->''"I never really said most of the things I said."''
-->--'''Yogi Berra'''

->''"Why do these films always forget to put their most famous lines in?"''
-->--'''David Mitchell, ''{{QI}}'''''

Lines that people associate with something or someone by way of PopculturalOsmosis, despite the fact that they are never uttered by them. Usually a mis-quotation of something that actually ''was'' said or done, or a combination of several common or famous lines (If the line isn't even quoted in connection with the source material, it doesn't really count as an example; some supposed misquotes are really just coincidences of phrasing.) In many cases, the misquote provides context necessary to recognize or appreciate the reference, as in "[Luke,] I am your father."

This can be extended to {{Iconic Item}}s the character never actually had: Holmes' deerstalker, etc.

The TropeNamer is "Beam me up, Scotty", never actually uttered in ''StarTrekTheOriginalSeries''. One of the films got pretty close, but even then, it was phrased "Scotty, beam me up" or "Beam me up, Mr. Scott." (It is actually said in ''StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries''.) More often, Kirk said, ''e.g.'', "four to beam up", and he was talking to whoever happened to be at the Transporter console.

To correct someone quoting one of these automatically designates you as a [[strike:smartass]] nerd.

Subtrope of CommonKnowledge. See also DeadUnicornTrope, CowboyBebopAtHisComputer, {{Mondegreen}}, GodNeverSaidThat.
----
!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* The ''SuzumiyaHaruhi'' character Tsuruya-san never says "nyoro~n". She says "nyoro," and not nearly as often as one would think. Her MemeticMutation {{webcomic}} alternate self, Churuya, says "nyoro~n" at the end of every strip. Churuya and Tsuruya even met in the Churuya comic, saying their exact {{Catch Phrase}}s, and people continue to attribute one to the other.
** Tsuruya says "nyoro" in the show, but it probably doesn't help that she arguably ''does'' pronounce it as "nyoro~n" sometimes in her rendition of Hare Hare Yukai.
* Throughout ''JojosBizarreAdventure'', [[{{Kiai}} the cry]] of a vampire is usually spelled "Ureeeeeyyyy!" or "Reeeeeee!" It's almost never spelled "Wryyyyyy!", but MemeticMutation has made this the most common spelling. Additionally that one flash video and MUGEN have made many people attribute the cry to Dio's "Road Roller" super attack from the Capcom fighting game. The sound bite is actually from Shadow Dio's "Charisma!" super.
* [[{{Pokemon}} Ash]] never said "[[MemeticMutation Aim for ]][[ScrewTheRulesIHavePlot the horn!]]", he actually said "Pikachu! The horn!".
* Tobi from ''{{Naruto}}'' did not ''himself'' say "[[MemeticMutation Tobi is a good boy]]", that was something ''Zetsu'' (well, [[SplitPersonality part of him]]) said ''about'' Tobi.
** This troper never got how people mixed that up. Zetsu was the one talking in the sentence before it. And in the anime it's tragically obvious that it's Zetsu speaking.
*** It due to Tobi having a childish personalty which would make it likely for him to repeat stuff he hears, plus it's funny.
*** It probably comes from Web cartoon ''Fun With Akatsuki'', which is on YouTube. Tobi says that a lot there, and it's been on for a few years.
**Sasuke is commonly attributed with telling Sakura: "You're weak/useless." But actually he never said that. The closest comes when she asks him if they can go work on their teamwork, "just the two of us." And he responds with, "You're the same as Naruto. If you have time to bother me practice a jutsu or two. Frankly, Your ability is below Naruto." He compliments her two chapters later to cheer her up.
***Also, while Sasuke does actually call Sakura annoying, it's usually taken widely out of context. The first time is right after she'd been talking bad about Naruto and Sasuke sticks up for him. The second is when he is trying to leave, right after telling her he didn't remember that conversation, clearly proving he did remember it.
* ''InuYasha'' Never says “Feh”. It’s “Keh” just been mistranslated on scanlations.
