*** This is often further misquoted as "Let us eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die". This is a blending of the verse with Ecclesiastes 8:15 "Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: for that shall abide with him of his labour the days of his life, which God giveth him under the sun."
**** In his first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul actually cites the quote "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die" from Isaiah 22:13, which goes like this: "Look, you feast and celebrate, you slaughter oxen and butcher sheep, / you eat meat and drink wine, saying: 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die'" (New American Bible).
* Ever read the Book of Revelations? Everyone's at least heard of it, right? Wrong. There is no Book of Revelations anywhere in the Bible. There is only the Book of Revelation, singular (full title: "The Revelation of St. John the Divine", also called "Apocalypse" from Greek ''Apokalypsis'', "lifting the veil".
** Other book titles are also a bit confused -- e.g. Deuteronomy comes from the Greek for "second law", a mistranslation of ''mishneh ha-torah ha-zoth'', "a copy of this law", while Psalms is from the Greek &#936;&#945;&#955;&#956;&#959;&#943; ''Psalmoi'', "music of the lyre" or "songs sung to a harp", which is pretty different from the Hebrew ''Tehillim'' ("praises").
* Although the Bible does say "Do not judge" it is taken out of a larger context telling people how to judge. The most popular reference is in Mathew: "7:1 Judge not, that ye be not judged," which goes on to say, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye." This doesn't mean "don't judge anyone ever, just "don't be a hypocrite". Elsewhere Jesus commands his followers to judge: John 7:24 "Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly."
* The Bible never says "hate the sin, love the sinner." This is actually a quote from Mahatma Gandhi. Contrary to this, the Bible says: Proverbs 23:7 "Or for as he thinks within himself, so he is."
** Before Gandhi said it, it was St. Augustine of Hippo. "Love the sinner and hate the sin" is a translation of ''Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum'', which is from Opera Omnia, Vol II. Col. 962, letter 211.
** On the other hand, the Book of Proverbs is in the Old Testament, and if there is any message with which Jesus could agree more than "hate the sin, love the sinner," I challenge you to find it. In the New Testament, please.
*** It's not so much the "love the sinner" part that Jesus might disagree with, it's "hate the sin." While Jesus certainly commands people to avoid sin, avoiding something is not the same as hating it. (If you avoid chocolate cake because you're trying to lose weight, that doesn't mean you hate chocolate cake.)
**** Depends on the connotation of the word "hate". A word in Greek or Latin that means "avoid" or "refrain from" can sometimes be translated into English, albeit loosely, as "hate". Even if the sentiment of "hate the sin, love the sinner" is not ''expressly'' stated in the New Testament, it can nevertheless be inferred from the rest of Jesus' teachings, which is probably where St. Augustine got it from. Proverbs 23:7 can easily be interpreted as explaining the psychological effect that rationalizing sin has upon onself, rather than having anything to do with justifying casting judgement upon others.
* The Bible never says "all sins are equal". Although it says all sins lead to death, the Bible is clear that there are different levels of sin. John 19:11 "Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin." Also made apparent by the existence of an unpardonable sin (Mat 12:31).
* The line, "God moves in mysterious ways" never appears once in any form in the Bible. It is, rather, taken from a popular hymn, "God Moves In A Mysterious Way," by William Cowper, 1774.
* The line, "To err is human; to forgive, divine" is one where the '' phraseology'' is correct, but not the ''use'' - ''err'' in context means ''sin''.
* The phrase "Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime" and its variants is often mistakenly attributed to the Bible.
* Triumph's song, "Fight the Good Fight," attributes "better to give than to receive" to the Bible ("the Good Book"). Almost right;
** Acts 20:35 - "In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is '''more blessed''' to give than to receive.’"
* Literature/TheBible does not forbid masturbation. The only time it is mentioned is when Onan in Genesis 38 "spills his seed" by not giving his brother a rightful heir and is struck down. He was struck down because he did not give his brother a rightful heir, not because he "spilt his seed". There are also those who think Onan probably spilled his seed by coitus interruptus, not masturbation.
** Pretty obviously a reference to pulling out. The full quotation is: "And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother." Take a wild guess as to what "went in unto his brother's wife" means. The passage is most likely an exhortation to honor levirate marriages, arguably about contraception, but certainly nothing to do with masturbation.
** Matthew 5:28 - "But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." Whoever look upon a woman with lust has committed adultery against his own wife. Pretty irrelevant to masturbation in most interpretations.
*** Only if one is masturbating purely for the sake of enjoying the sensation of an orgasm, and not with pornography or at the very least dirty thoughts in mind, which, while I can't speak for anyone else…
** The media has always repeated Jesus' lesson in John 8:7, [[WantonCrueltyToTheCommonComma "Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone."]] It actually says, "He who is without sin ''among you, let him'' cast the first stone ''at her''."
* TheQuran doesn't clearly state anywhere that martyrs will get 72 virgins.
** The Qur'an also teaches that women have souls and will go to paradise. Also that they should be educated. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Islam And a lot of other stuff.]]
*** Suffice it to say that a lot of the maltreatment women get at the hands of "Islam" is local custom that has been justified by [[TwistingTheWords taking bits of the Qur'an and flimsy pieces of Hadith]] (the words of TheProphetMuhammad, which are extremely persuasive but not absolute authority on Islamic law) over the centuries.
* Quick, what are the four horsemen of the apocalypse? Under most translations, the first one is Conquest, not Pestilence.
** And is often associated with the Antichrist/the Beast from the Sea. The only mention of pestilence in these passages is with the (fourth) rider on the pale horse, who is generally identified as Death.
** In fact, Death is the only Horseman explicitly given a name in the text. The other three are commonly known as War, Famine, and Conquest because of what they're described as carrying or doing.
* The ever popular Philippians 4:13 is commonly thought to say "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." (or "Christ who gives me strength") This is an amalgamation of the KJV and NIV translations. "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. (KJV)" and "I can do everything through him who gives me strength."
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* In ''Star Trek: The Game'', one of the trivia questions is to name an episode in which Kirk said the exact phrase "Beam me up, Scotty." It is a trick question and if the player names an episode, the player's ship loses an engine.
* The classic ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' complainy forum post is [[http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=31914 "My hate of d02 know no limit"]]. Not "my ''[[NiceHat hat]]'' of d02 know no limit".
* The cry/chant of the Khorne worshipping Chaos Marines in Warhammer40000 is not "Kill! Maim! Burn!" One member of their group (who, by the by, is crazy even by their standards, and will readily murder his allies) says it. The rest prefer "Blood for the Blood God!"
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theater]]
* There are a few [[Creator/WilliamShakespeare Shakespearean]] examples of this.
** "Lead on, Macduff", which is a common misquotation of Theatre/{{Macbeth}}'s "Lay on, Macduff", often used in a completely different context from how it is used in the play. Macbeth is challenging Macduff to attack him in the final scene, threatening that it will be no holds barred. Macduff then fights Macbeth, killing him off-stage.
** Also, Lady Macbeth never actually says ''Out, out damn spot!''. Macbeth does say "Out, out, brief candle!", which is probably where the confusion stems from. Lady Macbeth's line was actually "Out, damned spot!", with only one "out", and "damned", not "damn".
*** Also, Macbeth's line when he hallucinates the dagger is often quoted as "Is this a dagger I see before me?" However, Macbeth actually says "Is this a dagger '''which''' I see before me, the handle toward my hand?"
** ''Theatre/{{Macbeth}}'': "Double, double toil and trouble.", not "Bubble bubble" ''or'' "Hubble, bubble". If nothing else, they rhyme it with "bubble" in the next line, so it'd be a pretty lazy rhyme.
*** Also, they used toe of ''frog,'' not toad. Though they threw a ''whole'' toad in there too.
** From ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'': Queen Gertrude never said "Methinks the lady doth protest too much"; it was actually "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." Which isn't terribly different but is certainly drier. Note that the line means something mostly different than what people think it means ("protest" means "talk", not "speak against" or "complain".)
** Although Hamlet undoubtedly "knew him well", he never said so of Yorick in so many words.
--->'''Hamlet''': 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 rises at it.
**** Of all things, '''Highlander 2''' got this right, you can hear the people in the theatre getting started on that scene before ConneryReborn pops into existence.
*** Also, this scene in which he is holding Yorick's skull is completely separate from the ''"To be or not to be"'' soliloquy earlier in the play where he holds no skull.
** And while we're on "To be or not to be," most people get the words right, but are so far off on the tone of voice that it loses its meaning. Hamlet is at that point contemplating suicide, not something normally done in a loud and powerful voice with raised fist.
*** Also, "more honored in the breach than in the observance" actually means "it is more honourable not to do it", not "it is rarely done".
** Also from ''Hamlet'', Polonius is often quoted as saying, "Neither a borrower nor a lender be, but to thine own self be true." That quote comes from two different sentences in the scene where he is giving advice to Laertes.
*** It should also be noted that "To thine own self be true" is most likely not quite as noble as it may seem. In context, it can be more accurately be rendered as "Don't stoop below your station" or "Remember and honor your nobility," rather than "Be yourself."
** And another thing, Horatio says "Good-night, sweet prince; And '''flights of angels''' sing thee to thy rest", not "a flight of angels".
** Prospero from ''Theatre/TheTempest'' has a line that is frequently misquoted as "the stuff that dreams are made of." He is actually talking about the transience of human life, and the line goes: "We are such stuff / As dreams are made on, and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep."
*** That misquote may have originated in the movie ''Film/TheMalteseFalcon'', and its final two lines:
---->'''Detective Tom Polhaus''' (holding the Maltese Falcon): Heavy. What is it?\\
'''Sam Spade''': The, uh, stuff that dreams are made of.
** "Romeo, Romeo... Wherefore art thou Romeo?" Not a misquote but a common misinterpretation; it doesn't mean "Where are you, Romeo?" but "Why are you Romeo?" i.e., "Why is it the one named Romeo [[FeudingFamilies Montague]] that I love?" This one is so firmly ingrained (by a million comedy skits that have Romeo replying "I'm down here!") that when David Beckham named his son Romeo, one British newspaper felt it had to alter the quote to ask '''WHY''' FOR ART THOU ROMEO? Poor dears thought they were punning. The dating website OKCupid uses this as a shibboleth to help theater and literature nerds find each other.
** "A rose by any other name smells just as sweet." - it's actually: "What's in a name? '''That which we call''' a rose by any other '''word would smell''' as sweet."
** ''KingJohn'': "To gild refined gold, to paint the lily" was shortened to "gild[ing] the lily", which makes less sense.
*** Which may or may not be the point.
** Doesn't exactly fit, but an example in the same vein, from ''Theatre/RichardIII'': ''"Now is the winter of our discontent / made glorious summer by this sun of York"'' - it means "Our winter of discontent has now been ended by this sun [son] of York". "Now is the winter of our discontent" is often used or cited on its own as a complete thought, to express sorrow, even though it of course makes no sense in the context of the play or even the full sentence.
** ''Theatre/JuliusCaesar'': "Stand on ceremony" is used to mean "be ceremonious and formal", when it actually means "pay attention to omens and portents", which when you think about it, makes "stand on" make more sense.
** ''Theatre/TwelfthNight'': "If music be the food of love, play on" is quoted a fair bit, without the next part, "Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,/The appetite may sicken, and so, die." It's not a cheery request for more music to arouse more love, it's an order/prescription for an emotional purgative: give me enough to make me (metaphorically) throw up and stop being in love.
** ''Theatre/TheWintersTale'': The "most famous piece of stage direction in history" is "ExitPursuedByABear", not "[[VillainExitStageLeft Exit stage left]], pursued by a bear". Perhaps people are mixing up Shakespeare and Snagglepuss?
* William Congreve's play, ''The Mourning Bride'' said "Music hath charms to soothe the savage b'''r'''east", not "beast".
** Also, "Hell hath no fury like a WomanScorned" is actually "Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor Hell a fury like a woman scorned."
* In ''East Lynne'', Lady Isabel does not say, "Dead -- and never called me mother!" (This would be erroneous, since "Mother" ''is'' her son's last word as he dies in her arms.) The actual line in the play is, "See here -- my child is dead! and never knew that I was his mother." (The novel that the play was based on had no similar line; neither did a different stage adaptation.)
** The misquote was popularised by ''TheGoonShow'' which used it as a RunningGag; in one episode Neddie Seagoon actually calls it "an exerpt from ''East Lynne''".
