Apocryphal quotations

[Not2Pervy]

I remember once reading that Sigmund Freud’s last words, on his deathbed, was the question, “What do women want?”

Since as a younger man I was somewhat consumed with the same question I was quite struck by the thought that the supposed master had also been stumped. Only later did I learn that the quote was false. It never happened.

I thought that was too bad because by then I’d also heard what I thought was the best answer: “Women want more.” (Perhaps that applies equally to men, but at least the answer is snappy and kind of clever).

So I throw this out to the group: What is your favorite quotation that you later learned is false? The internet is packed with bogus quotes and surely I’m not the only one who had one that hit them.

Let’s share…

 

[StillStunned]

"Play it again, Sam."

 

[lovecraft68]

https://www.google.com/search?q=how...ate=ive&vld=cid:616c6281,vid:O6rHeD5x2tI,st:0

 

[SimonDoom]

People commonly remember the line in Hamlet as "Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him well" when in fact it is "Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him, Horatio."

As far as I know, there's no actual evidence that George Washington ever told his father "I cannot tell a lie" after being asked if he chopped down the cherry tree, but we all learned that one as a kid.

 

[Carnevil9]

For years I though that "One experiment is worth a thousand expert opinions" was attributable to Thomas Edison. But I could never find any references to him actually using it. To this day I don't know where it really came from. But I still use it a lot. Maybe *I* made it up?

 

[NuclearFairy]

For years I though that "One experiment is worth a thousand expert opinions" was attributable to Thomas Edison. But I could never find any references to him actually using it. To this day I don't know where it really came from. But I still use it a lot. Maybe *I* made it up?

No, I've heard that one too. Not sure where... Maybe Bill Nye?

 

[yowser]

Mark Twain gets misattributed often, not unreasonably since he had a knack for snappy quotes, but for this one there's no evidence he ever said it (at least in the written record.)

The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.

 

[12oclocktales]

"Money is the root of all evil."
Nope, it's the love of money that is.

 

[YmaOHyd]

"Play it again, Sam."

In the same vein, "Luke, I am your father."

 

[Bramblethorn]

In the same vein, "Luke, I am your father."

"Elementary, my dear Watson".

Mark Twain gets misattributed often, not unreasonably since he had a knack for snappy quotes, but for this one there's no evidence he ever said it (at least in the written record.)

Him and Einstein. If it's cynical and wry it goes to Twain (or maybe Wilde), and if it sounds vaguely deep and fits on a motivational poster it musta been Einstein who said it.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Cet animal est très méchant,
Quand on l’attaque il se défend.
. .La Ménagerie

(This animal is extremely malicious.
When one attacks it, it defends itself.)

 

[gunhilltrain]

I suspect a lot of Yogi Berra quotes are not real, but I think his whole persona was a kind of performance. Even if real, much of what he said was tongue-in-cheek. I don't think he was serious when he said (I think in regards to some restaurant): "It's so crowded that no one goes there any more." Yet, still funny, and in some twisted way, true.

 

[YmaOHyd]

I suspect a lot of Yogi Berra quotes are not real, but I think his whole persona was a kind of performance. Even if real, much of what he said was tongue-in-cheek. I don't think he was serious when he said (I think in regards to some restaurant): "It's so crowded that no one goes there any more." Yet, still funny, and in some twisted way, true.

And he was such a weird guy that most anything could be plausibly attributed to him. He broke his thumb in 1949 and, following the advice of his mother (I think), tried to heal it by replacing the cast with a lemon. He wore a lemon on his thumb for, like, six weeks, as reported by David Halberstam in Summer of '49.

On the other hand, he was genuinely very quotable -- "that's one of the things I said that I never said" was said to a New York Times reporter in the late '90s.

 

[AwkwardMD]

The customer is always right

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.

Commonly attributed to Yeats, but it doesn't seem to be in any of his writings, published or not. At least one would-be quoter declared it to have been found on Yeats' bulletin board, but I've never heard of Yeats having a bulletin board. For many others, the quote may be more about Yeats than by him.

 

[StillStunned]

There doesn't seem to be any firm evidence that the real Macbeth actually said the whole "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" thing.

 

[TheLobster]

 

[Bazzle]

Let them eat cake...apparently she didn't say it.

 

[StillStunned]

Let them eat cake...apparently she didn't say it.

It's still an excellent idea, though.

 

[DreamingOfMyEx]

"The further a society drifts away from the truth the more it will hate those that speak it."

Often mistakenly attributed to George Orwell - the real author was Selwyn Duke.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Him and Einstein. If it's cynical and wry it goes to Twain (or maybe Wilde), and if it sounds vaguely deep and fits on a motivational poster it musta been Einstein who said it.

Nigel Rees's First Law of Quotation is: when it doubt, attribute it to George Bernard Shaw. And he says "Shaw, Churchill, Oscar Wilde, Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain have been fixed in the popular mind as practically the only sources of sharp, quotable phrases. It is alarming the way in which almost any statement that is not obviously linked to another creator will one day end up being attributed to one of these five." That was in the '80s, and Ghandi and Einstein are in there now too.

"Those who do not know the past are condemned to repeat it" is a famous misattributed Churchill.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

And that reminds me of a quote properly attributed to someone very much like myself but with a different name:

"Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are bound to repeat the course."

 

[gunhilltrain]

Nigel Rees's First Law of Quotation is: when it doubt, attribute it to George Bernard Shaw. And he says "Shaw, Churchill, Oscar Wilde, Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain have been fixed in the popular mind as practically the only sources of sharp, quotable phrases. It is alarming the way in which almost any statement that is not obviously linked to another creator will one day end up being attributed to one of these five." That was in the '80s, and Ghandi and Einstein are in there now too.

"Those who do not know the past are condemned to repeat it" is a famous misattributed Churchill.

It was George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Some quotes are drastically shortened. Henry Ford's "History is bunk" was taken from a longer statement. "History is more or less bunk. It is tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today."

 

[gunhilltrain]

It's still an excellent idea, though.

The closest is Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions in 1765, 24 years prior to the French Revolution, "At length I remembered the last resort of a great princess who, when told that the peasants had no bread, replied: 'Then let them eat brioches.' (an enriched kind of French bread)." He doesn't specify a particular person and he certainly didn't mean Marie Antoinette.