Misquotes

Quotes that circulate under a writer’s name but are reworded, someone else’s, or on no page we can find. Each entry says where it really comes from, when that is known.

Aristotle 10 · Baruch 5 · Bukowski 2 · Camus 4 · Palahniuk 1 · Cicero 7 · Lewis 6 · Dostoevsky 15 · Seuss 5 · Einstein 12 · Hubbard 6 · Emerson 4 · Epictetus 4 · Epicurus 2 · Zappa 5 · Gandhi 10 · Gide 2 · Rowling 2 · Jung 5 · Lucretius 3 · West 3 · Aurelius 11 · Monroe 7 · Twain 13 · King 2 · Angelou 5 · Ravikant 2 · Nietzsche 5 · Wilde 9 · Pessoa 1 · Frost 1 · Seneca 2 · Chbosky 1 · Jobs 2 · Thoreau 5 · Purkey 2

Credited to Aristotle

  1. The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.

    Not found. It is not in Aristotle’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  2. Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in Nicomachean Ethics (330 BC), Book X, chapter 4 (Chase: Book X, chapter IV).

  3. Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in Nicomachean Ethics (330 BC), Book I, chapter 10 in the Bywater/Greek division (1100b; chapter VIII in D. P. Chase).

  4. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

    Misattributed. Will Durant wrote it, not Aristotle.

  5. To be angry is what any man can do, and easy: but to do these to the right person, in due proportion, at the right time, with a right object, and in the right manner, this is not as before what any man can do, nor is it easy.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in Nicomachean Ethics (330 BC), Book II, chapter 9 (1109a, chapter IX in D. P. Chase).

  6. Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.

    Not found. It is not in Aristotle’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

Show all 10 credited to AristotleShow fewer
  1. It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

    Not found. It is not in Aristotle’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  2. Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in Nicomachean Ethics (330 BC), Book I, chapter 7 (Chase: Book I, chapters IV–V).

  3. Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.

    Not found. No source has been found for this sentence in Aristotle. It resembles the Delphic “know thyself”, but its wording and earliest printing remain untraced; related Aristotelian passages are not the same quotation.

  4. Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in Nicomachean Ethics (330 BC), Book I, chapter 6, 1096a11–17 (chapter III in D. P. Chase).

Credited to Bernard Baruch

  1. Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.

    Misattributed. It is not by Baruch; it was written by an unknown writer.

  2. Anyone taken as an individual is tolerably sensible—as a member of a crowd, he at once becomes a blockhead.

    Misattributed. Baruch quoted it as Schiller’s, not as his own. The German couplet is in Goethe and Schiller’s jointly published Xenien; its individual authorship is not resolved here.

  3. Buy when there’s blood in the streets.

    Not found. No primary source establishes this as Baruch’s saying. The proverb predates its documented 1980 credit to him, and its original speaker remains uncertain.

  4. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

    Not found. The attribution to Baruch is unsubstantiated. Earlier related formulations are documented under Kaplan, Tomkins and Maslow; the later Baruch label does not establish authorship.

  5. When a shoeshine boy knows as much as I do about the stock market, it’s time to get out.

    Not found. Told first of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. (1959); Baruch’s memoir mentions the shoeshine boy but not as his signal.

Credited to Charles Bukowski

  1. Find what you love and let it kill you.

    Misattributed. Kinky Friedman wrote it, not Bukowski.

  2. The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.

    Not found. The broad sentence has not been traced to a Bukowski source. A related 1989 interview remark concerns writers, while Russell expressed a similar thought in 1933; how the internet wording arose remains uncertain.

Credited to Albert Camus

  1. Don’t walk in front of me… I may not follow. Don’t walk behind me… I may not lead. Walk beside me… just be my friend.

    Misattributed. It is not by Camus; it was written by an unknown writer.

  2. Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?

    Not found. It is not in Camus’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  3. Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in Albert Camus, Le Malentendu, Act II, scene 1; in Le Malentendu suivi de Caligula. Nouvelles versions (Paris: Gallimard, 1958), digitally transcribed by Jean-Marie Tremblay for Les Classiques des sciences sociales, 2010, corrected 2011; mirror PDF, digital transcription p. 77, said by Jan.