** This sounds like a case of ''translation'' rather than mistranslation. What Inu Yasha says is a monosyllabic sound of derision, and presumably the scanslators thought that "feh" was such a sound as would be uttered in English while "keh" was not. Whether you think "feh" has this meaning in English, and whether you think such sounds ''should'' be translated is another matter, of course.
*Shirou from ''FateStayNight'' is notably popular for the quote, [[CaptainObvious "People die when they are killed."]], despite the fact that this is a mistranslation from fansubbers and not the correct one (I don't know what's his actual quote, but I think he has a [[DeathIsCheap point]]). But fans ran with it and that line became [[MemeticMutation memetically]] popular.
**He's talking about how immortality is wrong, as I recall. His real meaning was people SHOULD die when they're killed, i.e. people shouldn't be able to take a fatal wound and still go on living.
* In the dub of ''PrincessMononoke'', Eboshi says, "Now watch closely, everyone. I'm going to show you how to kill a god." This has been misquoted as, "Now I will show you how to kill a god."
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* The oft-quoted ''{{Spider-Man}}'' line "With great power comes great responsibility" is often attributed to Peter Parker's Uncle Ben, but the first appearance of the line was in fact just in a closing caption to the first story in ''Amazing Fantasy'', not said by any actual character. And even then, it was actually phrased "With great power there must also come great responsibility". In later retcons of Spider-Man's origin and in retellings such as that of [[{{Film/Spider-Man}} the movie]], the line is shortened and attributed to Uncle Ben, so while that is what is [[RetCanon now in-continuity]], the line was not originally his.
** ''TheSpectacularSpiderMan'' AnimatedAdaptation plays with this: a flashback shows Uncle Ben delivering the original line, but Peter then says the shorten version later when he decided to spare Ben's killer.
** ''[[UltimateMarvel Ultimate]] Spider-Man'' played with it even more. Let's just say it was a good thing that Peter decided to shorten ''this'' one:
---> '''Uncle Ben''' You know your father, God rest his soul... Your father had a philosophy the he held to pretty strongly. And it's one that served him very, very well... He believed that if there were things in this world that you had to offer, things that you did well -- better than anyone else...things that you could do that helped people feel better about themselves...well, he believed that it wasn't just a good idea to do those things...he believed it was your responsiblity to do those things. Don't try to be something else. Don't try to be less. Great things are going to happen to you and your life Peter. Great things. And with that will come great responsiblity. Do you understand?
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Commercials]]
* Ricardo Montalban's famous commercials for Chrysler feature him praising the "soft Corinthian leather" of the seats, not "rich" or "fine."
* While it's certainly the message he wanted to convey, Yul Brynner did not say the exact phrase "I'm dead. Don't smoke," in his posthumous anti-smoking ad.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film]]
* Rorschach lines from the opening monologue of ''{{Watchmen}}'' is often misquoted (thanks to [[Film/{{Watchmen}} the trailer]]) as "...and the world will look up and shout "Save us!"...and I'll whisper "no." The line in the actual film is taken directly from the comic: "all the whores and politicians will look up and shout "Save us!" and I'll whisper "no.", but it was slightly censored for the trailer.
* JackNicholson's memorable line from ''AFewGoodMen'' is frequently misquoted in parodies as "You want the truth? You can't handle the truth." The dialogue between Nicholson and TomCruise actually goes, "You want answers?" "I want the truth!" "You can't handle the truth!"
* ''TaxiDriver'': the monologue is ''"You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Then who the hell else are you talking... you talking to me? Well I'm the only one here. Who the fuck do you think you're talking to? Oh yeah? OK."'' People often get it wrong.
*''{{Highlander}}'': the line is "There can '''be only''' one," not "There can only be one."
**Anyone who has ever listened to Queen's "A Kind of Magic" should never make this mistake again.
*''... And Justice For All'': Pacino doesn't say "I'm out of order? You're out of order! This whole court is out of order!"; it's "'''You're''' out of order! You're out of order! The whole '''trial''' is out of order! '''They're''' out of order!"