* In ''YouCantTakeItWithYou'', Kolenkhov never says "Confidentially, it stinks," though he more than once says "it stinks" and once, in reference to Essie, says, "Confidentially, ''she'' stinks."
** It doesn't help that parodists often distort the line further, to "Confidentially, ''this'' stinks!"
* In ''{{Gypsy}}'', June and Louise call their mother "Momma", other characters just call her Rose, and she sometimes bills herself as "Madame Rose." Not once is she referred to as "Momma Rose."
* Another in-universe occurrence is in the musical ''Theatre/ByeByeBirdie''. Having become frustrated with her fiancé, Rose makes the following remark about men: "They're all alike - from puberty to senility, from Benedict Arnold to [[GodwinsLaw Mussolini]]." Kim overhears Rosie and later truncates the quote in front of her parents: "Rosie was right! Men are all alike - from puberty to Mussolini!" (This causes her father, Harry, to complain about his daughter using such words in front of him.)
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Toys]]
* Teen Talk {{Barbie}} (released 1992) was preloaded with 4 of 270 possible phrases, one of which was "Math class is tough!", not "Math is hard" or "Math is too hard, let's go shopping!", and only 1.5% of the dolls even said "Math class is tough!"
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* In ''DawnOfWar: Soulstorm'', there are two major instances of this among fans. Indrick Boreale did say [[MemeticMutation "SPESS MEHREHNS" and "WEEE HAVE FAILED THE EMPRAH"]], but not in one sentence. Vance Stubs only misplaced 100 giant tanks that can wipe out entire armies single handedly; he did not lose them.
* ''FatalFury'' and ''VideoGame/TheKingOfFighters:''
** Mai Shiranui doesn't say [[{{Mondegreen}} "Me bouncy!" or "Me boingy!"]] when she wins a fight; she says "Nippon Ichi!" ("Japan's No. 1!") The pneumatic pninja is describing herself, not making a statement about her country. It's more (I'm) Japan's No 1 (whatever). In an episode of ''UruseiYatsura'', Momotaro carries a banner with the same slogan, and it's just a reference to his very good grades and popularity...
* ''Franchise/MetalGear:''
** While a lower-grade, more obscure variant, Rose never accused Raiden of having a room that was 'empty like your soul' in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2''. The misquote was popularised by the webcomic ''VGCats'' and is quoted more often than the (not quite as stupid) real line, "A lifeless room...almost like your empty heart."
** Another, much more common ''Franchise/MetalGear'' misquote is "Snake? Snake?! SNAAAAAAKE!!!", which never actually happens in any of the games when you get a GameOver. Instead, it's things like "Snake, what happened? Snake? SNAAAAAAAKE!", which of course gets the same idea across, but isn't just "SNAKE" three times.
** One that's rather widespread on this very wiki: After you beat ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'' once and [[NewGamePlus unlock the Patriot]], equip it and call Sigint, Snake explains why it has [[BottomlessMagazines infinite ammunition]]. He does not say the ''magazine'' is shaped like an infinity symbol, he says ''its internal feeding mechanism'' is.
* "WelcomeToCorneria" from ''Webcomic/EightBitTheater'', while the original line in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyI'' was "Coneria, the city of dreams" (also note there is only one r, thought that's more a case of SpellMyNameWithAnS).
** Thanks to its redundant nature, this [[BlindIdiotTranslation notoriously poorly-translated]] conversation from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' is commonly misremembered in a variety of different ways. This includes mixing up the order the two phrases are said, or who says which one.
-->'''Cloud''': ..Hmm. That's how you'll fool them.\\
'''Aerith''': Hmmmmmmm. So that's how you fooled them.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' has an NPC in Kilika who says "I'm gonna be a blitzball when I grow up!" It is often quoted as "I want to be a blitzball when I grow up!"
* ''SuperMarioBros'':
** People seem to have a habit of quoting the Mushroom Retainers' line from ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros1'' as "Sorry, Mario, but our princess is in another castle!", when it's "Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!" Sometimes it's misremembered as "your princess". There's also no comma between "Thank you" and "Mario" in the text.
** Waluigi has never actually said "Too bad, Waluigi time". That line comes from the Webcomic/BrawlInTheFamily comics.
** Similarly, "What's-a going on here?", a phrase stereotypically attributed to all four of the Mario and Wario brothers, has only been spoken ''once'' in any Mario game: by Waluigi in the intro of MarioTennis.
* Peppy Hare does say "Do a barrel roll." a few times in StarFox64 but he only says it two or three times in the entire game. Thanks to MemeticMutation a lot of fans think that Peppy shouts this infamous quote all the time during the game.
* ''ZeroWing'':
** The captain doesn't say "Launch every 'Zig'" or "Launch all 'Zig'", but rather "Take off every 'Zig'", and later "Move 'Zig'". (Capitalization is ours. The game proper's in all caps, like pretty much every game of that era.)
** Additionally, the mechanic is frequently misquoted as saying, "Somebody set us up the bomb." The actual line was, "Somebody set ''up us'' the bomb," which is just as grammatically incorrect as the rest of the sequence. It's also "some'''body''' set up us the bomb", not "some'''one''' set up us the bomb". This misquote originated with the synthesized voice-over from the Flash animation.
* In ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaCdiGames The Legend of Zelda: The Faces of Evil]]'', the phrase "MAH BOI!" is commonly associated with the screenshot of King Harkinian holding up a finger, that is actually during the word "for". When he actually says the phrase, it is an upper-body shot in which he holds a chalice of wine. It is also often misquoted as "LINK MAH BOI".
* While not actual speech, several trailers for ''{{Halo 3}}'' showed [[ActionGirl Miranda Keyes]] appearing to [[GunsAkimbo dual-wield]] [[GameplayAndStorySegregation a pistol and a shotgun]]. In reality, she was holding off a few Brutes with a shotgun, was about to use both, at which point [[BigBad Truth]] says that she "cannot possibly hold them off". She agrees, and drops the shotgun, [[spoiler: preparing to use her pistol to kill both Johnson and herself to prevent Truth from activating the rings... [[AnyoneCanDie it doesn't go as planned.]]]]
* The phrase "Starite Get" from ''{{Scribblenauts}}'' is all over the Scribblenauts related pages on this wiki. The game actually says, "Starite Found." (It does say Merit Get, which is possibly where the confusion originated.) The phrase "Starite Get" is used in Super Scribblenauts, but not to announce a player getting a starite. It is merely a "hint" for one of the levels (and a rather unhelpful one at that.)
* Coach from ''VideoGame/Left4Dead2'' is commonly viewed as someone who is obsessed with chocolate, due to him eating a chocolate bar in the intro and Nick teasing Coach about the escape chopper being made of chocolate. Coach never makes any reference to chocolate at all in the game. This is probably due to his visual similarities to Doc Louis from PunchOut, who in the Wii version is obsessed with chocolate.
** From the first game, on this very wiki one could find ten different versions of Bill's "if I start to turn" speech from the elevator in No Mercy, and every single one of them would be wrong. Oddly enough, Francis' response is never miswritten.
* Azuria, the Atlas Park magical contact in ''CityOfHeroes'', has a reputation for allowing anyone to walk into the [=MAGI=] (in essence, the generic magical government agency) vault. She is not even in charge of the vault; that's her counterpart in Galaxy City. She is commonly the dropoff for magical storyarcs, though.
* Giygas of ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' is often quoted as saying, ''"I... feel... h...a...p...p...y."'' He separately said ''"I... feel... g...o...o...d,"'' and ''"I'm ... h...a...p...p...y"'', but never together as ''"I... feel... h...a...p...p...y..."'' It's also quite common to see his MadnessMantra mashed together as ''"nessnessnessnessnessnessnessnessnessness"'' etc, but each iteration of "[[SayMyName Ness]]" (or [[HelloInsertNameHere whatever the player called him]]) is actually properly punctuated and spaced as ''"Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness..."'' etc.
* [[spoiler: Adachi]] from ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'' is often associated with the phrase "Bitches and Whores", though he never said it once in the game. However that ''does'' pretty much sum up his opinion on girls.
** [[AscendedMeme he does say it in the]] AnimeOfTheGame though.
* No one in ''VideoGame/{{Half-Life 2}}'' says "We don't go to Ravenholm." The misquote is likely taken from the title of the chapter that is displayed when the player enters Ravenholm for the first time. The actual quote;
-->'''Alyx Vance:''' That's the old passage to Ravenholm. We don't go there anymore.
* Many (though not all) ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]''-based memes say "arrow ''to'' the knee" instead of "arrow ''in'' the knee".
* In ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty 4: ModernWarfare'', during a flashback mission set in Pripyat, Captain [=MacMillan=] comments on the lack of people. His line is frequently mistaken to be "Fifty-thousand people used to live here. Now it's a ghost town." That line is actually spoken by Gaz in the intro that plays when you start the game up; [=MacMillan=]'s line is actually "Fifty-thousand people used to live in this city. Now it's a ghost town... I've never seen anything like it."
* The infamous "The cake is a lie" meme from ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' is heavily misquoted from the rogue AI, [=GLaDOS=]. The character in question does have several lines regarding cake, but the actual quote comes from graffiti on the wall in a hidden room, which was written by another test subject that slowly went insane. Since the meme became extremely popular, people who have not played the game usually assume the AI says it.
** The game does its own BeamMeUpScotty with one of [=GLaDOS=]'s lines. In Test Chamber 18, she very clearly says "The Enrichment Center is required to remind you that you will be baked, and then there will be cake." However, the subtitles read the last part as "you will be baked [garbled] cake."
*** Incidentally, the in game developer commentary states that this line was supposed to be "you will be baked [garbled] cake" like the subtitles, however due to some kind of error the line came out clearly spoken. 
** Not a quote, but the official name for the sphere that recites the cake recipe is "Crazy Sphere", not "Cake Sphere".
* ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'': Garen's battlecry of "DEMACIAAAAAA!" is associated with his spinning attack, Judgment, within not just the fanbase but also the game, but he actually yells the line when activating his defensive self-buff, Courage. The confusion arose largely because most Garen players would activate both powers virtually simultaneously.
* One of the lines most associated with AceAttorney is "You're lying goddammit! And I can prove it!" despite the fact that the line is only said once in any of the games and it's simply "dammit" instead of "goddammit".
* ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'': Fans joke about Cirno's infamous first spell card on Easy mode of ''Embodiment of Scarlet Devil'', Ice Sign "Icicle Fall -Easy-"... except there's no spell card by that exact name in the game, since ''Perfect Cherry Blossom'' was the only game to actually append difficulties to the names of spellcards. Officially it's just Ice Sign "Icicle Fall".
* ''MetalGearSolid2's'' obsession with memes has been somewhat emphasized ever since the release of ''MetalGearRisingRevengeance''. While the principles behind memetics and meme theory are described in-depth and are an important aspect of the game's story, the word 'meme' itself is rarely, if ever used.
* Mario of the ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' fame is always viewed as using his head to smash blocks open in the games, which leads to people joking that Mario suffers brain damage or a similar injury by the end of the game. While not obvious at first, if one looks closely when Mario jumps, he raises a fist in the air as he jumps and his fist hits the block, not his head. Ironically, if Mario is using a power-up that lets him fly or he is holding something in his heads, he really does use his head to break block, but this is usually due to lack of proper animations. In official media, Mario always uses his fist to hit blocks from underneath.
** Bowser is also commonly believed to kidnapping Princess Peach just because he has a crush on her. While ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' did show in Bowser's diary that he had feelings for Peach and ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'' had him very stoked that he was going to be forced to marry her, he never expresses those feelings anywhere else in the Mario franchise. At most, Bowser displays ambiguous feelings towards the princess and openly states that kidnapping her is what he does in order to lure Mario into his traps.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* In ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'', Strong Sad never said "I don't like food anymore" or "Some animal died" either, despite their being two of his more quoted lines. The first one was in Strong Bad's imagination, and the second was an impression of him courtesy of Homestar respectively, though the second quote did become a Quote of the Week spoken by Strong Sad later on.
** Also, Strong Sad never said "I'm sad that I'm flying." That was The Cheat (or possibly an actor hired by The Cheat) doing a bad impression of him.
** However, Strong Sad DID say "I'm sad that HE'S flying," referring to The Cheat on helium.
** One of the many recurring themes within the HSR fanbase is 1-up's pudding obsession, when the only time he ever mentioned pudding was in the April Fools 'toon ''Under Construction''.