  4. There are causes worth dying for, but none worth killing for.

    Misattributed. Not a sourced Camus quotation. A closely matching sentence is documented in Albert G. Dietrich’s 1943 letter; how it became the short saying credited to Camus is unresolved.

Credited to Chuck Palahniuk

  1. We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like.

    Misattributed. The wording is misattributed to Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club. Its older formulation is traced to Robert Quillen in 1928; the exact modern sentence’s author has not been established.

Credited to Marcus Tullius Cicero

  1. A room without books is like a body without a soul.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in a letter to Atticus, Book IV, letter 8 (Att. IV.8.2), from Antium, April or May 56 BC.

  2. If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in a letter to Marcus Terentius Varro, Book IX, letter 4 (Fam. IX.4), from Tusculum, June 46 BC.

  3. A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within.

    Misattributed. No. These are words Taylor Caldwell wrote for Cicero in her 1965 novel A Pillar of Iron, not a speech of the real Cicero; a Florida justice quoted them as Cicero’s the same year.

  4. So live as brave men; and if fortune is adverse, front its blows with brave hearts

    Misattributed. Horace wrote it, not Cicero.

  5. Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.

    Not found. No. It is a twentieth-century filler, first printed in 1908 as the translation of an ancient tablet, and credited to Cicero only from about 2001.

  6. Friendship improves Happiness and abates Misery, by the doubling of our Joy and dividing of our Grief.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in On Friendship (44 BC), Chapter VI, section 22 (Laelius de Amicitia 6.22), said by Gaius Laelius.

  7. The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.

    Misattributed. A modern adaptation of a passage in Taylor Caldwell’s 1965 historical novel, not a documented statement by Cicero; the familiar wording has been altered in circulation.

Credited to C. S. Lewis

  1. We read to know that we are not alone.

    Misattributed. William Nicholson wrote it for Shadowlands. Nicholson himself says the film line was never said by C. S. Lewis.

  2. Experience that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.

    Misattributed. This rewords dialogue by William Nicholson in Shadowlands. It is neither an exact film transcript nor a documented sentence by C. S. Lewis.

  3. Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.

    Misattributed. Not a sentence by Lewis. It is attributed to Reepicheep in the 2010 film adaptation of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, whose screenplay has three credited writers.

  4. Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.

    Misattributed. Not a Lewis quotation. Rick Warren uses it, but closely related printed forms predate his 2002 book; the original coiner is not established.

  5. You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.

    Misattributed. The wording is documented in Les Brown’s 1992 book; no primary source in C. S. Lewis has been established.

  6. You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.

    Misattributed. Not Lewis’s words. A related formulation was credited to George MacDonald in 1892, but authorship of the exact modern wording and its route to Lewis remain unresolved.

Credited to Fyodor Dostoevsky

  1. If there is no God, everything is permitted.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in The Brothers Karamazov (1880), Part 4, Book 11, chapter 4 (“A Hymn and a Secret”), said by Dmitri Karamazov.

  2. Loving someone means giving them power to destroy you and trusting they won’t.

    Not found. It is not in Dostoevsky’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  3. We all came out from under Gogol’s ‘Overcoat’.

    Not found. It is not in Dostoevsky’s works. Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé printed it in 1885 as the remark of an unnamed Russian writer; later retellings gave it to Dostoevsky.

  4. The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.

    Not found. It is not in Dostoevsky’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  5. The darker the night, the brighter the stars, the deeper the grief, the closer is God!

    Misattributed. Apollon Maykov wrote it, not Dostoevsky.

  6. I was burning, while you came blaming me for the smell of ashes.

    Not found. It is not in Dostoevsky’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

Show all 15 credited to DostoevskyShow fewer
  1. The price of loving someone very much is never loving anyone again.

    Not found. It is not in Dostoevsky’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  2. Tolerance will reach such a level that intelligent people will be banned from thinking so as not to offend the imbeciles.

    Not found. It is not in Dostoevsky’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  3. Trust no one in whom the desire to punish is strong.

    Misattributed. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote it, not Dostoevsky.