* "Play it again, Sam", (not) from ''{{Casablanca}}.'' The actual quote is:
-->'''Rick:''' You know what I want to hear.\\
'''Sam:''' ''[lying]'' No, I don't.\\
'''Rick:''' You played it for her, you can play it for me!\\
'''Sam:''' ''[lying]'' Well, I don't think I can remember...\\
'''Rick:''' If she can stand it, I can! Play it!\\
Earlier in the film, Ilsa (Rick's love interest) also entreats him to "Play it, Sam." The more famous variant actually comes from a MarxBrothers parody entitled ''A Night in Casablanca''.
** Also, WoodyAllen named a play and movie in which a nebbish is given life coaching by an imaginary Humphrey Bogart ''Play it Again, Sam''.
** Thomas Hischak's one act play ''Richard Blaine, The Merchant of Morocco, or, If Shakespeare Had Written Casablanca'', is about [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin exactly what you'd expect it to be]]; as such, it spoofs many Shakespeare lines - including, "If music be the food of love, play it again, Sam."
** And then there's PIAS (Play it again sam) a record label, making sure this will stay with us in the forseeable future.
* At no point in ''[[StarWars The Empire Strikes Back]]'' does Darth Vader say "[[LukeIAmYourFather Luke, I am your father]]." His actual line was:
-->'''Darth Vader:''' Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.\\
'''Luke:''' He told me enough! He told me ''you'' killed him!\\
'''Darth Vader:''' No -- I ''am'' your father.
** In the NPR radio dramatization, however, Vader does indeed say "No, Luke, I am your father."
** Part of the mix up for the younger generation might come from a similar line spoken by [[HeyItsThatVoice the same actor]] in the LionKing: "Simba, I am your father"
** Likewise, Obi-Wan Kenobi never says "May the Force be with you" to Luke (except in the trailer). Obi-Wan's line is, "The Force will be with you, always". A bunch of other people ''do'' say "May the Force be with you", though.
** Han Solo ''does'' say the line, however.
** Neither Yoda nor TheObiWan explains [[BrotherSisterIncest Luke's relationship to Leia]]. Luke "feels" it.
** The first title card always reads "''A long time ago'' in a galaxy far, far away...." "Long, long ago" is seen in the inside cover of a few novels, but never in the films.
*''[=~42nd Street~=]'': ''"But you keep your feet on the ground and your head on those shoulders of yours and go out, and, Sawyer, you're going out a youngster, but you've got to come back a star!"'' is misquoted in many ways, e.g. "You're going out (there) a youngster, but you're coming back a star!", "You're going out (on that stage) a nobody, (kid), but you're coming back a star!", or "You're going out a chorus girl, but you're coming back a star!"
*It's sometimes claimed that in ''BrideOfTheMonster'', BelaLugosi said his manservant Lobo (Tor Johnson) was "as harmless as kitchen" [sic] as a sign of his diminished faculties and/or Wood's incompetent direction. But actually, he says the line fine: "Don't be afraid of Lobo; he's as gentle as a kitten."
* ''{{Dracula}}'' never said "I vont to suck your blood!"
*''Knute Rockne: All-American'': Knute Rockne says ''"And the last thing he said to me, 'Rock,' he said, 'sometime when the team is up against it and the breaks are beating the boys, tell them to go out there with all they got and '''win just one for the Gipper'''."'' Often quoted as "Win one for the Gipper," or "Win this one for the Gipper."
* ''SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs'': the Queen says: “'''Magic Mirror''' on the Wall, who is the Fairest '''one''' of all?", not “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?”
** That may be the film version, but depending on translation, the Grimm version is closer - my copy says "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who in this realm is the fairest of all?". Presumably the well-known version would also be an acceptable translation. So it's not really a "misquote" unless you're deliberately trying to quote the film rather than the story.
** "Mirror, mirror on the wall" is definitely older than the Disney movie; it was used at least in a parody by Ring Lardner.