** The website [=BMUSed=] itself with the Peasant's Quest movie trailer. In the trailer, the blue knight says "You don't dress like a peasant... you don't smell like a peasant... and you're certainly not on fire like a peasant!" In the game, however, he says that Rather Dashing doesn't STINK like a peasant.
*** Rather Dashing is also shown eating the meatball sub in the trailer, which isn't actually possible in the game.
** Homsar has never said "I was raised by a cup of coffee". That was Strong Bad, doing an impression of Homsar.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* The famous line from ''Webcomic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'', "They can't grab me if I'm on fire," is meant to refer to ninjas, so it is commonly quoted as "Ninjas can't grab me if I'm on fire," [[InstantAwesomeJustAddNinja which does make a little sense.]]
** "Ninjas can't '''catch''' me etc" is also a very common permuation of the line.
* Lampshaded in [[http://www.thedoghousediaries.com/?p=1096 this]] {{Doghouse}} comic.
* There's quite a lot of this in the ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' fandom. Karkat's solitary use of the term "fuckass" is wildly exaggerated by fans unable to duplicate the more florid profanity he favours in story, and use of the ''[[SweetBroAndHellaJeff SBaHJ]]''-[[RougeAnglesOfSatin isms]] "jegus" and "gog" by any character is through the roof, depite being respectively used sparingly and exactly once in canon.
** ''SweetBroAndHellaJeff'' itself isn't immune - its [[FirstInstallmentWins most famous lines]], those of the stairs comic, are frequently mishandled in quotation. Frequently, a "the" or "them" is added to "I WARNED YOU ABOUT STAIRS BRO!!!!", and the "bro" is muddled with the similar terms "dog" and "man" also used in it. It's actually pretty rare to see it (or anything else from ''SBaHJ'') quoted accurately.
** One of the more memetic terms from the comic is "BLUH BLUH HUGE BITCH", which is usually directed as Vriska. Thing is, the comic actually writes it as ''"HUGE BITCH BLUH BLUH"'', but you'd be hard pressed to see it quoted that way. Also, while Vriksa probably deserves the appellation more, it was originally in reference to ''Snowman''. Its association with Vriska was a ''reference'' to that.
** Kanaya never said "[[color:#008141:Im Sorry I Thought That Was Obvious.]]" The [[http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=005211 actual line]] is just "[[color:#008141:Sorry I Thought That Was Obvious.]]" A minor difference, yes, but a very consistently rendered one.
** Eridan has actually never said "Nyeh!" in canon. It orininaged in an [=OctoPimp=] video, and now you can frequently find fanart of him saying that.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* In ''WebVideo/YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries'', Kaiba only says "ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney" ''once'', in the first episode. Every other time he references that CatchPhrase - and it happens often - it's a MadLibsCatchPhrase (for instance, "Screw the rules, I have green hair!" or "Screw the Yules, I have money!").
** He does say it verbatim in the trailer for the [[TheMovie Abridged Movie]] too, if that counts.
** Then there, is, of course, the world-ending combination of Kaiba and Horatio Caine's memes...
* Many people can't quite say "[[LookAVlog And now Will makes a one sentence comment about the topic from the bathtub, starring Will]]."
* Even TVTropes isn't immune to this. Many quotes will be presented in [[PunctuatedForEmphasis This Is Sparta]] format, when it wasn't said like that. Partly why it was renamed to PunctuatedForEmphasis.
* PlayedForLaughs by {{Uncyclopedia}}, which attributes practically every quote on the site -- be it a quote from RealLife or (more commonly) something they made up -- to OscarWilde.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* StepThreeProfit from ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' ("Gnomes") is often given as "Stage 1 [xxx], Stage 2 ?????, Stage 3 Profit!" -- the actual one was:
-->Phase 1 - Collect underpants [''the word "Phase", not "Stage"'']
-->Phase 2 - ? [''only one question mark'']
-->Phase 3 - Profit [''no exclamation mark'']
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "Radioactive Man", during the acid flood segment, a line given by [[TheAhnold Rainier Wolfcastle]] is often falsely quoted as "The goggles, they do nothing!", when the actual line is "My eyes! The GogglesDoNothing!"
** "Can't sleep, clown'll eat me" is misquoted in many ways, such as "Can't sleep, the clowns will eat me." (which makes no sense, given that Bart is referring to a specific clown - i.e., the one Homer shaped Bart's bed into). This is probably due to an Alice Cooper song by that name: "Can't Sleep, Clowns Will Eat Me".
** Bart only said "Cowabunga!" three times in the series. Once in the 'Bart Gets an F', the season 11 episode, 'Behind the Laughter', a parody episode where during the rehearsal (the premise being [[AnimatedActors the Simpsons are real people, acting out the show we usually see]]; though upon cutting, Bart states he has never said those words in his life) and "Treehouse of Horror XVI" (first segment). "Cowabunga!" originated on ''Howdy Doody'' in the 1950s and its common usage was popularized by 1960s surfer culture, but some media still thinks "Cowabunga!" is a Bart Simpson catchphrase.
*** In the DVD commentary track to 'Bart Gets an F', even the creators are surprised the "Cowabunga" line actually got uttered by the character at all.
*** Which it is, essentially, since ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' itself acknowledged this. In the 1993 episode "Bart's Inner Child," Apu imitates Bart by hotdogging on a skateboard and shouting "Cowabunga!". Also at the end of "The Father, The Son And The Holy Guest Star", a flash-forward to the future showed two Bart-based religions going to war, one side's BattleCry is "Cowabunga".
*** And, for the record, Bart used the phrase on ''The Tracey Ullman Show.''
** Also, a minor one, but the "You ''don't win'' friends with salad" chant is commonly changed to "You ''can't make'' friends with salad'.
* "Should work with no problems" is a quote fans often attribute to Gadget from ''WesternAnimation/ChipNDaleRescueRangers''. In fact this is an amalgam of two different quotes: "Should work", indicating that the inventress was not sure if her latest gizmo would work, and "No problems". More often than not, after the utterance of one of those the invention in question would spectacularly fall apart right after activation, which was a RunningGag in the series.
* People often credit ''ThePowerpuffGirls'' with the phrase "Girl Power!" when in actuality they never say this in the show. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in an episode where Professor Utonium's roommate clones them. One of them says "Girl Power!" on TV, and the Professor says, "since when do you ever say girl power?" Buttercup replies nervously with "uh, yeah we say it all the time".
* Timmy Turner from ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' is known for saying "What could possibly go wrong?" before any disaster happen, but he actualy says this only in one episode, where he becomes the star of a Sitcom and the [[NetworkExecutives Network Executive]] wants him to have a CatchPhrase.
* No ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDoo'' villain ever said "And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for [[YouMeddlingKids those meddling kids]]." This is a pastiche of various quotes (most called them "meddlers", not "meddling kids"), and many villains said nothing as they were carried off.
** Though it should be noted that a few ''did'' say something to the effect of "And I would have done it too, if it wasn't for those meddling kids and their stupid dog."
** However, they ''do'' [[AscendedMeme say it in some future series]].
*** It was eventually overused and parodied on every episode of ''WhatsNewScoobyDoo'' (such as having twin villains saying "And it would've worked if it weren't for you meddling kids!" etc.) ''ScoobyDooMysteryIncorporated'' usually parodies it, as "...if it weren't for you meddling (insert noun here)."
** According to TheOtherWiki, the first time anything like it was used was in the episode "A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts", and the actual line was "I'd have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for those blasted kids and that dog!".
** Old Man Smithers/The Luna Ghost, a villain who was caught at the beginning of the 2002 movie, came ''very'' close. He said, "I would've gotten away with it too, were it not for you meddling kids and your dumb dog! I'll get you for this!"
** One of the villains in ''Scooby Doo and the Alien Invaders'' comes very close to saying it at the end, while being arrested, but one of the cops interrupts him.
** While most of his cameos since have had the Creeper [[PokemonSpeak calling his own name]], the original episode "Jeepers, It's the Creeper" has him yelling "Paper!"
* Two episodes of ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' spoof Apache Chief from the ''SuperFriends'' shouting "Apache Chief! Ee! Nay! Chuck!" to activate his powers. The phrase he actually used to activate his powers is variously written as "Inukchuk," "Inyuk-Chuk," "Inekchuk" or something similar, depending on where you looked (they weren't very big on details on ''SuperFriends'', so you pretty much have to pick it up phonetically) but he clearly doesn't pause as distinctly between the first two syllables of his phrase as ''Family Guy'' suggests, and never says his own name before doing it.
** It's worse than you think - the word is Inukshuk (ee-nook-shook) and it's ''Inuit'', not Apache. As an adjective, it means "In man shape," which could apply to Apache Chief; as a noun, it's a stone structure in roughly human form used as a sort of northern Kilroy Was Here (also indicating a relatively safe harbour). Geological cultural graffiti turned heroic catch phrase.
* ''WesternAnimation/KaBlam'' a few times has been associated with a certain quote. It starts with Henry going, "June, will you help me?", and June replying, "And I would do that ''why''!?". It was never used in the show, though it was used in a few advertisements.
* A MemeticMutation has a screenshot of Superman from ''WesternAnimation/SupermanBatmanApocalypse'' (usually edited to have the features of another character, with [[UncannyValley disturbing]] results) with the caption "[name], I..." In the movie, Superman does not actually say that line, he is instead saying "She is my cousin".
* The words "not three little pigs" are not actually said in Disney's ''Disney/ThreeLittlePigs'' cartoon. The last line is just straight instrumental.
** In later cartoons, the pigs did elaborate the lyrics a bit, once ending with a humorously drawn-out "He's a great big sissy!"
* Dan Backslide does say "Confound those Dover Boys!" and "They drive me to drink!", but not one after the other.
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' has two examples, both of which have since become official via the ExpandedUniverse and TheMerch but still haven't been used in the show itself.
** The background pony dubbed "Derpy Hooves" is famously associated with muffins. However, her "line" is questionable, as two other ponies have the same mouth flap at the same time. She has since been seen wearing a saddlebag with a muffin-shaped clip, though.
*** Additionally, Derpy Hooves never delivered any mail in the show, however she is associated with delivering mail in the fandom.
** Contrary to popular belief, the phrase "love and tolerance"/"love and tolerate" has never come up in the show. That is a meme from ''MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha'' that the bronies took to.
** Many believe that "20 percent cooler." and "In ten seconds flat." are Rainbow Dash's catchphrases but she has only said each phrase once in the entire series.
*** And the two quotes are sometime combined into "Twenty percent cooler in ten seconds flat", which was never actually spoken on the show at all!
* Although he's commonly associated with the meme, [[WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}} Fry]] never actually said "I See What You Did There."
* The [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen evil queen]] from ''Disney/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs'' never said "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall" in the Disney version, where she actually said "Magic Mirror on the Wall."
* AndCallHimGeorge wasn't actually said word-for-word the first time Hugo the Abominable Snowman appears in a ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' short ("The Abominable Snow Rabbit," 1961). In fact, it was one of the first things Hugo said when he started squeezing Bugs and Daffy, because [[OverlyLongGag the original joke was how long it went on for]]:
-->'''Hugo''': (''Picks up and starts squeezing Daffy'') Just what I always wanted, my own little bunny rabbit! I will name him George, and I will hug him and pet him and squeeze him...
-->'''Daffy''': (''Complete deadpan even though he should have trouble breathing'') I'm not a bunny rabbit.
-->'''Hugo''': ...and pat him and pet him and...
-->'''Daffy''': (''Still deadpan'') You're hurting me. Put me down, please.
-->'''Hugo''': (''Squeezing Daffy into a ball'') ...and rub him and caress him and--
-->'''Daffy''': (''[[RageBreakingPoint At the top of his lungs]]'') I AIN'T NO BUNNY RABBIT!!
* [[WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}} Yakko Warner]] never said "Naughty Mozart, potty-mouth!" while washing Beethoven's mouth out with soap. He says nothing when washing his mouth, but he does address Beethoven as "Mr. Potty Mouth" a couple of times.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life -- Politics]]
* "You, sir, are no Jack Kennedy." came from "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy," Lloyd Bentsen's famous putdown to DanQuayle.
* Eva Perón (Evita) never said "Volveré y seré millones" (I'll come back, and I'll be millions), as many Argentinians believe. It was said instead by the Aymara leader Túpac Catari. A [[http://es.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eva_Per%C3%B3n#Citas_sobre_Evita poem]] by José María Castiñeira de Dios generated the confusion.
* Kissinger never said "Who do I call if I want to speak to Europe?"
