57 famous quotes with no early source
These lines are shared millions of times under famous names. For each one we looked for the original: the book, letter, speech or ancient historian. We could not find it. Here is what we found instead.
“You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
Usually credited to Marcus Aurelius
A modern paraphrase that circulates online. The idea is Stoic, but this sentence is not in the Meditations.
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
Usually credited to Seneca
Not found in Seneca's writings. The line spread in the 20th century and is most often credited to American football coach Darrell Royal.
“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.”
Usually credited to Seneca
A lyric from the 1998 song “Closing Time” by Semisonic, not Seneca.
“I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.”
Usually credited to Alexander the Great
No ancient source records Alexander saying this. Versions of the proverb are credited to many people, and the Alexander attribution appears only in modern times.
“There is nothing impossible to him who will try.”
Usually credited to Alexander the Great
Not found in Plutarch, Arrian or any ancient account of Alexander.
“Until breath leaves my body, defeat is just a rumour.”
Usually credited to Alexander the Great
A modern line from social media with no historical source.
“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”
Usually credited to Socrates
Spoken by a character named “Socrates” in Dan Millman's 1980 novel Way of the Peaceful Warrior, not by the philosopher.
“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.”
Usually credited to Sun Tzu
This line does not appear in The Art of War. It is a modern saying attached to Sun Tzu's name.
“Then we will fight in the shade.”
Usually credited to Leonidas
Real, but not Leonidas: Herodotus (Histories 7.226) gives it to the Spartan soldier Dienekes, when told Persian arrows would block out the sun. The movie 300 moved it to another character.
“It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”
Usually credited to Epictetus
A modern paraphrase of Enchiridion 5. Epictetus's real wording is above.
“Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools.”
Usually credited to Napoleon Bonaparte
An embellished version of his letter to General Lemarois of 9 July 1813, which says only that “it is not possible” is “not French”. The “dictionary of fools” wording is a later invention.
“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
Usually credited to Napoleon Bonaparte
No source in Napoleon's letters or recorded conversations has been found. It appears in modern quotation books without a citation.
“Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.”
Usually credited to Julius Caesar
A line written for Caesar by William Shakespeare in the play Julius Caesar (1599), Act 2, Scene 2, not something the real Caesar said.
“Quality is not an act, it is a habit.”
Usually credited to Aristotle
From the historian Will Durant's summary of Aristotle in The Story of Philosophy (1926), not from Aristotle himself.
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
Usually credited to Aristotle
Not in Aristotle. The closest real line, Nicomachean Ethics 1.3, says an educated person looks for only as much precision as the subject allows.
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
Usually credited to Aristotle
Not found in any of Aristotle's works. “Know thyself” was an older Greek maxim inscribed at Delphi.
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
Usually credited to Leonardo da Vinci
The earliest known use of the exact phrase is a 1952 newspaper article; the link to Leonardo only appears decades later. It is not in his notebooks.
“Art is never finished, only abandoned.”
Usually credited to Leonardo da Vinci
A paraphrase of the French poet Paul Valéry, who said this about poems.
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.”
Usually credited to Leonardo da Vinci
From Goethe's novel Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years, not Leonardo.
“All strange and terrible events are welcome, but comforts we despise.”
Usually credited to Cleopatra
Spoken by Cleopatra in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra (c. 1607), Act 4, a play written 1,600 years after her death.
“Be it known that we, the greatest, are misthought.”
Usually credited to Cleopatra
Also from Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra (Act 5, Scene 2), not the historical queen.
“Conquering the world on horseback is easy; it is dismounting and governing that is hard.”
Usually credited to Genghis Khan
An old Chinese saying, first spoken by the scholar Lu Jia to the founder of the Han dynasty over 1,300 years earlier (Shiji, ch. 97). Chinese advisers are said to have quoted it to Genghis's son Ögedei.
“If you're afraid — don't do it. If you're doing it — don't be afraid!”
Usually credited to Genghis Khan
We found no trace of it in the Persian chronicles or the Secret History of the Mongols. It circulates on quote sites without a source.
“The best way to predict your future is to create it.”
Usually credited to Abraham Lincoln
Not in Lincoln's writings. The idea is usually traced to the computer scientist Alan Kay (“The best way to predict the future is to invent it”, 1971) and the management writer Peter Drucker.
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.”
Usually credited to Abraham Lincoln
Not found in Lincoln's writings. It seems to derive from a remark by Thomas Carlyle, and similar lines appear in biographies written about Lincoln.
“I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.”
Usually credited to Abraham Lincoln
Only found in a newspaper report of 1864 and considered unverified. It is not in his Collected Works.
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
Usually credited to Winston Churchill
Not found anywhere in Churchill's writings or speeches. Early versions come from an American beer advertising campaign of the late 1930s.