* ''Lives of a Bengal Lancer'': it's “[[VeHaffVays We have ways]] of making '''men''' talk," not “We have ways of making you talk.” However, the latter has become a StockPhrase, and relatively few people have heard of the movie.
* {{Tarzan}} never said "Me, Tarzan. You, Jane." Johnny Weismuller, star of a series of Tarzan movies, gave the phrase in an interview as an indication of the ''kind'' of dialogue he was being given, but even he didn't say that exact phrase in any of the movies. This was probably paraphrased from a scene from the 1932 ''Tarzan, the Ape Man'':
-->'''Jane:''' (pointing to herself) Jane.
-->'''Tarzan:''' (he points at her) Jane.
-->'''Jane:''' And you? (she points at him) You?
-->'''Tarzan:''' (stabbing himself proudly in the chest) Tarzan, Tarzan.
-->'''Jane:''' (emphasizing his correct response) Tarzan.
-->'''Tarzan:''' (poking back and forth each time) Jane. Tarzan. Jane. Tarzan…
* The oft-quoted scene from ''CrocodileDundee'' rather than the misquote: "That's not a knife... This is a knife" actually goes:
-->'''Sue:''' "He's got a knife!"\\
'''Crocodile Dundee:''' "That's not a knife." (Draws large bowie knife) "''That's'' a knife."
* The line "My God, it's full of stars" is never said or sort-of said in the movie ''[=~2001: A Space Odyssey~=]''. The closest the movie gets to this line is in a moment toward the end when a starfield bursts onto the screen, but not a single word is spoken during this [[TrippyFinaleSyndrome light show]] (or after it, for that matter). The line ''does'' appear in Arthur C. Clarke's novel (part of the same project), and the film version of ''2010: The Year We Made Contact''.
** In addition, the very famous and oft quoted line "I'm afraid I can't let you do that, Dave" never appears in ''2001''. Rather HAL says "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that" and later says "I'm afraid, Dave" when being disconnected.
*** And before that, he does say "I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen."
*** And as if there weren't enough misquotations, the line, "Good morning Dave" is never uttered. "Good '''evening''' Dave" and "Good '''afternoon gentlemen'''" on the other hand are.
* John Wayne did not say, "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do" in the film ''Hondo''. It's actually, "A man oughta do what he thinks is best".
** There is a line from a classic Western that is much closer to this supposed Wayne line, but it's not from Wayne; Alan Ladd says "A man's gotta be what a man's gotta be" in ''Shane''.
* ''TheTreasureOfTheSierraMadre'' never featured the line "We don't need no stinking badges!" The actual lines are:
-->'''Bandit:''' "We are Federales. You know, the mounted police."\\
'''Dobbs:''' "If you're the police, where are your badges?"\\
'''Bandit:''' "Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges! I don't have to show you any stinking badges!"
** That said, if someone says, "We don't need no stinking badges!", they ''are'' quoting a movie: ''BlazingSaddles''.
* In no film did James Cagney ever say "You dirty rat!" This is a misquote of a line from the 1931 film ''BlondeCrazy'', where he refers to another character as "that dirty double-crossing rat".
* Nor did Cary Grant ever say "Judy, Judy, Judy". Apparently, comedian Larry Storch was doing a Cary Grant impersonation in a nightclub when Judy Garland walked in. He greeted her from the stage in character and it somehow became part of the Grant mystique, mystifying even Cary, himself.
** In an acceptance speech for the American Film Institute's lifetime achievement award, Cagney ribbed impressionist Frank Gorshin (and poked fun at the oft-misatributed line) by saying "And, Frank, I never said 'mmm, you dirty rat.' What I really said was 'Judy, Judy, Judy!'"
* Mae West never said "Come up and see me sometime." The actual line is "Why don't you come up some time, and see me." Which mostly just moves words around but really changes the emphasis.
**MaeWest didn't say “Is that a gun in your pocket OrAreYouJustHappyToSeeMe?” in any film. It's sometimes said to be in ''She Done Him Wrong'', but actually she said it in RealLife to a policeman who was escorting her.