* MahatmaGandhi's last words may have been "H&#275; R&#257;m" (Hindi: "''O Ram''", Rama being a god), or maybe not.
** Gandhi never said "First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they attack you. Then you win." An American trade union address of 1914 ran "First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you."
** Scholars have found no evidence that Gandhi actually said "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." or any variation of it. Even if he did, a member of the Canadian House of Parliament had already uttered something along those lines as early as 1914.
* General Motors CEO Charles Wilson is often quoted as saying "What is good for General Motors is good for the country," often cited as the perfect example of corporate arrogance. The fact is, he actually said "...for years I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa," when asked if he would be willing to take actions against the interests of GM during his confirmation hearings for being appointed Secretary of Defense.
* Not only did MarieAntoinette never say "let them eat cake" (''Qu'ils mangent de la brioche''), she would likely have been horrified by the accusation, as she was deeply involved in charity work for the poor and gave a significant portion of her income to feed them (more than the rest of the French royal family combined). French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote that a "great princess" said ''"S'ils n'ont plus de pain, qu'ils mangent de la brioche"'', commonly translated as "If they have no bread, let them eat cake", when told peasants were starving, but wrote this when Marie was a child--and besides, Rousseau ''died'' well before TheFrenchRevolution (in 1778). The quote may have satirised Marie Theresa, wife of Louis XV, before it was transferred to Marie Antoinette. Note that ''brioche'' is not really cake but a rich variety of bread with a higher egg and butter content than normal bread (French toast is essentially "Americanized" brioche).
** Almost everything known in popular culture of Marie Antoinette is a lie invented by the revolutionaries to make her unpopular with the people. They went so far as to print booklets describing her supposed debaucheries with everyone from her maids to the Swiss Guards to Count Axel von Fersen, who was probably gay. It gets worse: one recent historian has discovered that after her husband was executed, they forced her to listen to her young son being molested in the next prison cell, every night until her own death. ''Who'' is the monster here?
* The "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_will_bury_you We Will Bury You!]]" speech Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev gave to a group of Western politicians in 1956. Partly [[LostInTranslation poor translation]], partly because West-East tensions were already increasing in this stage of the Cold War, the comment was interpreted as a direct nuclear threat against the United States. The complete quote is "Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will dig you in" (&#1053;&#1088;&#1072;&#1074;&#1080;&#1090;&#1089;&#1103; &#1074;&#1072;&#1084; &#1080;&#1083;&#1080; &#1085;&#1077;&#1090;, &#1085;&#1086; &#1080;&#1089;&#1090;&#1086;&#1088;&#1080;&#1103; &#1085;&#1072; &#1085;&#1072;&#1096;&#1077;&#1081; &#1089;&#1090;&#1086;&#1088;&#1086;&#1085;&#1077;. &#1052;&#1099; &#1074;&#1072;&#1089; &#1079;&#1072;&#1082;&#1086;&#1087;&#1072;&#1077;&#1084;), in reference to the common Marxist saying "The proletariat[[note]]working class[[/note]] is the undertaker [mortician] of capitalism". Krushchev was actually expressing the communist theory that capitalism was [[BecauseDestinySaysSo historically predetermined]] to eventually be supplanted by communism. He meant that [[HilariousInHindsight the Soviet Union would long]] [[TheGreatPoliticsMessUp outlast the western powers]], as in "we'll attend your funeral", not ''cause it''. "We will still be here when they bury you!" might be more to the point.
* Creator/BenjaminFranklin:
** He wasn't the first to say, "Nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." He may have quoted it, but it originated in 1716 with Christopher Bullock's "'Tis impossible to be sure of anything but Death and Taxes." Or perhaps Charles II of England: "There are [[TheThreeCertaintiesInLife three things in life that are certain, death, taxes and that it is raining in Tavistock]]."
** Creator/BenjaminFranklin's supposed proverb, "The proof is in the pudding" is actually, "The proof of the pudding is in the eating", and it is a bit older than Benjamin Franklin, dating at least to 1615, when it was used in ''Literature/DonQuixote''. Furthermore, most people don't even understand what that's meant to mean. In the above quote, the term "proof" means "test", not "evidence". Possibly the reason for the original misquote.
** Benjamin Franklin ''also'' did not say, or write, "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." The word "lunch" hadn't yet entered the English language in his time.
** Another commonly mangled Franklin quote is "Those who trade liberty for security deserve neither." What Franklin actually said is: "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
*** The quote did not necessarily originate with Franklin, it's an excerpt from a letter written in 1755 from the Assembly to the Governor of Pennsylvania. That said, Franklin was a prominent member of the Assembly--being a leader of the anti-proprietary party[[note]]Pennsylvania was a proprietary colony, i.e., the prerogatives of the Crown were exercised by a proprietor, which for Pennsylvania was the head of the Penn family. The Penns lived in London and saw the colony as a moneymaking venture; the Governor was the representative of the proprietor, and a focal point for anti-proprietary anger.[[/note]]--in 1755, so it's possible that it did issue from his pen.
* British Prime Minister James 'Sunny Jim' Callaghan is commonly perceived to have been asked about the late 1970s economic crisis and responded, "Crisis? What crisis?" when he never said anything of the sort. It was actually a ''Sun'' headline. The real quote:
-->"Well, that's a judgment that you are making. I promise you that if you look at it from outside, and perhaps you're taking rather a parochial view at the moment, I don't think that other people in the world would share the view that there is mounting chaos."
** The headline was probably inspired by {{Supertramp}}'s 1975 album, ''Crisis? What Crisis?''.
* The quote "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." is often attributed to Voltaire, but he never uses this himself. Rather, it is a summation of his beliefs by Evelyn Beatrice Hall.
** He wrote something similar in a letter: "Monsieur l'abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write."
* GenghisKhan never actually said [[ConanTheBarbarian "Crush your enemies! See them driven before you and hear the lamentation of the women."]] His actual quote was much more verbose and went into detail about [[ReallyGetsAround the women part]].
* "After me, the deluge" is often attributed to Louis XIV and presented as a kind of [[GenreSavvy worried]] {{foreshadowing}} about the future decadence and destruction of the French Bourbon monarchy, further proof of what a clever statesman he was. But in reality it was said years later by Louis XV's mistress, Madame de Pompadour (though even this is disputed) and it had the exact opposite meaning: she was trying to convince her lover to ''not'' worry after the loss of France's North American colonies following the SevenYearsWar, under the reasoning that whatever happened to France after them wouldn't be their business, since they wouldn't be there to see it anyway. It's also a [[OlderThanTheyThink derivation of an Ancient Greek stock phrase]] that translates more or less as "When I die let earth and fire mix; I don't care, since my business will not be affected".
** ''Apres moi, le deluge'' was also chosen as the squadron motto of the Royal Air Force 617 Squadron, the famous Dambusters, in reference to their famous raid, and they cited Louis XIV as the source. They naturally meant it [[KillItWithWater rather more literally]].
** There is no proof that Louis XIV of France ever said "[[UsefulNotes/LEtatCestMoi L'état, c'est moi]]" ([[IAmTheTrope I am the State]]). Indeed, what he is recording as having said (as his final words, or near as) conveys the precise opposite meaning: "Je m'en vais, mais l'État demeurera toujours." ("I depart, but the State will remain forever.")
* When portrayed in fiction, RichardNixon will almost invariably assure anyone listening that he is not a crook. While Nixon actually did say "I am not a crook" it was actually part of a larger speech and not a standalone sentence like it's usually shown.
** "I am not a crook" has always been how that part of the speech has been quoted in anything making fun of Nixon during Watergate and after. However, the then-president used a contraction, the relevant part of the speech going: "People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got."
* The song, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMRANk8t0rE "Mao Tse Tung Said"]] by [[Series/TheSopranos Alabama 3]] and the original speeches by the person Alabama 3 sampled, [[DarkMessiah Jim Jones]], would have you believe [[WhyMaoChangedHisName Mao Zedong]] said "change must come through the barrel of a gun." Mao actually said "Every Communist must grasp the truth: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."
* Norman Tebbit did not actually say "on yer bike". It was actually:
-->I grew up in the '30s with an unemployed father. He didn't riot. He got '''on his bike''' and looked for work, and he kept looking 'til he found it.
* Paul Revere is quoted as having ridden through town shouting, "The British are coming!" In reality, (1) his mission depended on secrecy - passing a message privately to one person he could trust in each town was a lot better than alerting nearby British troops that a resistance was planned; (2) Many colonial residents saw themselves as British people at the time.
** Because many of the people still saw themselves as British, they were referred to as the "Regulars", not the "British".
** Perhaps in an attempt to rectify this somewhat, Paul Revere is sometimes depicted as shouting "The Redcoats are coming," referring to the color of the British soldier's uniforms.
*** Which still isn't quite right, as they weren't referred to as Redcoats until more than a century later.
** Also, Revere [[http://politics.usnews.com/news/national/articles/2008/06/27/rewriting-the-legend-of-paul-revere.html apparently]] never finished his ride because he was captured in Lexington. Other riders did, but apparently their names didn't rhyme as well.
* Gen. Philip Sheridan is sometimes quoted as saying, "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." The earliest version is actually, "The only good Indians I ever saw were dead" and Sheridan denied having even said that.
* "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely" was actually derived from a statement by [[http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Dalberg-Acton,_1st_Baron_Acton Lord Acton:]] "Power ''tends to'' corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."
* Nathan Bedford Forest never said "git thar fustest with the mostest" he said the essence of strategy was "to git thar fust with the most men."
* Confederate [[TheAmericanCivilWar Civil War]] General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson is often said to have gained his nickname by General Barnard Bee saying at the First Battle of Manassas (also called the First Battle of Bull Run): "There is Jackson standing like a stone wall! Rally around the Virginians!" However, some accounts have Bee saying, "Why is Jackson standing there like a damned stone wall?". No one was able to ask him later, as he died that afternoon.
* {{Queen Vic|ky}}toria ''never'' said "We are not amused." (Which didn't stop Rose of ''Series/DoctorWho'' from trying to get that phrase out of her anyway. Maybe she didn't know that... or maybe she did and was trying to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong.)
** In fact, Her Majesty once wrote in her diary "We are VERY MUCH amused!" Yes, with those capitals.
** She did once say something similar - to a courtier who was telling a dirty joke in the presence of a group of young children. And she wasn't using the "royal we", by "we are not amused", she meant "The courtiers and I are not amused." The idea that she was constantly gloomy comes both from her many years in mourning after her husband died and from the fact that having one's picture taken was considered a very serious matter, and people normally didn't smile in photos. (Beyond decorum, photographic plates of that era required a ''very'' long exposure; a good photograph required a pose and expression that the subject could hold for long periods.) Even then there are more pictures of Victoria laughing than of all nine of her children combined.
** Although, given that nobody followed Victoria around with a tape recorder, how can anyone possibly know whether or not she once used this exact wording?
*** It does seem an awfully normal phrase, so it is entirely possible she used those words at some point, but not in the context they are associated with.
* Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was mistranslated as "Israel must be wiped off the face of the map"; it was actually, "The regime which is occupying Jerusalem should vanish from the pages of time." Whether the mistranslation was deliberate or not is unknown. Either way, it changes the emphasis, making clear that Ahmedinejad's beef is with the Israeli regime rather than than the people who live there (which is fairly standard Islamist rhetoric on the subject).
** Whether the different translation actually changes the meaning is debatable. It is worth recalling that people who like Ahmadinejad do not recognize the existence of Israel have to use circumscriptions like "regime" or "Zionist entity" instead of "nation" and that for them by definition there is no Israeli people.
* Emma Goldman was quoted on a T-shirt, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be in your revolution," but actually said the more verbose:
-->At the dances I was one of the most untiring and [[HaveAGayOldTime gayest]]. One evening a cousin of Sasha [Alexander Berkman], a young boy, took me aside. With a grave face, as if he were about to announce the death of a dear comrade, he whispered to me that it did not behoove an agitator to dance. Certainly not with such reckless abandon, anyway. It was undignified for one who was on the way to become a force in the anarchist movement. My frivolity would only hurt the Cause. I grew furious at the impudent interference of the boy. I told him to mind his own business, I was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown into my face. '''I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from conventions and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy.''' I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement should not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. "I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everyboy's right to beautiful, radiant things." Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world--prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own comrades I would live my beautiful ideal.
