Did they really say that?

Great things grow from small beginnings, so start with what is right in front of you. The original says the journey begins “beneath one's feet.”

Truth did give a famous speech for women's rights in 1851, but the refrain “Ain't I a woman?” appears only in a version published twelve years later by another activist.

Latin for “the die has been cast.” Once dice are thrown you cannot take them back, so the phrase marks a decision that commits you to whatever happens next.

A line that sums up Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence, but it has not been found in anything he wrote or said. Martin Luther King Jr. used a close version in 1958, and the 1982 film Gandhi made it famous.

Gandhi did write that changing ourselves changes how the world treats us. The neat one-line slogan is a modern paraphrase that does not appear anywhere in his writings.

A witty push to be authentic. It is not found anywhere in Wilde's works; the earliest known exact match is anonymous and from 1999, a century after his death.

Churchill did say this in Parliament in 1947, but in longer words and with a twist most people miss. He introduced it as something “that has been said,” not as his own invention.

A line from a 1997 newspaper column written as an imaginary commencement speech. The column became the hit song “Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)” and its lines were credited to famous people.

The catchphrase of Sherlock Holmes, which he never says in the original stories. Holmes does say “Elementary” and “my dear Watson,” but never together.

Latin for “You too, Brutus?” In Shakespeare's play these are Caesar's dying words when he sees his friend Brutus among his killers. The phrase now means shock at being betrayed by someone you trusted.

Henry's call for Virginia to arm itself against Britain, weeks before the fighting began at Lexington and Concord. The famous words were written down only 42 years later, from listeners' memories.

Einstein rejected the idea that quantum mechanics is fundamentally random. “God” was his way of talking about the laws of nature, not a personal God.

The calm radio call from Apollo 13 after an oxygen tank exploded. The real words were “we've had a problem,” said first by Jack Swigert and repeated by Jim Lovell.

A summary of Voltaire's attitude written by an English biographer in 1906. She later explained that she never meant it as a quotation.

The popular summary of Socrates' wisdom: he was wiser than others only because he knew the limits of his knowledge. The exact phrase is a later compression of what Plato wrote.

The last words reported of a 21-year-old American spy hanged by the British. They were written down years later, and they echo a line from a popular play of the time.

A saying from the recovery movement of the early 1980s. There is no trace of it in Einstein's papers, letters or interviews.

An encouraging line that fits Mandela's life perfectly, but it has not been traced to anything he said or wrote. It spread online in the 2000s and especially after his death in 2013.

A business professor's 1963 summary of Darwin's ideas, applied to management. It was later shortened and credited to Darwin himself.

A story about an unnamed “great princess” in Rousseau's memoirs, written when Marie Antoinette was about ten years old and living in Vienna. Revolutionary-era propaganda and later writers attached it to her.

Latin for “remember that you must die.” It is a reminder that life is short, meant to make you humble and to push you to spend your days on what matters.

A shortened form of 1 Timothy 6:10, which warns against the love of money, not money itself. Dropping “the love of” changes the meaning.

Everything flows and changes, so the river is never the same twice, and neither are you. The popular wording is a later paraphrase of Heraclitus's surviving fragments.

An empowering line credited to Eleanor Roosevelt during her lifetime. It has never been found in her columns, books or speeches, so its true origin is unknown.

Arrogance leads to ruin. The popular saying shortens a two-part verse from the Book of Proverbs, which pairs pride with destruction and a haughty spirit with a fall.

Twain's joke when a newspaper wrongly reported he was dying. His real words were drier: “The report of my death was an exaggeration.”

Latin for “time flees,” the source of the English saying “time flies.” Virgil's fuller line adds that the time lost can never be recovered.

An old joke about a cold summer, retold about many cities. Twain's papers contain nothing like it about San Francisco, though he did once retell an older version about Paris.

Education should not just pour facts into students but light their own desire to think and to find the truth.

One of the most quoted sayings in politics, but it does not appear in Burke's works. Burke and John Stuart Mill both wrote similar, longer thoughts.

A modern summary of Aristotle's ethics by the American historian Will Durant. The idea is Aristotle's; the sentence is Durant's.

A line from an academic article about forgotten Puritan women. Its author meant that ordinary, dutiful women are left out of history books, not that women should misbehave.

A line about inner character mattering more than past or future. It was written in 1940 by Henry Stanley Haskins, not by Emerson, who died in 1882.

A teenager thinks his father knows nothing. A few years later, grown up, he realizes his father was wise all along. The joke is that it was the son who changed.

A coach's line that only victory counts. UCLA coach Red Sanders said it first; Lombardi used it later and said he regretted how it was understood.