  4. Look at you comforting others with the words you wish someone had said to you.

    Not found. It is not in Dostoevsky’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  5. Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid.

    Not found. It is not in Dostoevsky’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  6. All this struggle for life that just ends on a random day.

    Not found. It is not in Dostoevsky’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  7. The most terrifying freedom is discovering that even your suffering is your own fault.

    Not found. It is not in Dostoevsky’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  8. To love someone means to see him as God intended him.

    Misattributed. Marina Tsvetaeva wrote it, not Dostoevsky.

  9. Two intelligent people cannot fall in love; true love needs one idiot.

    Not found. It is not in Dostoevsky’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

Credited to Dr. Seuss

  1. You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.

    Not found. It is not in Seuss’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  2. Why fit in when you were born to stand out?

    Not found. It is not in Seuss’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  3. Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.

    Not found. It is not in Seuss’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  4. We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.

    Misattributed. Robert Fulghum wrote it, not Seuss.

  5. You’re never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book & read to a child.

    Misattributed. Anita Merina wrote it, not Seuss.

Credited to Albert Einstein

  1. Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.

    Not found. It is not in Einstein’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  2. There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

    Not found. The saying was attributed to Einstein in notes dated 1942, but no original Einstein source has been established; the attribution remains unverified.

  3. Any fool can know. The point is to understand.

    Misattributed. Ernest Kinoy wrote this for a fictional Einstein in Dr. Einstein Before Lunch; it is not a documented quotation from the physicist.

  4. Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.

    Not found. There is no authenticated Einstein source. The exact wording was reported from Charlotte Clemensen Taylor in 1986; an Einstein credit is documented in a 2000 quotation collection.

  5. Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world.

    Not found. No authenticated Einstein source is known. The comparison was already in an unsigned 1925 advertisement; the Einstein credit found by Quote Investigator dates to 1988.

  6. Creativity is intelligence having fun.

    Not found. Not authenticated as Einstein. A 1984 Scialabba sentence is the documented precursor; the modern wording is in print by 1994, with its exact coiner unresolved.

Show all 12 credited to EinsteinShow fewer
  1. Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

    Not found. No authenticated Einstein source is known; the documented 2004 wording already credits him, but its actual author remains unknown.

  2. If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live

    Not found. No authenticated Einstein source supports this prediction; the four-year claim was attributed to him in print in 1965, but its originator remains unknown.

  3. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

    Not found. No authenticated Einstein source is known; close versions are documented in recovery communities in 1981, with no individual author established.

  4. Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.

    Misattributed. The best-supported author is sociologist William Bruce Cameron, who printed the full maxim in 1963; the later Einstein blackboard story is unsupported.

  5. I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.

    Not found. There is no authenticated Einstein source. The warning is documented as a 2012 internet meme, with its early web dates known through secondary reporting.

  6. The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.

    Misattributed. This wording developed from Bob Samples’s commentary on Einstein; no documented Einstein source supports treating it as the physicist’s own words.

Credited to Elbert Hubbard

  1. A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.

    Misattributed. An unnamed ten-year-old schoolboy, quoted by Agnes Deans Cameron in ‘Humor in School’, The Century Magazine (April 1905) wrote it, not Hubbard.

  2. Life is just one damned thing after another.

    Misattributed. No one knows who coined it: it was in print without a name from March 1909, and in a 1909 novel as a wall motto. The same year Hubbard’s Roycrofters sold it as a wall motto and The Philistine printed it unsigned; later books credited him.

  3. To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in Fra Elbertus [Elbert Hubbard], The Motto Book; Being a Catalogue of Epigrams by Fra Elbertus, Assisted at Times by Solomon, Ruskin, Shakespeare, Joaquin Miller, Benjamin Franklin, Walt Whitman, Ali Baba and Felix Cyrenius (East Aurora: The Roycrofters, copyright 1909 by Elbert Hubbard), p. 39, No. 202.

  4. No man needs a vacation so much as the man who has just had one.

    Misattributed. Hubbard used the quip in The Philistine in 1904 and helped spread it, but it was already called ‘an old saying’ in 1899; who first said it is unknown.

  5. The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can’t be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.