* "Whenever I hear the word 'culture' I reach for my revolver." is probably Hermann Goering's most (in)famous saying. But it actually comes from the play ''Schlageter'', written by Hanns Johst and first performed for Hitler's birthday in 1933. Its original form is ''"Wenn ich Kultur höre... entsichere ich meinen Browning!"'' - "When I hear 'culture' ... I remove the safety from my Browning!" Note that a Browning is not a revolver, but a magazine-fed semi-automatic pistol. The context is important too: the play describes wealthy people going to theater and talking about culture while homeless orphan child dies on the snowy street nearby. The quote is a moral of a story. It may have been chosen to pun on the English poet Robert Browning.
* "If nominated, I will not run. If elected, I will not serve." by William Tecumseh Sherman - who actually said "I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected."
* Coolidge said "After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world.", usually shortened to the less meaningful "The business of America is business."
** People probably accept the shortened version due to Coolidge being known as "Silent Cal," i.e. a man of few words.
* The famous speech by Chief Seattle "How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? [...] The end of living and the beginning of survival." was invented in 1971 by screenwriter Ted Perry for the movie ''Home''.
** Si’ahl's actual speech (based on translations -- he spoke in his native language) was far more pessimistic than the New Age version.
* UsefulNotes/OttoVonBismarck is said to have said "To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making." The earliest such quote is in 1869 by John Godfrey Saxe, who said, "Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made."
** Bismarck also never said, "A language is a dialect with a navy" (to explain, for example, why Spanish and Portuguese are seen as two languages but Tuscan and Sicilian are one). The linguist Max Weinreich or his student Joshua Fishman said in Yiddish, ''A shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot'' - "A language is a dialect with an army and navy."
* Creator/{{Socrates}} is frequently quoted as complaining that
-->The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in lace of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.
:::However, this was actually attributed to him by Gijsbert van Hall, mayor of Amsterdam in the 1960s. There are somewhat similar complaints in Plato and Hesiod, but not the above paragraph.
* Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. never said "shouting fire in a crowded theater". With reference to the restriction of free speech, he said
-->The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect '''a man falsely shouting fire in a theater''' and causing a panic. [...] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.
* "Only the dead have seen the end of war." is often attributed to Creator/{{Plato}}, but it's actually not recorded before its 1924 use by George Santayana. It's believed to have been been misattributed to Plato by the British Imperial War Museum. The popularity of this misconception within the U.S. military stems from General Douglas [=MacArthur=] attributing the quote to Plato during his farewell address at WestPoint in 1962.
* François Guizot famously said "Not to be a republican at 20 is proof of want of heart; to be one at 30 is proof of want of head." (referring to mid-19th century French republicanism) It's been often changed to conservative/liberal or communist/capitalist, and attributed to many, including UsefulNotes/OttoVonBismarck and WinstonChurchill (very unlikely, as Churchill crossed from Conservative to Liberal aged 30, then went back to the Conservative Party aged 50).
* British Conservative leader (and later Prime Minister) DavidCameron never exhorted people to "hug a hoodie." The closest excerpts from his July 2006 speech are:
-->Because the fact is that the hoodie is a response to a problem, not a problem in itself. We - the people in suits - often see hoodies as aggressive, the uniform of a rebel army of young gangsters. But, for young people, hoodies are often more defensive than offensive. They're a way to stay invisible in the street. In a dangerous environment the best thing to do is keep your head down, blend in, don't stand out. For some, the hoodie represents all that's wrong about youth culture in Britain today. For me, adult society's response to the hoodie shows how far we are from finding the long-term answers to put things right. [...] '''So when you see a child walking down the road, hoodie up, head down, moody, swaggering, dominating the pavement - think what has brought that child to that moment.'''
* "I have seen the future, and it works." derives from Lincoln Steffens' 1921 statement on the Soviet Union: "I have been over into the future, and it works."
* AbrahamLincoln never said, "As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working on the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless." The quote was published 20 years after Honest Abe's death, and his secretary immediately denounced it as a fraud. But it was used a lot in the 1896 presidential election, and came to be seen as fact.
** Another quote usually attributed to Lincoln is "You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time but you cannot fool all the people all the time." However, there is no hard proof that he ever truly said it. 
* A.E. Housman never wrote: "We were soldiers once, and young", or even anything closely approximating it.
* There's no record of Creator/GeorgeOrwell saying, "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." The closest thing he actually wrote was: "Those who 'abjure' violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf."
** This was used to describe his impression of Creator/RudyardKipling's ideology, [[QuoteMine not his own opinion.]]
* Famous lines never said by WinstonChurchill:
** "Don't talk to me about naval tradition. The only traditions of the Royal Navy are [[TheDrunkenSailor rum]], [[HelloSailor sodomy]] and the [[ATasteOfTheLash lash]]."; his personal secretary, Anthony Montague-Browne, said that although Churchill did not say this, he wished he had. (Note that the British Navy abolished the practice of flogging in 1948, and that rum rations were discontinued in 1970. [[InsaneTrollLogic The modern navy runs on sodomy, and sodomy alone.]])
** Speaking of Churchill, he never said "I have nothing to offer but blood, sweat and tears." The quote was shortened from the less memorable, "I have nothing to offer but [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment blood and toil, tears and sweat]]." Even historians get this one wrong.
** Churchill also never said "We shall fight '''them''' on the beaches", it was:
-->I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once more able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. Even though large parts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, '''we shall fight on the beaches''', we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old.
*** Very few people know that it's actually a quote partially taken from George Clemenceau, Prime Minister of France during the [[WorldWarOne First World War]]:
-->"The Germans may take Paris, but that will not prevent me from going on with the war. We will fight on the Loire, we will fight on the Garronne, we will fight even in the Pyrenees. And if at last we are driven off the Pyrenees, we will continue the war at sea."
** Also, someone once wrote to ''The Strand'' magazine complaining that someone had ended a sentence with a preposition. Somebody commented in reply, ''"This is nonsense up with which I will not put,"'' often attributed to Churchill but it almost certainly wasn't him. This misattribution may originally owe to the simple expedient that the kind of KnowNothingKnowItAll who still insists on following this "rule" ''decades'' after it was thoroughly discredited as an artificial construct with less bearing on how English is actually used than Japanese verb conjugation would be more swayed by a sentence constructed to prove its absurdity if it comes from someone known for eloquent, moving speeches than from some random person writing to a magazine.
** "Any man who is under thirty (or twenty) and is not a liberal has no heart, and any man who is over thirty (or forty) and is not a conservative has no brain."
** "He is a modest man, with much to be modest about." (supposedly said with regard to his deputy and later successor as Prime Minister, ClementAttlee.)
*** "An empty car pulled up in front of Downing Street this morning, and Clement Attlee got out."
** In Germany, the quote "I'll never believe in a statistic I haven't forged myself" or paraphrases thereof is almost always associated with Churchill, and many Germans react surprised when Anglophones have never heard of it. That's because that line was attributed to Churchill by the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, in an attempt to downplay casualty reports broadcasted to Germany by the BBC. This background faded out of public consciousness, and today it's often cited to emphasize the arbitrariness of statistics, similar to Twains "Lies, damned lies and statistics". That the snarkiness of the quote actually fit with Churchill's public perception probably helped.
* The Duke of Wellington did not describe the Battle of Waterloo as "A damn close run thing", but as "a damn nice thing-the nearest run thing you ever saw."
** Which, as anyone who has read ''Literature/GoodOmens'' will know, is probably using "nice" in its less well-known sense of "requiring great precision".
* Queen Elizabeth I's final words were supposedly "All my possessions for a moment of time", but there's no contemporaneous record of this. It was probably inspired by Shakespeare's ''Theatre/RichardIII'': "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!"
** Which itself is purely an invention of Shakespeare's, Richard himself never said anything like it.
** Elizabeth said nothing at all during the last several days of her life. She communicated with her attendents with signs. She was very old for her era and the opinion of those around was that she hastened her death by refusing to follow medical advice. (Then, again, medical practices of the day being what they were, she may have simply decided that medical advice was useless.)
* The famous British newspaper headline "FOG IN CHANNEL; CONTINENT CUT OFF" hasn't been found in any archive and is probably apocryphal.
* How many of the car owners with "Well-behaved women rarely make history" bumper stickers are aware that the quote: 1-originated in an article by historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, 2-was originally "Well-behaved women ''seldom'' make history," and 3-was a comment [[JustifiedTrope justifying]] the lack of information about the lives of Puritan women in colonial New England?
* AndrewJackson supposedly said, "To the victors [belong] the spoils." to justify handing out political offices to his cronies. The real version was said by William Marcy: "When they are contending for victory, they avow their intention of enjoying the fruits of it. ... They see nothing wrong in the rule that to the victor belongs the spoils."
* Adm. Yamamoto is quoted as saying "I fear all we have done is to [[AwakeningTheSleepingGiant awaken a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve]]"; actually he said nothing like it, except "A military man can scarcely pride himself on having 'smitten a sleeping enemy'; it is more a matter of shame, simply, for the one smitten. I would rather you made your appraisal after seeing what the enemy does, since it is certain that, angered and outraged, he will soon launch a determined counterattack."
** The "Sleeping Giant" quote is actually from the movie ''ToraToraTora'' which is where everyone remembers it from, even though the historical Yamamoto never actually said it.
* Nelson's last words are given as "Kismet, Hardy" (''kismet'' being Persian for "fate") or "Kiss me, Hardy". He did say the latter, and Flag Captain Thomas Masterman Hardy did kiss him, but his last words were actually. "Thank God, I have done my duty ... drink, drink ... fan, fan ... rub, rub", as he called for the men to ease his thirst, heat and pain.
* William T. Sherman is often quoted as saying "War is hell." He said something ''like'' it to the graduating Class of 1879 at Michigan Military Academy, but there's multiple accounts of exactly what he said:
** "You don’t know the horrible aspects of war. I’ve been through two wars and I know. I’ve seen cities and homes in ashes. I’ve seen thousands of men lying on the ground, their dead faces looking up at the skies. I tell you, war is Hell!"
** "There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all Hell."
** "Some of you young men think that war is all glamor and glory, but let me tell you, boys, it is all Hell!"
* Creator/GaiusJuliusCaesar never said ''"Et tu, Brute?"'' when he was stabbed to death in the Senate. We can thank Shakespeare for that one. Roman historian Suetonius reports a tale that he said ''"Kai su, teknon?"'' (which is Greek for "You too, my son?", since the Romans [[GratuitousGreek often spoke Greek]] in the Senate because it was the common language of the empire - Latin was the local language and at the time was only spoken in Rome and the surrounding areas), but himself believes Caesar said nothing at all.
** This may have been because of the nature of his wounds, which damaged his respiratory system. However something had to have been his last words and if he had seen Brutus at the beginning of the attack it makes sense that he would have said that when he saw him and spent the rest of the attack silent.
** The ''Series/{{Rome}}'' TV series plays with this. Caesar tries to talk when he is dying but he can't. Later, when Brutus' mother joins those who are asking him to leave the city, Brutus replies her with a "You too, Mother?"
** Alternatively, ''"Kai su, teknon"'' may have been the first part of a common saying at the time. The full phrase, &#954;&#945;&#953; &#963;&#965; &#964;&#949;&#954;&#957;&#959;&#957; &#920;&#945; &#941;&#967;&#949;&#964;&#949; &#964;&#951; &#948;&#973;&#957;&#945;&#956;&#951;, translates as "You too, my child, shall soon have a taste of power" - essentially, Caesar might have been trying somewhat spitefully (and prophetically as it turned out) to say "you're next, kid".
* SarahPalin never said, "I can see Russia from my house." That was TinaFey parodying Palin, who had actually said, "They're our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska." [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diomede_Islands Which is actually true]], although the island in question has a population of less than 150.[[hottip:*:The context was, Palin was arguing that she had foreign-policy experience by virtue of being the governor of a border state--with a very long (friendly) border with Canada, and (for all practical purposes) a sea border with the somewhat-less-friendly Russia. Was that a valid argument? Your mileage may vary.]]
* Edmund Burke never said "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."; it was "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."
* The Conservative prime minister HaroldMacmillan, when asked to name the greatest difficulty facing a PM, said: "The opposition of events." This was changed to "events, dear boy, events", by persons unknown.
* G.W. Bush didn't say "...the terrorists have won", or "...then the terrorists win". The meme originates from the comments of Frank Pierson after he refused to postpone the Oscar ceremonies following 9/11:
-->If we give in to fear, if we aren't able to do these simple and ordinary things, '''the terrorists have won the war'''.