*** West did say this in a movie, but not until 1978, when she was 85 years old. She asks “Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?” in the movie ''Sextette''. You can see it [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC9dde6NXIY here]], with the line around 9:15.
* Many parodies, pastiches, and {{Shout Out}}s to Jason Voorhees, villain of the ''Friday the 13th'' films, show him wielding a chainsaw, even though his favorite weapon in the movies is just a machete. In fact, he has never used a chainsaw for any purpose. This may be due to the startling number of other slasher villains who ''do'' use chainsaws, or it may be simply because ChainsawGOOD! Chainsaws are more the domain of Leatherface from the aptly named ''Texas Chainsaw Massacre'' franchise, and Ash, of ''Evil Dead'' (who was his series' ''hero'').
** In fact, Jason only uses one automated weapon (am I terming that right?) in the whole series, in Part VII, and it's a weed-whacker.
* An odd example is ''SnakesOnAPlane''. The original trailer had Samuel L. Jackson simply saying, "I've had it with these snakes!" The more familiar [[ClusterFBomb profanity-laced version]] was initially a product of MemeticMutation, but it became popular enough that the producers decided to reshoot the scene with the modified line, so it actually ''was'' in the movie after all.
** Not quite- the memetic version began with "That's it...", while the version in the film was "Enough is enough...". Both show up a lot online.
* "The frozen tundra of Lambeau Field" was never spoken by NFL Films narrator John Facenda; it comes from Chris Berman's imitation of him.
* Smith's monologue in ''TheMatrix'' is often misquoted: "Human beings are a virus", or "Human beings are a disease, and we are the cure." Agent Smith's speech patterns make it easy to misquote.
-->I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. '''Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure.'''
* ClintEastwood didn't say "Do you feel lucky, punk?" in ''DirtyHarry''. He said, "You'd better ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well do you, punk?" which you can see as the lead-in quote on BottomlessMagazines.
** And he says it ''two'' distinctly different ways, one at the very beginning of the movie, and then again at the very end. The first time, he says it so the gunman will think he has more ammo and will drop his weapon (he's out of bullets). The second time, he states it so the AxeCrazy villain will try him (he has another bullet left).
*** The line can be heard at the start of ''Magnum Force''.
* The line from ''WhiteHeat'' is not "Top of the world, Ma!" it's "Made it, Ma! Top of the world!". Lex Luthor misquotes it in the 1st season finale of ''LoisAndClark'', and ''TheSimpsons'' has done it a few times.
* ''{{Clerks}}'' has Randal quoting ''IndianaJones and the Temple of Doom'' with "No time for love, Doctor Jones!". But Short Round's actual line was "Hey, Dr. Jones, no time for love."
* ''TheMalteseFalcon'': Bogie says "The stuff that dreams are made of" at the end, not "It's the stuff that dreams are made of".
** This in turn is a variant of "... such stuff / As dreams are made on," from Shakespeare's ''TheTempest''.
*Classic Western ''TheVirginian'': Gary Cooper's taunting line was not "Smile when you call me that!", or "When ya call me that, smile!", but "If you wanna call me that, smile." Easy to get confused, because in the original novel, he says "When you call me that -- ''smile''!"
*An inversion: sometimes Greta Garbo's quote "I want to be alone" is said to have never been said, or to have only been used in an interview. But it actually does appear in one of her movies: ''GrandHotel''.
* In ''BatmanAndRobin'', Mr. Freeze utters dozens of ice- and snow-related puns. "Ice to meet you" is not one of them. The line "Ice to ''see'' you" was previously used by [=McBain=] in a ''Simpsons'' spoof.
*In the 1989 ''Batman'' movie, Batman does this in the movie: when Jack Napier kills his parents at the beginning, he asks young Bruce Wayne if he's ever danced with the devil BY the pale moonlight. Later on when Batman confronts Joker (Napier), he asks him if he's ever danced with the devil IN the pale moonlight. Even IMDB misses this one for some reason, but by and in are interchanged in the otherwise identical statements.