    Not found. This wording is credited to Hubbard in a later quotation collection, but no checked Hubbard text establishes it. Related sayings circulated earlier; the exact wording’s author remains uncertain.

  6. There is no defeat except from within. There is really no insurmountable barrier, save your own inherent weakness of purpose.

    Misattributed. Robert Burns Wilson wrote it, not Hubbard.

Credited to Ralph Waldo Emerson

  1. What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

    Misattributed. Henry Stanley Haskins wrote it, not Emerson.

  2. To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

    Misattributed. An unknown writer rewording E. E. Cummings wrote it, not Emerson.

  3. Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

    Misattributed. The Emerson attribution is unsupported. The saying adapts a line published by Muriel Strode in 1903; the person who made the modern imperative is unidentified.

  4. To laugh often and much; … This is to have succeeded.

    Misattributed. Not a sourced Emerson quotation. The modern piece adapts Bessie A. Stanley’s 1905 essay; an altered version was credited to Emerson in 1951, but its adapter is unidentified.

Credited to Epictetus

  1. We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.

    Misattributed. Not as his own: the oldest record gives it to Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism (Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.23). Later Greek anthologies credited a form of it to Epictetus, a fragment editors treat as doubtful; it is not in the Discourses or the Handbook.

  2. Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in Enchiridion (Handbook) (107), Section 46.1 (opening instruction and banquet example); George Long translation, chapter XLVI.

  3. The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skilful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.

    Misattributed. Charles de Saint-Évremond (the credit attached to the early-modern essay) wrote it, not Epictetus.

  4. You become what you give your attention to.

    Misattributed. The wording is credited by attribution research to Sharon Lebell’s modern interpretation of Epictetus, not to a literal passage in his surviving works; the book citation remains secondary here.

Credited to Epicurus

  1. Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

    Not found. Not in these words, and perhaps not his argument at all: nothing Epicurus wrote that survives contains it. The Christian writer Lactantius credited the argument to him around 313, the question form is David Hume’s (1779), and the last line has not been found before 1992.

  2. The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.

    Misattributed. No. The two sentences come from an English essay ‘In Vindication of Epicurus’, credited to Saint-Évremond, in the book Epicurus’s Morals (1712); a 1766 anthology cited that book as ‘Epic. mor.’, and later collections signed it Epicurus.

Credited to Frank Zappa

  1. So many books, so little time.

    Not found. It is not in Zappa’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  2. A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it’s not open.

    Not found. It is not in Zappa’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  3. The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in Jim Ladd, ‘Zappa On Air’, Nuggets, April 1977.

  4. Rock journalism is people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in D. Housing, ‘Zappa Comes Clean’, Berkeley Barb, 27 March–2 April 1980.

  5. Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

    Misattributed. Often credited to Frank Zappa, but Martin Mull is the probable originator: printed Mull credits date to 1979, while a Zappa credit is documented by 1984. The first utterance remains unconfirmed.

Credited to Mahatma Gandhi

  1. Be the change you wish to see in the world.

    Misattributed. Arleen Lorrance wrote it, not Gandhi.

  2. An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.

    Not found. It is not in Gandhi’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  3. Asked what he thought of Western civilization, Gandhi replied: “I think it would be a good idea.”

    Not found. It is not in Gandhi’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  4. A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is a part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so.

    Not found. It is not in Gandhi’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  5. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

    Not found. It is not in Gandhi’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  6. Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the State becomes lawless or corrupt.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in Articles in Indian Opinion, Young India and Harijan (1922), The Immediate Issue, Young India, 5 January 1922, p. 5; Collected Works, vol. XXII, item 65, p. 143.

Show all 10 credited to GandhiShow fewer
  1. There is no way to peace; peace is the way.

    Misattributed. A. J. Muste wrote it, not Gandhi.

  2. Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

    Not found. It is not in Gandhi’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  3. The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.

    Not found. It is not in Gandhi’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  4. God himself dare not appear to a hungry man except in the form of bread.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in Articles in Indian Opinion, Young India and Harijan (1931), Interview to Unemployed Workers’ Deputation, West Bradford, 27 September 1931; reported in Young India, 15 October 1931; Collected Works, vol. XLVIII, item 51, p. 74.

