They never said that.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do.

Actually: From H. Jackson Brown's book P.S. I Love You (1990), where it is credited to Brown's mother. Twain died in 1910.

Golf is a good walk spoiled.

Actually: Twain scholar R. Kent Rasmussen says he probably never said it; an early version ("to play golf is to spoil an otherwise enjoyable walk") appears in a 1903 tennis book.

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

Actually: Origin unknown. Twain's real comments on San Francisco weather were mild and complimentary.

History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

Actually: The earliest known appearance is a 1970 poem by John Robert Colombo — sixty years after Twain's death.

I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.

Actually: Blaise Pascal, Provincial Letters, Letter 16 (1657).

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

Actually: Appears in a 1981 Narcotics Anonymous text and in Rita Mae Brown's novel Sudden Death (1983). Not in any Einstein source.

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.

Actually: No evidence Einstein said or wrote it; versions of the fish-and-tree fable circulated without his name long before.

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.

Actually: E. F. Schumacher, "Small is Beautiful", The Radical Humanist (1973).

It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.

Actually: Not in The Ultimate Quotable Einstein or any reliable source; Quote Investigator traces it to an internet meme around 2012.

If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live.

Actually: First tied to Einstein in a 1994 leaflet from French beekeepers protesting cheap honey imports.

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

Actually: No record of Gandhi saying it. A close version appears in a 1918 speech by US union organiser Nicholas Klein.

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

Actually: Never found in Gandhi's writings; it became famous through the 1982 film Gandhi. Similar lines appear earlier from others.

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

Actually: An old proverb, attributed to medieval writers and printed in English in 1867 — two years before Gandhi was born.

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

Actually: Not in Gandhi's Collected Works. A similar idea comes from the German theologian David Strauss (1872).

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

Actually: Quote Investigator found the earliest close version in a 1938 Budweiser advertisement.

If you're going through hell, keep going.

Actually: No evidence Churchill said or wrote it; the Churchill Project lists it as spurious.

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

Actually: The Churchill Project lists it among things he never said.

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

Actually: Closest early version is by the poet Muriel Strode (1903): "I will not follow where the path may lead, but I will go where there is no path, and I will leave a trail."

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

Actually: Henry Stanley Haskins, Meditations in Wall Street (1940).

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

Actually: Not found in Emerson's essays, journals or letters; the attribution is modern.

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

Actually: No contemporary evidence; early versions credit an anonymous woodsman.

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

Actually: Robert G. Ingersoll writing about Lincoln in 1883 — a compliment, later turned into a quote.

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Actually: Evelyn Beatrice Hall, summing up Voltaire's attitude in The Friends of Voltaire (1906).

To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.

Actually: Traced to the American white-nationalist writer Kevin Alfred Strom (1993). Nothing to do with Voltaire.

Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.

Actually: Pierre-Marc-Gaston de Lévis, Maximes et réflexions (1808).

Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

Actually: No trace in Shaw's plays, prefaces or letters; it was attached to his name long after his death.

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

Actually: Will Durant summarising Aristotle in The Story of Philosophy (1926).

Only the dead have seen the end of war.

Actually: George Santayana, Soliloquies in England (1922).

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

Actually: Traced to the Scottish minister John Watson ("Ian Maclaren"), around 1897.

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.

Actually: No Analects source; the saying appears only in 20th-century print.

Watch your thoughts, they become words; watch your words, they become actions.

Actually: Quote Investigator traces it to Frank Outlaw, a US supermarket executive, in 1977.

Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.

Actually: A loose modern rendering of an idea from the Chinese philosopher Xunzi (3rd century BC). Not in Franklin.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

Actually: Not found anywhere in Schopenhauer's works; the attribution appears in the 20th century.

To love another person is to see the face of God.

Actually: A lyric from the 1980 stage musical Les Misérables, not from Hugo's novel.

Be curious, not judgmental.

Actually: Not Whitman. The line went viral from the TV series Ted Lasso (2020), which credited him.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

Actually: Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love (1992). Mandela never used it in his 1994 inaugural speech, despite the legend.

It always seems impossible until it's done.

Actually: No source has been found in Mandela's speeches, letters or books.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Actually: Mary Schmich, "Wear Sunscreen" column, Chicago Tribune (1997).

If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.

Actually: No source in Tesla's articles, patents, interviews or autobiography has been found.

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.

Actually: No evidence Ford said it; it appears only in the late 1990s.

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

Actually: Quote Investigator traces the idea to sportswriter Red Smith, not Hemingway.

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

Actually: The story of Hemingway writing this on a bet first appears decades after his death; versions of the ad circulated in newspapers from 1906.

When men stop believing in God they don't believe in nothing; they believe in anything.

Actually: A summary of Chesterton's ideas by Émile Cammaerts (1937), not Chesterton's own sentence.

A goal without a plan is just a wish.

Actually: Not found in Saint-Exupéry's books; a modern business slogan.

Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.

Actually: Not found in Luther's writings; it first appears in Germany in 1944.

Well-behaved women seldom make history.

Actually: Historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, in an academic article (1976).

If you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.

Actually: No source exists from her lifetime; it appeared online in the 2000s.

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.

Actually: No trace in Wilde's works, letters or recorded conversation. It was attached to his name only in recent decades.

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

Actually: No source in Nietzsche's works; the attribution is modern.

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

Actually: Not in Seneca's works. The modern wording dates from the 20th century.

Do not write so that you can be understood, write so that you cannot be misunderstood.

Actually: The Roman rhetorician Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria 8.2.24 — about speakers, not writers.

If you want to be happy, be.

Actually: From the aphorisms of Kozma Prutkov, a fictional author invented by Aleksey Tolstoy (a distant cousin) and friends.

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.

Actually: Not in any Buddhist scripture. It is a modern paraphrase loosely based on a commentary by Buddhaghosa (5th century).

The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.

Actually: Popularised by John F. Kennedy, who credited Dante. The Inferno does put the neutral in Hell's vestibule, but this sentence is not in the poem.

When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

Actually: Monticello's research found no evidence Jefferson said it; it surfaces in the 20th century.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Actually: Not found in Burke. The closest real lines are his "When bad men combine, the good must associate" (1770) and John Stuart Mill's 1867 "Bad men need nothing more… than that good men should look on and do nothing."

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

Actually: Leon C. Megginson, a management professor, paraphrasing Darwin in a 1963 speech.

It is never too late to be what you might have been.

Actually: Not found in any of Eliot's novels, essays or letters. It was attached to her name in the late 20th century.

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.

Actually: No source in Stevenson's works has been found; it appears under his name only in modern collections.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Actually: No source in Freud's writings or in reliable accounts of his conversation; it appears decades after his death.

Comparison is the thief of joy.

Actually: No evidence Roosevelt said or wrote it; the attribution appears only in recent decades.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Actually: Not in Leonardo's notebooks. The line appears in the 20th century, with no link to him.

Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.

Actually: Not found in Camus' works; it is an old camp and scouting saying.

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

Actually: Not found in Orwell's works; it starts appearing under his name in the 1980s.

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

Actually: Associated with motivational speaker Les Brown; not found in Lewis's works.

Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.

Actually: Not found in the Hippocratic writings; it appears in the 20th century.

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

Actually: Journalist Sharon Begley, describing Sagan in Newsweek (1977).