“If you're going through hell, keep going.”
Usually credited to Winston Churchill
The Churchill Society's journal Finest Hour calls it “not verifiable in any of the 50 million published words by and about him”.
“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
Usually credited to Winston Churchill
Research at the Churchill Centre has found no record of Churchill saying or writing it.
“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
Usually credited to Albert Einstein
Comes from the physicist John Wheeler's 1979 summary of Einstein's “three rules of work”. No source shows Einstein saying it.
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
Usually credited to Albert Einstein
The earliest attribution to Einstein is in a 1969 book by the psychotherapist Fritz Perls, 14 years after Einstein's death.
“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
Usually credited to Confucius
Not in the Analects. Similar wording appears in the 18th-century English writer Oliver Goldsmith.
“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”
Usually credited to Confucius
Not found in the Analects or other early Confucian texts. The attribution is modern.
“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.”
Usually credited to Confucius
A loose modern rewording of Analects 2.17, quoted correctly above.
“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”
Usually credited to Nikola Tesla
Reported only secondhand by Ralph Bergstresser, who claimed to have heard it in conversation. There is no record of it in Tesla's writings or interviews.
“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
Usually credited to Mahatma Gandhi
No record of Gandhi saying this. It is a modern compression of a 1913 passage in Indian Opinion, quoted above: “If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change.”
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
Usually credited to Mahatma Gandhi
An older proverb, attributed long before Gandhi to Isidore of Seville, St Edmund Rich and others.
“An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.”
Usually credited to Mahatma Gandhi
Written for the 1982 film Gandhi by screenwriter John Briley; there is no record of Gandhi saying it.
“Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.”
Usually credited to Isaac Newton
Written by the American advertising executive Howard W. Newton (1903–1951), not Isaac Newton.
“What we know is a drop, what we don't know is an ocean.”
Usually credited to Isaac Newton
A modern compression of Newton's real remark about the “great ocean of truth”, quoted above.
“Believe you can and you're halfway there.”
Usually credited to Theodore Roosevelt
No record of it in Roosevelt's books, letters or speeches. The attribution is modern.
“Comparison is the thief of joy.”
Usually credited to Theodore Roosevelt
No source in Roosevelt's writings or speeches; it is credited to him only in recent books, without a citation.
“One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it.”
Usually credited to Joan of Arc
A line from Maxwell Anderson's 1946 Broadway play Joan of Lorraine, later used in the 1948 film Joan of Arc.
“I am not afraid; I was born to do this.”
Usually credited to Joan of Arc
A misquotation of her real words at Vaucouleurs, quoted above: “I do not fear men-at-arms; my way has been made plain before me.”
“I will either find a way, or make one.”
Usually credited to Hannibal
Popular in Latin as “aut inveniam viam aut faciam”, but no ancient historian, Livy, Polybius or Plutarch, records Hannibal saying it.
“Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.”
Usually credited to Plato
Not found in any of Plato's dialogues. It started circulating in English in the 20th century.
“Courage is knowing what not to fear.”
Usually credited to Plato
A modern compression. Plato discusses courage as knowledge of what is and isn't to be feared (for example in the Laches), but never in these words.
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”
Usually credited to Lao Tzu
Not in the Tao Te Ching in any standard translation. The attribution is modern.
“To have another language is to possess a second soul.”
Usually credited to Charlemagne
No medieval source records Charlemagne saying this. The attribution is modern.
“Victory is changing the hearts of your opponents by gentleness and kindness.”
Usually credited to Saladin
A modern rewording of his real advice to his son, quoted above: “I have won men's hearts by gentleness and kindness.”
“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”
Usually credited to Benjamin Franklin
Not found in Franklin's papers or in Poor Richard's Almanack. It appears long after his death.
“And yet it moves.”
Usually credited to Galileo Galilei
First recorded by Giuseppe Baretti in 1757, over a century after Galileo's trial. Historians consider it a legend.
“I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him.”
Usually credited to Galileo Galilei
Traced back only as far as Will Durant's history The Age of Reason Begins (1935), with no source in Galileo's writings.
“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.”
Usually credited to Galileo Galilei
Found only in modern books, with no reference to any of Galileo's works.
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”
Usually credited to Marie Curie
Widely quoted, but we found no primary source for it. The versions in print come from later quotation collections without a citation.
“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”
Usually credited to Frederick Douglass
A modern paraphrase. In his Narrative (ch. 6) Douglass writes that learning to read showed him “the pathway from slavery to freedom”, quoted above.
“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”
Usually credited to Frederick Douglass
We found no source for it in Douglass's speeches, letters or autobiographies. It circulates without a citation.
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