Credited to André Gide

  1. Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in The Counterfeiters (1925), Troisième partie, chapter XIV (Édouard talking to Bernard), Les Faux-monnayeurs (1925), p. 147 of the NRF edition read.

  2. Gray is the color of truth.

    Misattributed. No reliable Gide source is established. The saying is tentatively traced to Jacques de Biez, quoted by W. C. Brownell in 1889.

Credited to J. K. Rowling

  1. Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.

    Misattributed. Steve Kloves wrote it, not Rowling.

  2. Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic. Capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it.

    Not found. It is not in Rowling’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

Credited to Carl Gustav Jung

  1. All addictions are a low-level search for God.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in a letter to William G. Wilson (Bill W.), 30 January 1961.

  2. Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in C. G. Jung, Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self, trans. R. F. C. Hull, Collected Works vol. 9 part II (Bollingen Series XX; New York: Pantheon / Bollingen Foundation, 1959), ch. V ‘Christ, a Symbol of the Self’. German original: Aion: Untersuchungen zur Symbolgeschichte (Psychologische Abhandlungen VIII, Zürich: Rascher, 1951). Hull’s translation is in copyright; only the one sentence is quoted here, p. 70.

  3. Called or uncalled, God will be present.

    Misattributed. anonymous wrote it, not Jung.

  4. I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.

    Misattributed. James Hollis wrote it, not Jung.

  5. The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.

    Not found. It is not in Jung’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

Credited to Lucretius

  1. Constant dripping hollows out a stone.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in On the Nature of Things (55 BC), Book I, lines 311–314 (stilicidi casus lapidem cavat, I.313); Leonard, Book I, “Substance Is Eternal”.

  2. All religions are equally sublime to the ignorant, useful to the politician, and ridiculous to the philosopher.

    Misattributed. No. It is not in Lucretius: it rewords Edward Gibbon’s remark, in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776), that Rome’s religions were thought equally true by the people, equally false by the philosopher and equally useful by the magistrate. It was credited to Lucretius by 1932.

  3. Like runners, we hand on the torch of life.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in On the Nature of Things (55 BC), Book II, lines 77–79; Leonard, Book II, “Eternal Motion of Atoms” (the passage on replenishment of the sum of things).

Credited to Mae West

  1. You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.

    Misattributed. Joe E. Lewis wrote it, not West.

  2. Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly.

    Not found. The saying predates the documented credits to Mae West. No primary source for her own use was established here; the attribution remains unsubstantiated.

  3. Come up and see me sometime.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in She Done Him Wrong (1933), Lady Lou’s invitation after complimenting Captain Cummings’s uniform; extract begins at the host’s movie offset 00:24:54, said by Lady Lou.

Credited to Marcus Aurelius

  1. The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in Meditations (180), Book 4, section 3, conclusion.

  2. It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in Meditations (180), Book 12, section 1.

  3. The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in Meditations (180), Book 7, section 61.

  4. When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.

    Misattributed. Elbert Hubbard wrote it, not Aurelius.

  5. Dig within. Within is the wellspring of good; and it will ever bubble up, if you will ever dig.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in Meditations (180), Book 7, section 59.

  6. Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

    Not found. It is not in Aurelius’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

Show all 11 credited to AureliusShow fewer
  1. If thou art pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs thee, but thy own judgement about it. And it is in thy power to wipe out this judgement now.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in Meditations (180), Book 8, section 47 (opening).

  2. Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.

    Not found. It is not in Aurelius’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  3. That which is not good for the swarm, neither is it good for the bee.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in Meditations (180), Book 6, section 54.

  4. What we do in life echoes in eternity.

    Not found. It is not in Aurelius’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  5. You have power over your mind—not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

    Not found. It is not in Aurelius’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

Credited to Marilyn Monroe

  1. I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.

    Not found. It is not in Monroe’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  2. A sex symbol is a heavy load to carry when one is tired, hurt and bewildered.

    Misattributed. The sources checked credit this remark to Clara Bow, speaking about Marilyn Monroe, not to Monroe herself. The original Bow document has not been inspected here.