*''TheSilenceOfTheLambs'': Lecter never says "Hello, Clarice"; it's "Good evening, Clarice."
*"Come with me to the Casbah [...] we'll make beautiful music together" is not from the film ''Algiers'', but from a Yosemite Sam/Pepe LePew cartoon.
*Not a quote, but the image of Macaulay Culkin with his hands to his cheeks, screaming, isn't because he has realized he has been left ''HomeAlone'', but because he has stung himself with aftershave.
* In ''{{Jaws}}'', the line is "'''You're''' gonna need a bigger boat.", not "We're gonna need a bigger boat."
* No JamesBond villain has ''ever'' said: "Good evening, Mr. Bond. We've been expecting you." Bits of it, yes, and sometimes they were said by other people, but never the entire quote. For example, one of ''DrNo'' 's henchmen shouts "We've been expecting you!" Blofeld says "We've been expecting you" in ''DiamondsAreForever'', and a minute later says "Good evening, Mr. Bond."
** Bond doesn't actually say "The name's Bond, James Bond" that often either ("BondJamesBond" however is in practically every film) and orders vodka martinis rarely too.
** ''DrNo'' is called just that. Four letters (and a full stop). There's no book nor film titled ''Doctor No''.
** In one episode of HouseMD the title character does an impression of Blofeld, complete with a cat on his knes, and goes [[{{Goldfinger}} "No, mr Bond, I expect you to die"]]. Everybody guesses the charade, yet noone corrects House, though [[{{Geek}} Kutner]] should know better.
*''{{Zulu}}'': the line isn't "Zulus. Thousands of 'em.", but "The sentries report Zulus '''to the south west'''. Thousands of '''them'''." Also, Michael Caine (Lt. Bromhead) doesn't say it; it's Colour Sergeant Bourne, played by Nigel Greene.
* This is done in ''NoCountryForOldMen'' as well. At no point does antagonist Anton Chigurh use the phrase "Call it, Friendo." This is a blend of two lines in the same scene: "What business is it of yours where I'm from, friendo?" and (repeatedly) "Call it."
* Scarlett O'Hara says "Tomorrow '''is''' another day", not "Tomorrow's another day" at the end of ''GoneWithTheWind''.
** Rhett Butler's memorable final line, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," is sometimes misquoted as "Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a damn." The misquotation has appeared in several places where the line was used comically, including ''{{Clue}}'' and an episode of ''MamasFamily''.
** Not a line quoted particularly often, but "I don't know nothin' about birthin' babies" is sometimes changed to "I don't know nothing about birthin' ''no baby''."
*''TheGraduate'': "Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. [awkward pause] Aren't you?" is misquoted as "Are you trying to seduce me, Mrs. Robinson?"
* {{Lord of the Rings}} - it's not uncommon for Theoden's pre-charge speeches to be merged when quoted. The line from ''The Two Towers'' is "Fell deeds awake. Now for wrath. Now for ruin. And the red dawn!", and the line from ''The Return of the King'' is "Ride now, ride now, ride! Ride for ruin and the world's ending!". What you often get is combinations of the two, such as "Ride for wrath, ride for ruin and the red dawn/the world's ending" and "Now for wrath, now for ruin and the world's ending."
** Equally, Aragorn's [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome Crowning Speech Of Awesome]] is often abridged and misquoted, mostly because of the Return of the King trailer. Ask any layman on the street what the speech was, and most who claim to remember will say "I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me! Someday, the courage of men may fail, but it is not this day! This day, ''we fight!''" The actual speech is: "Sons of Gondor! Of Rohan! My brothers! I see, in your eyes, the same fear that would take the heart of me! A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day... an hour of woes and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down, but it is ''not this day!'' This day, we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you, ''stand''! '''''[[ThisIsSparta Men! Of! The West!]]'''''
** "Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red dawn," specifically, is taken from the last line of the song sung by Eomer in ''Return of the King'' (with "nightfall" changed to "dawn" as was appropriate for Helm's Deep; a lot of people were pissed that this threw off the rhythm):
---> Out of doubt, out of dark to the day's rising\\
I came singing in the sun, sword unsheathing.\\
To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking\\
Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!
