List of misquotations

This page consists of things that many people think are correct quotes but are actually incorrect. This does not have quotes that were actually blunders by the people that said them.

• "Beam me up, Scotty"
  • Notes: From the Star Trek science-fiction TV series. Several variants of this do occur in the series, such as "Beam me aboard" or "Two to beam up", but never "Beam me up, Scotty".

• "Elementary, my dear Watson"
  • Correct quote: "Elementary", on one occasion; "my dear Watson" on another. Never together - Sherlock Holmes
  • Notes: According to the Sherlock Holmes series of books, the expression was uttered in some derivative works such as Sherlock Holmes films and television programmes.

• "Et tu, Brute?" or "Et tu, Brutus?"
  • Translation: You too, Brutus?
  • Note: The second one was incorrect Latin grammar, as it didn't correctly use the vocative case.
  • "Et tu, Brute?" This is an accurate quotation of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. He renders as Latin in an English play what was originally quoted as Greek spoken by a Roman.
  • Correct quote: "Kai su, teknon?" (quoted by Suetonius)
    • Translation (from Greek, the language of Rome's elite at the time): "You too, my child?"
  • Note: It is very unlikely that Caesar actually said these words.

• "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend me your ears." - William Shakespeare (Julius Caesar)
  • Notes: normally attributed to Julius Caesar, but actually said by Antony.

• "Hubble bubble, toil and trouble."
  • Correct quote: "Double double, toil and trouble." - William Shakespeare (Macbeth)

• "Me Tarzan, you Jane."
  • Occurs in none of the Tarzan films nor in the book by Edgar Rice Burroughs

• "Methinks the lady doth protest too much"
  • Correct quote: "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" - William Shakespeare (Hamlet)

• "Now is the winter of our discontent."
  • In context: "Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this son of York." - William Shakespeare (Richard III)
  • Notes: This is a misquotation because, despite the same word-order, the grammar of the quotation is different from the grammar of the original. In the quotation, is is the main verb, with the force of exists or occurs: "The winter of our discontent is happening now." In the original, is is a helper verb, rendering the sentence a passive (and subjectless) form of "(Something) now makes the winter of our discontent glorious"

• "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."
  • Alternative: "We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us."
  • Notes: allegedly from Rough Men by George Orwell. There is no evidence in existence that Orwell ever wrote or uttered either of these versions of this idea. While these do bear some similarity to a comment made in an essay that Orwell wrote on Rudyard Kipling, the two statements above are considered to be illegitimate by Orwell scholars.

• "Play it again, Sam"
  • Correct quote: "You played it for her, you can play it for me. ... If she can stand it, I can! Play it!" - Humphrey Bogart (Casablanca)
  • Another correct quote: "Play it once, Sam. For old times' sake. ... Play 'As Time Goes By'." - Ingrid Bergman (Casablanca)
    • Note: Woody Allen made a homage to Casablanca under the title Play It Again, Sam.

• "Someone set us up the bomb"
  • Correct quote: "Somebody set up us the bomb"
  • Notes: From a Japanese video game, Zero Wing, with a very unprofessional and amusing English translation

• "The rest is science"
  • Correct quote: "The rest is silence" - William Shakespeare (Hamlet)

• "To gild the lily"
  • Correct quote: "To gild refined gold, to paint the lily" - William Shakespeare (The Life and Death of King John, Act IV, Scene II, line 13)

• "Why don't you come up and see me sometime?"
  • Correct quote: "Why don't you come up sometime and see me?" - Mae West

• "Luke, I am your father."
  • Correct quote: "No. I am your father." - Darth Vader, The Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars Episode V
  • Notes: Said in response to Luke Skywalker's accusation toward his father's death: "He told me enough! He told me you killed him!"

• "Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him well."
  • Correct quote: "Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio - a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy." - William Shakespeare (Hamlet, Act V, Scene I)

• "You dirty rat!"
  • Never said by James Cagney in any film.

• "Pride goes before a fall"
  • Correct quote: "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall" - Bible (King James Version), Proverbs 16:18

• "The only traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, sodomy and the lash."
  • Winston Churchill's assistant, Anthony Montague-Browne said that although Churchill had not said this, he wished he had.

• "A language is a dialect with a Navy."
  • This was not said by Otto von Bismarck, but rather by the linguist Max Weinreich or his student Joshua Fishman, who actually said "A shprakh iz a diyalekt mit an armey un a flot" (in English: "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.")

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People to whom many quotations are erroneously attributed:

• Dorothy Parker
• Dan Quayle
• Oscar Wilde
• Winston Churchill

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References:

• Ralph Keyes: "Nice guys finish seventh - False phrases, spurious sayings and familiar misquotations", HarperCollins 1992. (see at Amazon)