Misattributed philosophy quotes

“Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.”

Hypatia of Alexandria · Elbert Hubbard, Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Teachers (1908)

Not from Hypatia. No writings of hers survive. The line comes from Elbert Hubbard's 1908 fictionalised sketch, where it is spoken by her father Theon to Hypatia: 'Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all,' said Theon. Later posters moved it to her.

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

Aristotle · Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy (1926), summarising Aristotle

Will Durant wrote this in The Story of Philosophy as his own summary of Aristotle's ethics. Aristotle's actual claim, in Nicomachean Ethics II.1, is that we become just by doing just acts. The famous wording is Durant's, and it is an intelligent paraphrase, not a quotation.

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

Aristotle · No known passage in Aristotle

This sentence is not in the Nicomachean Ethics or anywhere else in the Aristotelian corpus. A real remark of his, at Ethics I.3, is that an educated person looks for only as much precision as the subject allows. The two thoughts are not the same.

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

Voltaire · Evelyn Beatrice Hall, The Friends of Voltaire (1906), under the pseudonym S. G. Tallentyre

Hall wrote this as an illustration of Voltaire's attitude, not as a sentence from him. It does not appear in his letters or works. The attitude it sketches is related to arguments he did make for toleration. The words are hers.

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Albert Einstein · No Einstein source; in print in Narcotics Anonymous literature by 1981, and a close line in Rita Mae Brown's Sudden Death (1983)

There is no trace of this definition in Einstein's writings or recorded speech. It circulates in recovery literature from around 1981, and Rita Mae Brown published a similar sentence in 1983. Einstein's name was attached later because the line wanted a genius.

“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”

Albert Einstein · No reliable source in Einstein's papers or interviews

Quotation researchers have not found this sentence in Einstein's works. It is a motivational proverb wearing a famous face. A real, sourced remark of his about mathematics and reality is elsewhere in this library.

“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”

Albert Einstein · No reliable Einstein source

Not found in Einstein's writings. He did talk about imagination in a 1929 interview with George Sylvester Viereck ('Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world'), which is an interview remark with its own caveats. This A-to-B sentence is a different, unsourced line.

“Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”

Confucius · No passage in the Analects; a modern proverb

This is not in the Analects or other early Confucian texts. It is a modern proverb, sometimes dressed up as Japanese or Chinese wisdom. Confucius does warn against repayng injury with injury in a simple way (Analects 14.34 is a nuanced exchange), which is a different argument.

“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

Mohandas K. Gandhi · No such sentence in Gandhi's writings; a later slogan

The seven-word line does not appear in the Collected Works. A longer 1913 passage about changing yourself, and the world changing its attitude, is the text people compress. That passage is included separately and is not this slogan.

“An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”

Mohandas K. Gandhi · No reliable source in Gandhi's writings or speeches

Researchers have not found this sentence in Gandhi. It fits a popular picture of his nonviolence, which is why it stuck. A similar thought is much older as a criticism of retaliation, but this wording is not his.

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

Plato · Not in Plato; a modern line associated with the Scottish writer Ian Maclaren (John Watson), 1890s

There is no such sentence in the dialogues. A close form, 'Be pitiful, for every man is fighting a hard battle', is associated with Ian Maclaren in the 1890s. Plato's name was added because kindness-plus-antiquity sounds Platonic. It is not.

“The mind is everything. What you think, you become.”

The Buddha · Not a sentence of the Pali canon; a modern motivational formula

This pair of sentences is not in the Dhammapada or the major discourses. The canon does say that mind is the forerunner of states (Dhammapada 1–2), which is a more precise and less magical claim. The poster line overshoots that teaching and has no early source.

“The ends justify the means.”

Niccolò Machiavelli · Not a sentence in The Prince or the Discourses

Machiavelli never wrote this sentence. The Prince does discuss cases in which a ruler's cruel means are judged by the stability they produce, especially in chapter 18. That is an argument a reader can reject. It is not this slogan, which has no limits and no author.

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

Edmund Burke · No source in Burke; the familiar form is modern

This sentence is not in the Reflections or Burke's other works. Related thoughts about the success of evil when good people fail to oppose it appear in various 19th-century writers, including John Stuart Mill in another form. The quotation people attribute to Burke is a later set piece. His real line about society as a partnership across generations is in this library.

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

Charles Darwin · Leon C. Megginson, 1963, paraphrasing what he took to be Darwin's lesson

Leon C. Megginson, a management professor, wrote this thought in 1963 as a lesson he drew from Darwin. Darwin did not write it. 'Survival of the fittest' is Herbert Spencer's phrase, which Darwin later used, and it is also not this sentence. The line is a business-school reading of evolution.

“If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.”

Laozi · Not in the Dao De Jing; a modern self-help formula

No chapter of the Dao De Jing says this. The book's real cautions about authorship are already serious enough without adding a wellness slogan. The line circulates as 'Lao Tzu' because the name signals calm.

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

Friedrich Nietzsche · No work by Nietzsche

Quotation researchers have not found this in Nietzsche's books or notebooks. It circulates as a poster line. The tone, dancers misunderstood by the unmusical, is a twentieth-century picture of the eccentric, not a section of The Gay Science. His real line about music is a different sentence and is sourced.

“What you resist persists.”

Carl Jung · Later pop-psychology slogan; not a sentence in the Collected Works

This line is not in the Collected Works, in Memories, Dreams, Reflections, or in Modern Man in Search of a Soul. It is a later pop-psychology compression. The nearest sentence of his is Collected Works volume 9 part ii, paragraph 51: what is suppressed comes up again in another place, in altered form, loaded with resentment. That is a different claim, and it is filed under its own id.

“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”

Carl Sagan · Sharon Begley, Newsweek, 1977, writing about Sagan; not a sentence he published

Quote researchers trace this sentence to Sharon Begley's 1977 Newsweek article about Sagan, not to a line in Cosmos, Broca's Brain, or The Demon-Haunted World. It sounds like his wonder. It is a reporter's sentence. Do not cite it as his.