  3. If you can make a woman laugh, you can make her do anything.

    Not found. It is not in Monroe’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  4. Well-behaved women rarely make history.

    Misattributed. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich wrote it, not Monroe.

  5. I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they’re right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.

    Not found. It is not in Monroe’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  6. Give a girl the right shoes and she can conquer the world.

    Misattributed. Bette Midler wrote it, not Monroe.

  7. Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.

    Not found. No authenticated Marilyn Monroe source was located. A 2006 newspaper already credits the maxim to her, but its authorship and first attribution remain unresolved.

Credited to Mark Twain

  1. The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in Mark Twain, ‘Chapters from My Autobiography.—II’, North American Review, 21 September 1906.

  2. I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

    Misattributed. Grant Allen wrote it, not Twain.

  3. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that 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.

    Misattributed. It is first printed in H. Jackson Brown Jr.’s P.S. I Love You (1990), a book of sayings he credited to his mother; whether she coined it is not known. It is not Twain’s.

  4. Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.

    Not found. It is not in Twain’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  5. Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in Mark Twain’s Notebook, prepared for publication with comments by Albert Bigelow Paine (New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1935), 393.

  6. There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

    Misattributed. Twain wrote it down, in a chapter of his autobiography (1907), but as a remark attributed to Disraeli, which no one has found in Disraeli. Who coined it is not known; the earliest uses are British, from 1891.

Show all 13 credited to TwainShow fewer
  1. It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.

    Misattributed. The earliest known form is Arthur G. Lewis’s, in a railway magazine column of 1911, and it spread as an anonymous proverb. It is not Twain’s.

  2. Better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.

    Misattributed. The earliest close version located is in Maurice Switzer’s 1907 book; he is the leading candidate, not a certain inventor. No reliable Twain source is known.

  3. Golf is a good walk spoiled.

    Not found. It is not in Twain’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  4. Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.

    Misattributed. It grew from a line by Christian Nestell Bovee (1857), that kindness is a language the dumb can speak and the deaf understand; the shared wording is a later newspaper form. It is not Twain’s.

  5. A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

    Not found. There is no reliable Twain source. Versions with truth pulling on boots predate his birth; the modern shoes wording has no established author.

  6. The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.

    Not found. No reliable Twain source is known. A close unsigned version appeared in 1914; the first Twain attribution located by Quote Investigator is from 1945.

  7. The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.

    Not found. It is not in Twain’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

Credited to Martin Luther King Jr.

  1. Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.

    Not found. The exact wording is unverified, not proved fake. Its evidence comes from Marian Wright Edelman’s posthumous recollections of King, first located by Quote Investigator in 1986, rather than a contemporary King text or recording.

  2. Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

    Not found. This exact wording has not been authenticated as King’s. Clinton credited it to him in a speech on 30 April 2000, and it resembles King’s documented arguments about moral courage, but resemblance does not establish the words.

Credited to Maya Angelou

  1. I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

    Misattributed. Carl W. Buehner wrote it, not Angelou.

  2. There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

    Misattributed. A rewording of Zora Neale Hurston’s sentence in Dust Tracks on a Road (1942), not a sourced line from Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

  3. A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.

    Misattributed. The saying derives from Joan Walsh Anglund’s 1967 verse, with pronouns changed. Its appearance on Maya Angelou’s 2015 stamp did not make it her composition.

  4. You can tell a lot about a person by the way they handle three things: a rainy day, lost luggage and tangled Christmas tree lights

    Misattributed. An earlier version was credited only to a contributor aged 52 in H. Jackson Brown Jr.’s 1991 compilation; Quote Investigator traces the Angelou credit to a later circulating message.

  5. Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

    Not found. No primary Maya Angelou source is established. The earliest printing traced by researchers is Vicki Corona’s 1989 dance booklet, but Corona herself was unsure whether she originated the wording.

Credited to Naval Ravikant

  1. Play long-term games with long-term people.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in How to Get Rich (without getting lucky) (2018), “Play Long-Term Games With Long-Term People”, nav.al/rich (Nivi reading the tweet), said by Nivi.