** And this quote still is taken from the Pelennors Field speech (whom this troper and a couple of her friends now to memory) which is this:
---> Forth! And fear no darkness! Arise! Arise Riders of Théoden!\\
Spears shall be shaken! Shields shall be splintered!\\
A sword day, a red day! As the sun rises!\\
Ride now! Ride now! RIDE! Ride for ruin and the world ending!\\
Death! Death! DEATH!\\
Forth Eorlingas!
* An interesting version occurs with Michael Caine. A line attributed to him and often used in impressions of him was 'Not a lot of people know that', a line which originated from a Peter Sellers impression of him. However, in the film ''Educating Rita'', the line was given to Michael Caine to say as an in-joke.
** This troper suspects that this misquote may have originated as a blending of Michael Caine's actual catchphrase, "not ''many'' people know that", with Paul Daniels' "not a lot".
* Possibly the most quoted line from ''Laurel and Hardy'' is Ollie's "This is another fine mess you've gotten me into, Stanley," (the "Stanley" is often omitted). This line was never spoken in any of their films. The line that was actually frequently used by Ollie was, "This is another '''nice''' mess you've gotten me into," and he never added a "Stanley" to the line either. The confusion apparently stems from one of the L&H shorts entitled "Another Fine Mess."
* The line "I don't think we're in Kansas any more, Toto" is a misquote of Dorothy's line in ''TheWizardOfOz''. The actual quote is "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas any more."
**The Wicked Witch says "Fly, fly, fly!", not "Fly, my pretties, fly!"
* The most famous line from ''ApocalypseNow'' is actually much longer than often thought. People tend to quote it as "I love the smell of napalm in the morning. It smells like... victory." The complete quote goes: "Do you smell that? It's napalm, son. Nothing else on the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. Y'know, once we had a hail bomb....12 hours....and when it was all over I walked up. We didn't find one of them, not one stinking dink body. The smell, y'know that gasoline smell, that whole hell. Smells like... victory."
* The actual line from Howard Beale's rant in ''{{Network}}'' is "I'm ''as'' mad as hell, and I'm not ''going'' to take ''this'' anymore!" Often misquoted as "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" Some people shout the latter out of windows, but Beale doesn't.
*''ThisIsSpinalTap'': often misquoted as "There's a fine line between clever, and stupid", David St. Hubbins actually says "It's such a fine line between stupid, and clever."
**Don't forget that Christopher Guest never said, [[UpToEleven "This one goes to eleven."]] The correct line is "These go to eleven."
*Sally Field (in)famously gushed "You like me, you really like me!" after her 1985 Oscar win. Except she didn't...
-->"I haven't had an orthodox career, and I've wanted more than anything to have your respect. The first time I didn't feel it, but this time I feel it, and I can't deny the fact that '''you like me, right now, you like me'''!"
* Related phenomenon: While M. Bison really ''did'' say [[MemeticMutation OF COURSE!]] in the ''StreetFighter'' film the context of the line is frequently mistaken to be something he said after stating his goal to TakeOverTheWorld (probably due to a RunningGag used by TheNostalgiaCritic), instead of in response to Sagat [[CaptainObvious pointing out that Guile was alive]].
* ''ChariotsOfFire'' had plenty of triumphant scenes, some in slow motion, but ''none'' using the title music. But parodies only use that tune. (slow motion running with that theme is accurate, though)
* A minor example from ''TheDarkKnight'': "[[strike:Wanna see]] How about a magic trick? [[strike:Watch me]] [[EyeScream I'm gonna make this pencil... disappear.]]"
* ''SunsetBoulevard'': Norma's famous line--"All right, Mr. [=DeMille=], I'm ready for my close-up."--is often misquoted as "I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. [=DeMille=]."
* Looking for the iconic MarilynMonroe shot with the subway wind blowing up her skirt? You won't find it in ''TheSevenYearItch'', it only shows her legs and reaction shots: the full-length picture only appears in publicity and posters.
