This is a list of famous sayings that we all know and people love to quote to show off their knowledge. But… most of the time people attribute them to the wrong person. In order to put the record straight, here are the top 16 sayings attributed to the wrong person.
1. W C Fields
Anybody who hates children and dogs can’t be all bad.
Actually said by: Leo Rosten: at a dinner introducing Fields
2. Horace Greeley
Go west, young man!
Actually said by: John Soule (Article, Terre Haute Express, 1851)
3. Mark Twain
Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it!
Actually said by: Charles Dudley Warner (Editorial, Hartford Courant, August 24, 1897)
4. Charles Darwin
Survival of the fittest.
Actually said by: Herbert Spencer (Principles of Biology and earlier works)
5. Thomas Jefferson
That government is best which governs least.
Actually said by: Henry David Thoreau (who put it in quotation marks in ‘Civil Disobedience’ and called it a motto)
6. The Bible
Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Actually said by: John Wesley (Sermons, no 93, ‘On Dress’)
7. Confucius
A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.
Actually said by: Lao-Tzu (To Te Ching)
8. The Bible
God helps those who helps themselves.
Actually said by: Aesop (“The gods help them that help themselves”)
9. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
God is in the details.
Actually said by: Francois Rabelais (“The good God is in the details”)
10. Harry S Truman
If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Actually said by: Harry Vaughn (Truman’s friend, whom Truman was quoting)
11. V I Lenin
Promises are like pie crust, made to be broken.
Actually said by: Jonathan Swift (Polite conversation: “promises are like pie crust, leaven to be broken”)
12. Mark Twain
Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.
Actually said by: Edgar Wilson Nye
13. Hermann Goring
When I hear the word “culture”, I reach for my gun.
Actually said by: Hanns Johst (1933 play Schlageter: “Whenever I hear the word ‘culture’, I reach for my Browning”)
14. Vince Lombardi
Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.
Actually said by: Red Sanders (UCLA football coach; quoted in Sports Illustrated, 1955)
15. The Bible
Spare the rod and spoil the child.
Actually said by: Samuel Butler (Hudibras, 1664)
16. Muhammad Ali
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, your hands can’t hit what your eyes can’t see.
Actually said by: Drew ‘Bundini’ Brown (Ali’s good friend)
17. Queen Marie Antoinette
Let them eat cake!
Actually said by: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (In his ‘Confessions’, 1767)
Source: The Book of Lists
Technorati Tags: people
woah, Darwin and Ali didn’t utter those gems?!
anyway, it reminded me of Peter’s (Family Guy) version of the Ali quote: “…floats like a butterfly and stings like when I pee.”
On the Internet, all pseudoscience gets attributed to Einstein and all pseudosprituality gets attributed to the Dalai Lama.
And everything else gets credited to Oscar Wilde, Dorothy Parker or Churchill.
A quote attributed to Mark Twain was really said by “The Science Guy”???????????????????
I wonder how that happened.
Interesting list. By the way, the opening paragraph says “here are the top 16 sayings” instead of 17.
Thanks for the comments (and correction)
Maybe not Bill Nye The Science Guy:
“An article [in the New York Times] on July 8 about fans of Wagner’s “Ring” cycle rendered incorrectly a quotation that Mark Twain used, one he attributed to the humorist Edgar Wilson Nye. Twain wrote, “I have been told that Wagner’s music is better than it sounds,” not that Wagner’s music “isn’t as bad as it sounds.” (The incorrect quotation has appeared at least six times — in articles in 1987, 1989, 1990 and 1995.) A reader pointed out the error in an e-mail message; this correction was delayed for research.”
Regret the Error
Joyce: Thanks for that – I have also corrected it in the article. You have a great blog btw.
Edgar Wilson Nye makes more sense. Thanks for the info Joyce
The most commonly misattributed quote I know is “The masses are more easily swayed by a big lie rather than a small one” that everyone says Hitler said. It was one of his many propagandists, but the name escapes me.
I never heard that false Lenin quote though.
Brian Moo: thanks for adding that.
Whoa, people misquoted/misinterpretted the bible? That must be the first time in like… I dunno… 30 seconds?
I cant believe that Jean-Jacques Rousseau said “Let them eat cake” and not Marie Antoinette. I remember seeing that in my history text book. WOW!
In the top 25 quotes of Truman, number 10 in this list is attributed to him. However this list says that Truman did not make up this quote at all.
Great list! I had no idea that these famous quotes were attributed to the wrong people!
#15 Spare the rod and spoil the child–is from the Bible. It’s Proverbs 13:24. It’s worded a little differently, but that’s basically what it says.
You can read it here:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=proverbs%2013:24&version=31
how is the bible a person?
Thanks Berna for clearing that up. Spare the rod spoil the child is definitely from the bible..
any answers?
Sorry but you forget Martin Luther King
“I dream of a day when black boys and girls and white boys and girls can hold hands.”
Major Paraphrase there though
“Spare the rod and spoil the child” may have been uttered first by Samuel Butler, but it is taken from the idea of Proverbs 23:13-14
“Do not withhold discipline from a child, if you punish him with the rod he will not die. Punish him with the rod ans save his soul from death.”
I’m an avid Thoreau fan, so I knew that one, but the rest were new to me. This was an interesting list.
“A woman needs a mann like a fish needs a bicycle”
-attributed to Steinbeck, but said but Irina Dunn
I wonder who I’m quoting when I say, “don’t believe everything that you read.”
@CrevanFox [21]: i take it you meant Steinem, as in Gloria, and not Steinbeck, as in John.
Name
A correction is needed here. You mentioned that the saying “God helps those who helps themselves.” is actually said by: Aesop, however you couldn’t be more wrong. This saying is derived from the following:
“Surely God does not change the state in which a people are until they change that which is in themselves.” This saying is from the Quran, Chapter ar-Ra`d, verse number 11.