  2. Specific knowledge is knowledge you cannot be trained for.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in How to Get Rich (without getting lucky) (2018), “Arm Yourself With Specific Knowledge” (subsection “Specific knowledge can’t be trained”), nav.al/rich.

Credited to Friedrich Nietzsche

  1. Some are born to enjoy illusions, others are cursed to see the truth.

    Not found. It is not in Nietzsche’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  2. And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.

    Not found. It is not in Nietzsche’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  3. Hilarious are the weak who think they are good because they have no claws.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883), Part 2, chapter 13 (“The Sublime Ones”, Von den Erhabenen), said by Zarathustra.

  4. 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.

    Misattributed. Rudyard Kipling wrote it, not Nietzsche.

  5. There is more sagacity in thy body than in thy best wisdom.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883), Part 1, chapter 4 (“The Despisers of the Body”, Von den Verächtern des Leibes), said by Zarathustra.

Credited to Oscar Wilde

  1. Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.

    Misattributed. Percy Colson wrote it, not Wilde.

  2. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.

    Not found. It is not in Wilde’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  3. Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.

    Not found. Not in these words, and not as his last words. Friends reported a joke of his about a wallpaper from 1908 on; this wording comes from much later retellings.

  4. Life is too important to be taken seriously.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892), Act I, said by Lord Darlington.

  5. Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.

    Not found. It is not in Wilde’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  6. You can never be overdressed or overeducated.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in Miscellanies (1908), Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young (The Chameleon, December 1894), collected in Miscellanies.

  7. I have nothing to declare except my genius.

    Not found. It is not in Wilde’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  8. Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.

    Not found. It is not in Wilde’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  9. True friends stab you in the front.

    Not found. No source in Wilde has been established. A close form was printed in Walter Winchell’s column in 1955, credited to Jimmy Nelson; the early history here rests on Wikiquote, not directly inspected newspaper pages.

Credited to Fernando Pessoa

  1. Stones in my path? I keep them all. One day I will build a castle.

    Misattributed. Nemo Nox wrote it, not Pessoa.

Credited to Robert Frost

  1. A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back again when it begins to rain.

    Not found. The Frost credit is unverified. A related banking joke appeared in 1905, and a fuller form circulated anonymously by 1930; a 1949 quotation dictionary later credited Frost without establishing his authorship.

Credited to Seneca the Younger

  1. Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

    Not found. It is not in Seneca’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  2. Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.

    Misattributed. Edward Gibbon wrote it, not Seneca.

Credited to Stephen Chbosky

  1. We can’t choose where we come from, but we can choose where we go from there.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in The Perks of Being a Wallflower (1999), Last letter, August 23, 1992 (placement inside the letter inferred, see checked), said by Charlie.

Credited to Steve Jobs

  1. The musicians play their instruments. I play the orchestra.

    Misattributed. Aaron Sorkin wrote it, not Jobs.

  2. I reached the pinnacle of success in the business world. In others’ eyes, my life is an epitome of success.

    Not found. No documented source establishes this as Steve Jobs’s writing or last words. Snopes traced the false attribution to circulation in November 2015; its real author remains unconfirmed.

Credited to Henry David Thoreau

  1. What a man thinks of himself becomes his fate.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in Walden (1854), Chapter 1, “Economy”.

  2. Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in Walden (1854), Chapter 18, “Conclusion”.

  3. Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you. But if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.

    Not found. It is not in Thoreau’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  4. Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.

    Not found. It is not in Thoreau’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  5. The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in Walden (1854), Economy.

Credited to William W. Purkey

  1. You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching, Love like you’ll never be hurt, Sing like there’s nobody listening, And live like it’s heaven on earth.

    Misattributed. Susanna Clark and Richard Leigh wrote it, not Purkey.

  2. Human potential, though not always apparent, is there waiting to be discovered and invited forth.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in William Watson Purkey, What Is Invitational Education and How Does It Work?, conference paper, Annual California State Conference on Self-Esteem, Santa Clara, February 22–24, 1991; ERIC ED334488, p. 11 (PDF page 12), ‘Where Is Invitational Education Headed?’, immediately before ‘Conclusion’.

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