Quotations and Literature Forum

I'm putting together a future page on well-known incorrect quotations. I'll post the entries here to keep track of them. Here's one:

This is one of those classic misquotations that persists because people want it to be true. Everyone loves to hear stupid words from the past that were later proven very wrong.

Of course, like many such quotations, it's too good to be true. This one has been misquoted for literally more than a century, and pretty thoroughly debunked as early as 1940. Nevertheless, thanks to the Internet, it persists...

More info here:
http://www.myoutbox.net/posass.htm

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Michael Moncur
Owner and maintainer, The Quotations Page

I could probably offer several suggestions to this thread, but I'll only post this one, because I just recently got all over it.
This quote attributed to Darwin appears to have no source. Many say it came from "Origin of the Species" but I have been all over that with no success.

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but [rather] the [one] most responsive to change."
~Attributed to Charles Darwin
ftp://ftp.knowledge.com/pub/mirrors/gut ... oos610.txt
http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/Darwin2 ... rTopOfPage

Folks often misquote Shakespeare. One common misquotation is "Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him well." The true quotation from Hamlet is:

Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio -- a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?

Good example, Luna (and nice to see you are still around).
Cary Grant never said "Judy, Judy, Judy" either.
http://www.carygrant.net/articles/judy.htm

Excellent example from you, too, thenostromo. Movies are a great source for misquotations--another is "Play it again, Sam" -- Bogey never said that in Casablanca. Two similar lines are in the film:

Ilsa: Play it once, Sam. For old time's sake.
Sam: I don't know what you mean, Miss Ilsa.
Ilsa: Play it, Sam. Play As Time Goes By.

Rick: You know what I want to hear.
Sam: No, I don't.
Rick: You played it for her, you can play it for me.
Sam: Well, I don't think I can remember -
Rick: If she can stand it, I can. Play it.

By the way, I am home for Thanksgiving, then back out to your part of the world, where I've been most of the last three months. Hope I can come home for good mid-December. When I do get to check out this forum, I see so much has been going on that it's hard to keep up!

Cool. Hope you, and everyone that sees this, is having a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Oh, and here's another movie misquote.

"Why don't you come up and see me sometime?" attributed to Mae West is actually:

"What [Mae West ] does say (to a very young Cary Grant) is: 'You know I always did like a man in uniform. And that one fits you grand. Why don't you come up some time and see me?' The easier to articulate version is said to Mae West by W. C. Fields in 'My Little Chickadee' (1939)."
~ Nigel Rees, "Very Interesting . . . But Stupid: Catchphrases from the World of Entertainment"

This is probably too simple for this page, but I'm going to say it anyway. I hear quite often the very well known Shakespeare quote from the Romeo and Juliet balcony scene as "Romeo, Romeo, where art thou, Romeo?" Of course, most know the word is "wherefore," not "where." The mistake usually comes because people attribute the meaning "where" to the word "wherefore." "Wherefore" means "why" in this case, as in, "Romeo, Romeo, why art thou a Montague?" and thus forbidden love, etc., etc.

I don't think this is too simple at all, but a superb example both for the misquotation and the common misunderstanding of meaning. Thanks, ericscot.

Another Shakespearean misquotation: "All that glitters is not gold" from Merchant of Venice. It's actually: "All that glisters is not gold."

Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing~misattributed to Vince Lombardi. Lombardi claims he never said it. It appeared in the 1953 movie Trouble Along the Way. The daughter of a foot ball coach, played by JohnWayne, says of him, "...Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." The movie's producer/screenwriter, Melville Shavelson, credits it to UCLA football coach Red Sanders. Supposedly Sanders used the phrase during the late '40s. Lombardi said at one point that what he said was "Winning isn't everything, the will to win is the only thing." It all goes to who's the most famous. Sanders was an unknown and Lombardi was not so the saying stuck to him.

You can't trust anyone over 30~misattributed to Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and others but it actually belonged to Jack Weinberg in the '60s who was a dissident at UCAL. He originally said "We have a saying in the movement that you can't trust anybody over 30" while being interviewed.