in 1952 to an "Emanuel" Rabinovitch, who appears to be a fictional creation of Eustace Mullins Read the full notes
One day, millions of men will leave the Southern Hemisphere to go to the Northern Hemisphere. And they will not go there as friends. Because they will go there to conquer it. And they will conquer it with their sons. The wombs of our women will give us victory.
reportedly during a 1974 speech to the United Nations, as reported by Loonwatch on 25 March 2017 Read the full notes
Isn’t it even more cowardly to attack defenseless villages with napalm bombs that kill many thousands of times more? Obviously, planes would make things easier for us. Give us your bombers, sir, and you can have our baskets.
Actually said in The Battle of Algiers (film) as an adaptation of the real quote. Read the full notes