* Edward VIII did not offer the in-depth commentary on unemployment, "[[CaptainObvious Something must be done.]]" A journalist made it up.
* Charlie Haughey did not refer to the Malcolm [=MacArthur=] case as "grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented" (GUBU), but said, "It was a '''bizarre''' happening, an '''unprecedented''' situation, a '''grotesque''' situation, an almost '''unbelievable''' mischance."
* Niccolò Machiavelli never said, "The ends justify the means", but the far more moderate and reserved (and MagnificentBastard-ish) "One must consider the final result.", as well as "[If the monarch is careful to preserve the State] the means will always be esteemed, honored and applauded by everyone".
** The Roman poet Ovid wrote in around 10 BC: "Exitus acta probat," which is usually translated as "the ends justify the means."
** NapoleonBonaparte popularized it by saying "the ends justifies the means" while trying to quote Machiavelli.
* Pauline Kael never said, "I can't believe Nixon won. Nobody I know voted for him." The actual quote is
-->I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don't know. They're outside my ken. But sometimes when I'm in a theater I can feel them.
* A similarly damaging quote attributed to "elitist liberals" was "The people are just too damn dumb to understand!" attributed to New Dealer Harry Hopkins, supposedly attacking critics of the New Deal. He actually said "You know some people make fun of people who speak a foreign language, and dumb people criticise something they do not understand..." making it more of a TakeThat against the type of people who would misinterpret his remarks.
* Thatcher did say "there is no such thing as society", but quoted in context it's a lot less evil-sounding:
-->"I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it. 'I have a problem, I'll get a grant.' 'I'm homeless, the government must house me.' They're casting their problem on society. '''And, you know, there is no such thing as society.''' There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There's no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation."
* Enoch Powell's notorious 1968 speech on immigration does not actually feature the precise expression "rivers of blood". He instead quotes Virgil, who saw "the River Tiber foaming with much blood".
* "We are going to build the Tories out of London." Attributed to Herbert Morrison,[[note]]Incidentally, PeterMandelson's maternal grandfather[[/note]] but no evidence that he said it.
* Hartley Shawcross didn't say, "We are the masters now." It was "We are the masters '''at the moment''' and shall be for some considerable time."
* TheDukeOfWellington never said "The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton." The historian Nevill records that, decades after Waterloo, Wellington saw a cricket match in Eton and remarked,
-->There grows the stuff that won Waterloo.
* Deng Xiaoping never said, "To get rich is glorious."
* "The death of one man is a tragedy. [[AMillionIsAStatistic The death of millions is a statistic.]]" - Despite the general misconception, JosephStalin never said that. The quote, in fact, is the final line of chapter eight of ''The Black Obelisk'' (1956) by Erich Maria Remarque. A very similar saying appears in Kurt Tucholsky's satirical work, ''The French Witticism'', from almost thirty years earlier.
** Stalin is also sometimes credited with "death solves all problems. There is a person - there is a problem. No person - no problem". This is in fact from a novel ''Children of Arbat'' by A. Ribakov.
* While it's true that he had a poor view of political opponents and said as much, ("idiot [[TsaristRussia Romanov]]" and "windbag Kerensky"), there is no record of Lenin or Stalin using the term "useful idiot" (''polyezniy idiot'') to describe Western communists. Its earliest known usage is in a 1948 ''New York Times'' article on Italian politics.
* Karl Marx never actually said "Religion is the opiate of the masses." The correct quote is "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."
** Not to mention that opium was more than an addictive and dangerous drug -- it was the source of fantastic visions of the "opium eaters", a painkiller used in medicine, and a treatment for cholera.
* RonaldReagan never said ketchup was a vegetable. School lunch regulations allowing ketchup to be counted as a vegetable for purposes of meeting the minimum requirements for lunches were passed under his administration, but he never actually claimed that this meant it actually was a vegetable.
* GeorgeWBush never said "a lot of our imports come from other countries". The actual phrase was "a lot of our imports come from ''overseas''", i.e. countries other than Canada and Mexico.
* Although Martin Luther King, Jr. did say, "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate:only love can do that.", he never said, "I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy." That quote comes from Facebooker Jessica Dovey, and she made it plain in her original status which part was the actual MLK quote. Too bad that Facebook status copy/pasters can't interpret punctuation.
* The phrase "I'd rather die standing up than living on my knees". Many have been the people who have been quoted to its creation: Emiliano Zapata, Benito Juárez, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, etc.
** There is an old Frisian folk saying "Better dead than a slave."
* British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain never said "Peace in our time". What he did say however was "Peace ''for'' our time".
* AlGore did NOT say he invented the Internet. His actual statement became, through MemeticMutation and political opposition, ''Al Gore, inventor of the Internet''.
** The actual statement: "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system." It's abundantly clear to anyone listening that he wasn't claiming credit for literally creating the internet, but for rather spearheading the funding that helped develop the technology that made the internet possible. And it turns out, he did just what he claimed.
* The United States Constitution never uses the phrase "separation of church and state." It was actually ThomasJefferson who referred to ''the Constitution itself'' as "a wall of separation..."
** That being said, the absence of that exact phrase does not mean absence of the concept, as some like to argue. The First Amendment reads "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" - basically the same idea, if in less explicit terms - and the Supreme Court (whose word on the Constitution is basically canon, considering that interpreting the Constitution is ''their job'') have interpreted that phrase in light of Thomas Jefferson's "wall of separation" quote and other quotes by the Founding Fathers making clear their lack of desire to bring religion into government and vice versa. Theocratic types tend to run with the fact that the Constitution doesn't include that particular phrase, thinking that means that writing religion into law is constitutional. No, it isn't.
*** This was a contentious issue when the Constitution was written and ratified-Patrick Henry felt that the Constitution as written would still allow for such government support of religion.
*** Note that the clause not only forbids Congress to establish a church on the Federal level but also forbids it to ''dis''establish a ''State'' church, the last of which lingered to about 1830.
* Ethan Allen, [-[[MemeticMutation HERO OF THE REVOLUTION!]]-] never said [[InTheNameOfTheMoon "In the Name of the Great Jehovah, and the Continental Congress!"]] when he defeated the British commander in upstate New York. He actually said "Come on out of there, you Damned old Rat." In any case, as one historian noted, [[DeadpanSnarker He had a commission from neither one]].
* After the Battle of Lake Erie during the war of 1812 U.S. Naval Master Commandant (the equivalent of the current rank of commander) Oliver Hazard Perry sent a famous battle report to Major General (and future president) WilliamHenryHarrison that is often misquoted as "We Have Met the enemy and he is us". However Perry report actually said "We have met the enemy and they are ours; two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop." We can probably thank ''ComicStrip/{{Pogo}}'' creator Walt Kelly for the misquote as he used it first as an attack against [=McCarthyism=] and later as an Earth Day slogan.
* BillClinton never said "It's the economy, stupid!" Said phrase was adapted from James Carville's (Bill Clinton's campaign manager) sign (during Clinton's campaign), which displayed the following:
** Change vs. more of the same
** '''The economy, stupid'''
** Don't forget health care
* One of the most famous quotes from Nazism and therefor Adolf Hitler goes like "Do you want total war, or do you want total radical war?" The real quote went instead: "Do you want total war? If necessary, do you want a war more total and radical than anything that we can even imagine today?", and it was said by Joseph Goebbels not Hitler.
* John F Kennedy DID say, in a speech 'Ich Bin Ein Berliner'. However, contrary to some reports, this would not have sounded like 'I am a Jelly Dougnut' to native Berliners any more than a German announcing that he was a New Yorker would sound like he was announcing he was a magazine.
* German General Von Falkenhayn calling the British Expeditionary Force in World War I "lions led by donkeys" was apparently an invention of historian Alan Clark, MP for his book ''The Donkeys'' (1961). Similar phrases long predate Falkenhayn's apocryphal comment, anyway, from as far back as the Crimean War.
* The phrase "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory" is believed to have originated with AbrahamLincoln describing Union General [[GeneralFailure Ambrose Burnside]]. The quote (at least in this incarnation) actually originates from Charles Fair's 1971 book ''From the Jaws of Victory'', a study of military incompetence. According to Fair, the book's publishers somehow confused his own comment on Burnside with a Lincoln quote.
* Technically speaking, HarrySTruman ''did'' say "If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em", but it was in reference to it being an "old political trick" that he was disparaging. The full quote is as follows:
-->'''Harry Truman''': On the one hand, the Republicans are telling industrial workers that the high cost of food in the cities is due to this government's farm policy. On the other hand, the Republicans are telling the farmers that the high cost of manufactured goods on the farm is due to this government's labor policy. That's plain hokum. It's an old political trick: '''"If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em."''' But this time it won't work.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life -- Sports]]
* NHL coach Jim Schoenfeld is often quoted as saying in a confrontation with referee Don Koharski, "Have another doughnut, you fat pig!" The actual quote was "Good, because you fell, you fat pig! Have another doughnut! Have another doughnut!", as Koharski had slipped on the floor during the confrontation but believed Schoenfeld had pushed him (he hadn't, hence the quote).
* The definitive rallying cry among African-Americans during TheVietnamWar protesting the draft was "No VC ever called me "nigger"!" made famous by Muhammad Ali. In reality, he said, "I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong; they never called me nigger."
** The confusion might be due to a Black Panther character in a scene in the 1994 film version of ''ForrestGump'', who holds up a sign saying exactly that (perhaps as a ShoutOut).
* Eric Cantona's post-kung fu kick statement was "When the seagulls follow trawler ''[sic]'', it's because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea. Thank you very much." Very often misquoted with "fish" in place of "sardines"
* "Football isn't a matter of life or death, it's much more important than that." wasn't said by Bill Shankly. He actually said "Someone said 'football is more important than life and death to you' and I said 'Listen, it's more important than that'."
* Howard Cosell is often quoted as saying "Ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is burning" in reaction to an aerial shot of a five alarm fire in the Bronx during Game 2 of the 1977 World Series. (The supposed quote was further popularized by its use as the title of a book and subsequent {{ESPN}} miniseries.) However, while Cosell did comment on the fire during ABC's telecast of the game, saying that no one was injured as a result, he never actually said "The Bronx is burning".
* Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi never said "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing". The quote was actually from UCLA Bruins football coach Red Sanders.
** This was correctly referenced in ''TheWeekenders''.
* The phrase "The frozen tundra of Lambeau Field" was never spoken by NFL Films narrator John Facenda; it comes from Chris Berman's imitation of him.
* Football announcer Andres Cantor is mostly associated with his GOOOOOOOOOALLL! shout, but it actually orignated by Angel Fernadez and Cantor just imitates it.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life -- Other]]
* "Not a lot of people know that" or "not many people know that" is a line frequently attributed to MichaelCaine, but actually originates from a PeterSellers impression of him on ''Parkinson'':
-->"Not many people know that." This is my Michael Caine impression. You see, Mike's always quoting from the ''Guinness Book of Records''. At the drop of a hat he'll trot one out. "Did you know that it takes a man in a tweed suit five and a half seconds to fall from the top of Big Ben to the ground? Now there's not many people who know that!"
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raFycoDdIs0 According to Caine]], also on ''Parkinson'', Sellers also used his Caine impression, and "Not many people know that" as his answerphone message, "So everyone who phoned him heard me saying 'not many people know that'!"
** Caine did, however, say "Not many people know that" in ''Theatre/EducatingRita'', but that was an [[ActorAllusion in-joke]] because everyone ''thought'' he said it.
* Similarly "And... why not?" wasn't originally said by Barry Norman, but from impressions of him on ''SpittingImage''.
** Norman later lampshaded this with the line "And, as Rory Bremner might say, why not?"
* Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, is often claimed to have said "I don't see any God up here" during his space flight. Another common attribution is "The Earth was blue, but there was no God." Both versions and their many variants are a favorite of {{Hollywood Atheist}}s, are listed in many quote repositories, and used in works such as ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater''--[[http://www.cosmoworld.ru/spaceencyclopedia/gagarin/index.shtml?doc10.html but Yuri Gagarin never said either of them]]. In fact, the former was actually [[http://www.interfax-religion.ru/orthodoxy/?act=interview&div=73&domain=1 the words of Nikita Khrushchev]]--"Gagarin flew into space, but didn't see any god there"--said during a speech to the Central Committee of the Communist Party on the progress of the USSR's anti-religious campaign. The latter is a corruption of Yuri saying "The Earth is blue [...] How wonderful. It is amazing" during his space flight, blending his words with Khrushchev's.
* Jim Lovell never said, "Houston, we have a problem" during ''{{Film/Apollo 13}}''. The actual line is "Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here." The misquote is so pervasive, it has even made its way into the movie starring TomHanks, which has been noted for being fairly accurate.
** Jack Swigert actually said that line. Lovell followed with "Houston, WE'VE HAD a problem," which was actually misquoted intentionally by NASA in the years since because it sounds better, so the movie can only be held accountable for following NASA's {{Retcon}}.
** On a related note, Gene Kranz (Flight Director for ''Apollo 13'') never uttered the words "failure is not an option" during the course of the mission (however, he did pick the phrase as the title of his biography which was published in 2000).
** WordOfGod says they changed the line because they felt the original statement implied that the problem had passed when, in fact, their troubles were just beginning.
* An interesting twist happened during Apollo 11. Neil Armstrong's first words on the moon were scripted (yes, they gave him a script - they weren't about to have some flyboy say something less-than-momentous on the occasion) as "That's one small step for '''a''' man, one giant leap for mankind." However, he flubbed the line. Urban legend maintains that it was a garbled transmission that dropped the article "a," but there's no such gap in the recording; the only pause comes after the first half of the line, when Armstrong realized his mistake and (unsuccessfully) tried to think of a way to cover it. "That's one small step for man... (pause) one giant leap for mankind." He admitted this himself after he retired. And fair's fair, he had a lot on his mind at that moment. But with the eyes of the world on them, the PR man at NASA felt they had to explain away this inconsequential hiccup.
** Some scientist recently analyzed the recording with new technology and found that the "a" ''had'' in fact, been lost in the transmission from the Moon to Earth.
** And then there's the "[[http://www.snopes.com/quotes/mrgorsky.asp Good luck Mr. Gorsky]]" legend...
* A number of people, including BillBryson, have quoted MariahCarey as saying, "When I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff". In actual fact, this quote was taken from a satirical and fictional interview in an on-line magazine.
* GrouchoMarx is popularly (and persistently) claimed to have said to a female contestant on his show ''Series/YouBetYourLife'' "I love my cigar, too, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while!" after being told that the woman has had eleven children. [[http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/grouchocigar.asp He didn't.]] People continue to insist that he has to this day, even after Groucho settled the matter in an interview with RogerEbert:
-->''I got $25 from Reader's Digest last week for something I never said. I get credit all the time for things I never said. You know that line in You Bet Your Life? The guy says he has seventeen kids and I say: "I smoke a cigar, but I take it out of my mouth occasionally"? I never said that.''
:::Snopes does report, however, that Groucho said something ''similar'' to a female contestant who came from a family of seventeen; "Well, I like pancakes, but I haven't got closetsful of them ..."
* Impressions of Jerry Seinfeld almost invariably use the phrase "Who are these people?". While Seinfeld actually [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSZsDZ0k5AE said this]] once in a routine back in 1981, it was only once. The other time Seinfeld uttered this phrase was in a ''SaturdayNightLive'' sketch parodying said phenomenon.
** The popularity of the phrase may have also come from GilbertGottfried's impression of Seinfeld.
** Also, while Seinfeld was famous for observational comedy, he never said "What's the deal with airplane food?" in any of his acts. Mostly because jokes about airline food were DeaderThanDisco before he became a comic.
* Popular belief holds that UsefulNotes/{{Columbine}} High School shooting victim Cassie Bernall was confronted by the killers if she believed in God, and said "yes" in response before being shot. Harris had actually confronted another survivor, Valeen Schurr, with this question, after she supposedly yelled out "Oh God," but she didn't even say yes--her actual words were "No--yes--no ... ?" Which caused Harris to laugh and walk away.
** This phrase is also wrongly attributed to the late [[http://www.rachelschallenge.org/LearnMore/MeetRachel.php Rachel Scott]], another victim, probably due to people finding out about her good deeds through her Rachel's Challenge foundation.
** The quote being attributed to Bernall is not at all helped by the fact that her mother wrote the memoir ''She Said Yes'', which assumed the popular interpretation of her death even after it had been confirmed that it was not the case.
* [[TheBarnum P.T. Barnum]] did not coin the phrase "There's a sucker born every minute." The phrase was first said by David Hannum, a con man who exploited George Hull's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff_Giant Cardiff Giant hoax]], and continued to make money off of it even after the hoax had been disproved.
** Barnum is reported to have said that he wished he had said it.
** Ironically, Hannum said this about the people who paid to see Barnum's version of the Cardiff Giant, which Barnum had made after Hannum refused to sell him the original.
* After Dan White murdered Moscone and Milk trying to get his job back, his attorneys argued that he was incapable of premeditated murder due to severe depression. One of several pieces of evidence presented as to his state of mind was that White, a former fitness advocate, had taken to eating lots of junk food. After his conviction was reduced to voluntary manslaughter there was nationwide outrage due to many reporters acting as if the junk food itself had been the defining factor for the jury. Soon the term Twinkie Defense was coined for such a strategy, despite Twinkies themselves not even being mentioned.
** The term "Twinkie defense" is a pre-Internet meme--it came from the press, after another politician gave a interview on the courthouse steps after the ruling, while waving a Twinkie around in the air.
* This one could be cited in {{Radio}} or LiveActionTV here, but...comedienne Gracie Allen never answered her husband George Burns' "Say good night, Gracie" with a "Good night, Gracie" in any medium.
** This can definitely be attributed to ''LaughIn'' fans, as Dick Martin ''always'' said "Good Night, Dick".
* A quote often attributed to Dolly Parton: "When I was young, we had to wash in a basin. You'd wash up as far as possible, then down as far as possible; then you'd wash possible." She may have said it at some point, but it's a very old joke: appears in ''{{Ulysses}}''.
* Murphy's Law: Commonly given as "Anything that can go wrong, will [go wrong]", but Edward Murphy was a little more verbose: "If there's more than one way to do a job, and one of those ways will result in disaster, then somebody will do it that way." See also FinaglesLaw.
** Referring to his assistant, Captain Murphy also once said, "If there's a way to do it wrong, he will." It was John Paul Stapp who recast this into a general "Murphy's Law".
* The origins of the line "writing about music is like dancing about architecture" are a bit murky. ElvisCostello, FrankZappa, MilesDavis and Laurie Anderson, among many others, are credited with it. Recent research has turned up a couple of late 1970s citations that attribute the line to Martin Mull (who started out as a comedic singer-songwriter before becoming better known as an actor). But, no one's found any examples yet of Mull using the line.
* Blame the Osmonds for the misunderstanding if you must, but the real quote is, "One bad apple spoils the bunch," often with the logical follow-up, "but one good apple can't restore the bad ones." Anyone who says "One bad apple doesn't spoil the bunch" has clearly never been to a produce market.
* Automobile manufacturer Henry Ford never actually advertised Ford Model T's as being available in "any color as long as it's black".
** And to go even further, the car was initially not available ''at all'' in black at the initial launch. Several colors--green, gray, red, blue, but not black. In 1912 Ford started painting all Model T's in dark blue (switching to black two years later), apparently due to the lower cost and faster drying time of the darker paint.
** Ford ''did'', however, use a variant of the phrase ("Any customer can have a car painted any colour he wants so long as it is black") in his 1923 autobiography, ''My Life and Work''.
** Another popular Ford quote ("History is bunk") is a paraphrase of what he actually said ("History is ''more or less'' bunk").
* M. Magnan never said that bees were incapable of flight. What he did say in "Le vol des Insectes" was that bee flight couldn't be explained by fixed-wing calculations. In other words, bees couldn't fly unless they moved their wings.
** A further misunderstanding came when it proved difficult to explain how a bee's musculature could flap its wings as fast as it necessarily must. The answer is that bees (and many similar insects) flap their wings by "plucking" the flight muscle so that it resonates, rather than directly flexing and extending it hundreds of times per minute.
* Creator/GKChesterton never said "When people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing - they believe in anything."
** It's an amalgamation of two quotes from the ''Literature/FatherBrown'' stories: "It's the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense and can't see things as they are", from "The Oracle of the Dog", and "You all swore you were hard-shelled materialists; and as a matter of fact you were all balanced on the edge of belief - of belief in almost anything", from "The Miracle of Moon Crescent".
* Economist John Maynard Keynes said "When I change my mind I say so - what do you do?", not "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"
* [[FreudWasRight Sigmund Freud]] didn't say "Dreams are the royal road to consciousness," it was "The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind."
** Freud was allegedly lecturing on oral fixation when one of his cheekier students asked about his ever-present pipe and he replied "sometimes a pipe is just a pipe." It's more commonly quoted as "cigar", but the whole story's apocryphal: historians have pointed out that Freud always held precisely the opposite attitude, and speculated that the HypocriticalHumor quote evolved as a way for contemporary audiences to lighten the otherwise disturbing implications (at the time) of his theories.
** Freud is sometimes quoted as describing the Irish as "the only people impervious to psychoanalysis", but the closest anyone has found to this is Anthony Burgess, in his introduction to a book of Irish short stories: ''"One of ''[Freud's]'' followers split up human psychology into two categories - Irish and non-Irish."''
* Charles Manson did not announce "I am the devil, and I have come to do the devil's work." Charles "Tex" Watson said "I'm the devil, I'm here to do the devil's business. Give me all your money." to Wojciech "Voytek" Frykowski.
* AlbertEinstein never said, "Astrology is a science in itself and contains an illuminating body of knowledge. It taught me many things, and I am greatly indebted to it. Geophysical evidence reveals the power of the stars and the planets in relation to the terrestrial. In turn, astrology reinforces this power to some extent. This is why astrology is like a life-giving elixir to mankind." He actually had no interest in astrology.
** It's possible some one confused astrology for astronomy. To a lot of people -ology and -onomy are fairly close in meaning and get the two confused until you hear about both. If astrology wasn't popular at the time they might have meant the same thing.
*** To a lot of people ''today'' would confuse the suffixes -ology and -onomy, but the distinction was linguistically and culturally more observed prior to the 1980's and certainly mattered a great deal to scientists; not to mention that the quote itself makes it clear it refers to astronomy ("the power of the stars and the planets in relation to the terrestrial"). This quote is made up by anyone wishing to give credibility to nonsense by giving it authority from an unquestionable genius, to an unsuspecting audience (presumably, people who are inclined to believe in astrology are not inclined to follow up on quote authenticity).
** He also didn't say "[[TenPercentOfYourBrain We only use ten percent of our brain]]." In fact, The ChurchOfHappyology made that up.
** He also never said "Everything's relative."
*** Indeed, he didn't want to call his theory "Relativity" because he suspected people would say things like that.
** Contrary to popular misconception, what Einstein's Theories of Relativity actually say about time is only that it is ''a'' fourth dimension; not that it is '''the''' fourth dimension, to the exclusion of all other possible candidates. If they said the latter, they would contradict at least one cosmological hypothesis, which holds that the universe is mathematically the 3D surface of a 4D hypersphere (and thus endless but finite).
** Also, he never said "E equals MC squared" as many people attribute due to that being how one would read the equation. He said [[http://extra.listverse.com/amazon/recordings2/emc2.mp3 "E is equal M C square"]].
** As his Wikiquote page shows, he probably didn't say "Two things are infinite: the universe and the human stupidity.".
** Another quote attributed to Einstein is: "I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." While he did say somthing similar, [[http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/06/16/future-weapons he used "rocks" instead of "sticks and stones".]] But similar statements using "spears" and "bows and arrows" and attributed to other people also exist.
** As Snopes pointed out, Einstein didn't say anything about the death of bees meaning that mankind only has three or four years left.
** He also didn't have a conversation with his teacher in school concerning believing in things you can't see to prove the existence of God (saying things like "there is no such thing as cold, just the absence of heat"). This is a quote of unknown origin that propogates the internet and is often attributed incorrectly to Einstein.
* Bill Gates did not say, "Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one," it was Charles J. Sykes.
** Nor did Gates ever say "640KB is all the memory you'll ever need" or any variation of that. Recent info has suggested that it was actually an IBM executive that originated the quote, and what he really said was more along the lines of "We believe that 640KB will meet the current needs of our customers." Regardless of whether it was Gates or someone at IBM, they most certainly did ''not'' intend to say that "No-one will ever require more than 640KB of memory," which is what the quote tends to be twisted into meaning.
* "Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door." This now-common saying is attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson, if anyone, but the closest thing he ever wrote was this: "I trust a good deal to common fame, as we all must. If a man has good corn, or wood, or boards, or pigs, to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a well-beaten path to his house, [even if] it be in the woods."
* MarkTwain did not say "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated." He did, however, say "The report of my death is an exaggeration."
** It was actually "was", not "is". He said the line in response to hearing that his obituary had been published in the New York Journal. The newspaper had mistakenly reported his cousin's death as his own death - and his cousin wasn't dead either, it turned out. The full quotation is "James Ross Clemens, a cousin of mine [...], is well now. The report of my illness grew out of his illness - the report of my death was an exaggeration."
** Nor did Twain say, "I've never wished a man dead, but I read some obituaries with great pleasure." That quote comes from Clarence Darrow, who also later said, "I've never killed anyone, save for idiots attributing my goddam quote to Mark Twain."
* There is no evidence whatsoever that Galileo muttered "And yet it moves" or anything like it after his trial before the Italian inquisition. The myth of him saying the phrase only appeared around a century after his death.
** The other common attribution of that phrase is that Giordano Bruno screamed it while burning at the stake.
* Kenneth Arnold, the pilot who "coined" the term FlyingSaucer, never actually used the term to describe his UFO encounter. Rather, he said that they flew "like saucers skipping across water." He would later describe the shape of the crafts he saw as something similar to a stealth bomber.
* William of Ockham (or [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Occam, Hockham, etc.]]) (1288-1348) never said "Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily" (''Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem'') -- the closest he ever got was "Plurality must never be posited without necessity" (''Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate'', "Sentences of Peter Lombard") and "It is futile to do with more things that which can be done with fewer" (''Frustra fit per plura quod potest fieri per pauciora'', "Summa Totius Logicae"), and it wasn't called "Ockham's Razor" until 1852. Ockham didn't really invent it either, versions appear in Aristotle, Alhazen, Moses Maimonides and Duns Scotus.
* Aleister Crowley never said, "If a dog disturbs your meditation, shoot it." The actual quote in context (from Book Four - Part 1) is "Subsequent theologians have tried to improve upon the teachings of the Masters, have given a sort of mystical importance to these virtues; they have insisted upon them for their own sake, and turned them into puritanism and formalism. Thus 'non-killing,' which originally meant 'do not excite yourself by stalking tigers,' has been interpreted to mean that it is a crime to drink water that has not been strained, lest you should kill the animalcula. But this constant worry, this fear of killing anything by mischance is, on the whole, worse than a hand-to-hand conflict with a grizzly bear. If the barking of a dog disturbs your meditation, it is simplest to shoot the dog, and think no more about it."
* Charles H. Duell never said, "Everything that can be invented has been invented." In fact, in his 1899 report, he optimistically hoped the U.S. could surpass or equal its foreign rivals in science, commerce, and industry, and urged the Fifty-Sixth Congress for support for the growing number of patents coming in.
** Instead, that phrase came from an 1899 issue of ''Punch''.
* The Hippocratic Oath doesn't actually contain the words "first do no harm", it comes close with "abstain from doing harm", but "first do no harm" or "Primum non nocere" was never uttered until sometime between 1600 and 1900CE.
* The official motto of the [[CanadaEh Royal Canadian Mounted Police]] (RCMP), a.k.a. the Mounties, is ''not'' "We Always Get Our Man" (though that's an unofficial one). It's "''Maintiens le droit''," which is officially translated as "Defend[ing] the Law."
* The term "laissez faire" is often attributed to economist Adam Smith. He never used the phrase himself.
* Creator/AndyWarhol never said that everyone ''gets'' fifteen minutes of fame. He said that "In the future, everybody will be world famous for fifteen minutes." Whether this fame is wanted or deserved is left as an exercise for the reader.
* HLMencken is often quoted as saying "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public" (with "taste" being substituted for "intelligence" in some versions). This is a paraphrase of what Mencken wrote in an article called "Notes on Journalism", published in the ''Chicago Tribune'' on September 19, 1926: "No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby."
* No hacker ever (unironically) made the taunt "I'm behind seven proxies." The actual quote is "I '''WENT THROUGH''' 7 PROXIES. GOOD LUCK." Note also that "good luck" comes after, not before.
* John Tyner, the man that refused the TSA scanner and patdown, did not say "don't touch my junk." His actual quote is "but if you touch my junk I'll have you arrested."
* The line "Here be dragons" was not common on early maps: in fact, it's only found on the Lenox Globe (from the 1500s): ''HIC SVNT DRACONES'' is written on the coast of eastern Asia, probably in reference to komodo dragons. Roman and medieval cartographers usually wrote ''HIC SVNT LEONES'' ("Here are lions") on unexplored areas.
* There's an urban legend that when the infamous Zodiac Killer attacked Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shephard at Lake Berryesa, Hartnell pleaded "Please, kill me first! I can't bear to see her killed!" This was something made up by a news reporter trying make his story more dramatic than it already was. Bryan Hartnell never did say that to the killer. It does not appear in any interviews given to new reporters or police officers at that time. Also, in recent interviews Hartnell has denied that he ever said that. Still, the quote still appears in books and documentaries pertaining to The Zodiac Killer.
* A meta version: J. Robert Oppenheimer is commonly held to have quoted from the ''Literature/BhagavadGita'' after the Trinity test: "Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." This comes from an interview where he said that the phrase popped into his head at the sight of the atomic explosion, but eyewitness accounts simply have him saying "It worked," or nothing at all.
** Also, the original Sanskrit reads ''kalo 'smi loka-ksaya-krt'', and the best translation is probably, "I am Time which destroys all things."
** Also, it was not Oppenheimer but the Trinity site director Kenneth Bainbridge who said "Now we are all sons of bitches."
** And recall that, like the Bible, the ''Bhagavad Gita'' was originally in a language other than English and has been translated into English in a number of different ways. So some accounts have Oppenheimer remarking: "I ''have'' become Death, the ''shatterer'' of worlds."
* After Azaria Chamberlain disappeared, her mother never actually wailed "Dingos ate my baby!" or anything of the sort. (And although she was convicted of murder, she was later released when it was found that, actually, dingos did eat her baby.)
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_King Rodney King]] didn't ''quite'' say "Can't we all just get along?" His speech during the LA riots was [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_King#Los_Angeles_riots_and_the_aftermath a bit longer]]; the closest phrase was, "People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along? Can we get along?"
* StephenKing never said, "I have seen the future of horror, and it is named CliveBarker." According to Douglas Winter (a friend of King's and author of ''Stephen King: The Art of Darkness''), King actually said, "Well, I haven’t read this guy [Barker], but from what I understand, it’s like what Jann Wenner said: ‘I have seen the future of rock and roll, and his name is Bruce Springsteen.’ Sounds like Clive Barker might be the ‘future of horror fiction.’” Berkeley Books transformed that quote into their famous blurb. 
* KurtVonnegut is often quoted as saying "Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt." It's actually "Everything was beautiful. Nothing hurt."
* Bank robber Willie Sutton is often quoted as saying, in response to an interviewer's question, that he robbed banks "because that's where the money is." He denied ever saying it, and said that a reporter made it up.
* Creator/JKRowling never called Harry/Hermione shippers "delusional." The interviewer did, and she laughed before diplomatically veering the conversation into more neutral territory. However, many people still attribute the word to her.
** She also never wrote the first ''Literature/{{Harry Potter|and the Philosophers Stone}}'' book on a napkin. She did do it in a coffee shop, but she did it the normal way, too. When she heard that rumor, she laughed and said that they'll be saying she wrote it on teabags next.
* When JackNicholson was informed of HeathLedger's death, his reply was supposedly [[MemeticMutation "I warned him."]] In actuality it was "Oh, that's terrible. I warned them.", "them" referring to the [[WarnerBros studio executives]]. To elaborate: Nicholson had known how psychologically tolling it could be to play SelfDemonstrating/TheJoker (the role that Ledger had reportedly died from) and made this known to the executives before ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' began filming. They ignored him, allowing Ledger (who at the time was suffering from numerous personal problems) [[MethodActing to play the role unchecked]]. It allegedly led to his death.
** Like all controversial celebrity deaths, there's been disputes about this--many say he seemed perfectly normal and psychologically healthy on set.
** According to [[http://www.entertainmentwise.com/news/40387/jack-nicholson-i-didnt-warn-heath-ledger-about-dying this article]] he was talking about the pills, not the role.
* Creator/RichardBrautigan killed himself (rather messily) in 1984, but his daughter says he really did not leave a note saying "Messy, isn't it?"
* Dom Pérignon (namesake of the famed champagne) never said "Come quickly, I am drinking the stars!" upon inventing champagne. He actually worked to prevent wine in the champagne region from becoming sparkling wine, since it basically turned the wine bottles into grenades. According to TheOtherWiki, that quote came from a 19th century print ad.
* CarlSagan never actually used the phrase "billions and billions" (until his book by the same name, which was a reference to the common belief that he ''had'' previously used the term), but did use "billions ''upon'' billions" at one point. Either way, he did like using the word "billions."
* Although Thomas J. Watson, CEO of IBM, is well known for his alleged 1943 statement, "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers", there is no evidence he ever made it.
** The misquote is itself often misquoted, with fifty computers instead of five.
* When the ''Titanic'' was being built, she was described as being "virtually unsinkable" thanks to the various safety features being built into her. At the time, everyone displayed a tendency to drop the "virtually" part and refer to her as simply "unsinkable", which [[TemptingFate came back to]] [[NothingCanStopUsNow bite them hard]] when, following a collision with an iceberg, she did in fact sink. Thanks to the notorious nature of the disaster, the "unsinkable" label has tended to stick as an example of what happens if you get too cocky in the face of nature.
* The infamous [[WolfWhistle "wolf whistle"]], popularly depicted in American culture as the standard response to something titillating, usually doesn't sound quite the way it does in cartoons. Animated characters often draw it out, with a pause between the syllables and a rising pitch before the pause and a falling pitch after it, making the noise sound something like "WHEEEET...whoooo!" When the whistle is uttered in real life (and it isn't usually these days, as it's interpreted as rather rude), it is often only a single-syllable whistle ("Whoooo!") or is indeed two syllables but is pronounced much more quickly and with even stress ("Wheet-whoo!").
* Similarly, the "Bronx cheer" (the sound made by humans and certain other primates to suggest derision, which is called [[BlowingARaspberry a "raspberry"]] in places outside the New York area) is often exaggerated in cartoons and on kids' TV shows. Most people pronounce it quick and loud, like a fart--but in fiction it tends to be ridiculously drawn out and to decrease in volume, as if someone were slowly letting the air out of a large helium balloon. (Then again, maybe this is just to [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar Get Crap Past The Radar]].)
* W.C. Fields actually never said "Any man who hates dogs and babies can't be all bad." It was actually said by Leo Rosten ABOUT W.C. Fields.
* In Israel, a common saying is "&#1488;&#1497;&#1513; &#1488;&#1497;&#1513; &#1489;&#1488;&#1502;&#1493;&#1504;&#1514;&#1493; &#1497;&#1495;&#1497;&#1492;", /ish ish be'emunato ikhye/,(basically equivalent to "to each his own", but regarding religious faith) and is considered to be biblical. However, the actual verse is "&#1510;&#1491;&#1497;&#1511; &#1489;&#1488;&#1502;&#1493;&#1504;&#1514;&#1493; &#1497;&#1495;&#1497;&#1492;" /tsadik be'emunato ikhye" (basically meaning "a righteous man is he who lives as his faith [dictates]". 
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18th May '13 6:47:45 PM Salmobook

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18th May '13 2:01:48 PM Korie

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11th May '13 6:07:20 PM UknownTroper

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* Mario of the ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' fame is always viewed as using his head to smash blocks open in the games, which leads to people joking that Mario suffers brain damage or a similar injury by the end of the game. While not obvious at first, if one looks closely when Mario jumps, he raises a fist in the air as he jumps and his fist hits the block, not his head. Ironically, if Mario is using a power-up that lets him fly or he is holding something in his heads, he really does use his head to break block, but this is usually due to lack of proper animations. In official media, Mario always uses his fist to hit blocks from underneath.
** Bowser is also commonly believed to kidnapping Princess Peach just because he has a crush on her. While ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' did show in Bowser's diary that he had feelings for Peach and ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'' had him very stoked that he was going to be forced to marry her, he never expresses those feelings anywhere else in the Mario franchise. At most, Bowser displays ambiguous feelings towards the princess and openly states that kidnapping her is what he does in order to lure Mario into his traps.

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