* People like to quote Ben Stein's character from ''Ferris Bueller's Day Off'' as saying, "Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?" but that's not how it happened. When he's taking attendance, he says, "Bueller... Bueller..." Later on, when he's teaching, he asks for audience participation and that's when he says, "Anyone? Anyone?" Ferris is absent, so there's no reason to be calling on him to answer a question in class.
* ''TheGodfather'' doesn't say "You come to me, on the day of my daughter's wedding?" He says "You come into my house on the day my daughter is to be married and you ask me to do murder - for money."
** Also -- this is a slightly nitpicky one, but that's what we're here for -- at the beginning, Michael tells Kay that "Luca Brasi put a gun to his head, and my father assured him that either his brains or his signature would be on the contract." "Brains" and "signature" are often transposed -- presumably people think it [[BreadEggsMilkSquick packs more of a punch if the horrible option comes last]], but that just ain't the way it is.
* In the original version of ''TheFly'', there's plenty of "Help meeee! Help meeee!" but no "Be afraid. Be very afraid." The DavidCronenberg remake is the source of "Be afraid," and has "Help me, ''please'' help me."
** Also, an example less of wording and more of intonation: "Help meeee!" is often done high pitched in parodies; ie. ''{{Beetlejuice}}''. In the original movie, however, it was more of a deep, nasal sound, like an insect buzzing.
* [[{{Ptitle1d5irnza}} "This is smashing!"]]
* [[MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail The Black Knight's]] most memorable quote is [[OnlyAFleshWound "It's only a flesh wound!"]] and has even been merchandised as such when he really said [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKhEw7nD9C4 "Just a flesh wound."]]
* [=~E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial~=] never said "E.T. phone home." He said "E.T., home, phone," and the ''kids'' repeated it as "E.T. phone home.".
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* "[[SherlockHolmes Elementary, my dear Watson]]" was never in a Conan Doyle book or story. Although Holmes did express similar sentiments often [he said "elementary" on a couple of occasions and frequently addressed Watson as "my dear Watson"(or my dear fellow, or my dear doctor. Holmes was quite possessive)], and William Gillette's play came nearer with Holmes saying, "Elementary my dear fellow!", the actual phrase originates in a PGWodehouse tale called ''Psmith, Journalist''.
**The closest Doyle came to writing it was in "The Crooked Man":
-->"I have the advantage of knowing your habits, '''my dear Watson'''," said he. "When your round is a short one you walk, and when it is a long one you use a hansom. As I perceive that your boots, although used, are by no means dirty, I cannot doubt that you are at present busy enough to justify the hansom."\\
"Excellent!" I cried.\\
"'''Elementary'''," said he.
** Holmes is never described by Conan Doyle as wearing a deerstalker. This came about from the original illustrations. William Gillette took inspiration from the Sidney Paget illustrations in costuming his play, and later Basil Rathbone used the same such costuming in his famous films, effectively cementing the image in the public mind. Later illustrations would have him wearing the rural hat in a city, quite a faux pas.
*** The exact description is ''earflapped travelling cap''; Sidney Paget's classic illustration, showing a deerstalker, strongly suggests that few if any other types of headgear would be conjured by that description, just as the phrase "a straw hat" would (at that time) invariably suggest a boater.
* The line "AlasPoorYorick! I knew him well," from Shakespeare's Hamlet. It's actually "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio." As a result, the line is also misremembered as a soliloquy, when in reality Horatio is on stage with Hamlet.
** Also, "To be or not to be" is not in that scene.
* Sort of...sort of. In ThePrincessBride, one of the lines from the movie most known to people is, "I want my father back, you son of a bitch!" The actual line from the original book: "I want '''Domingo Montoya''', you son of a bitch."
*''Sea Fever'': it's not “I must go down to the sea again.”, but "I '''must down''' to the '''seas''' again.”
**According to my dictionary of quotations, the latter is a misprint and the former ''is'' what Masefield intended. The rhythm flows better.
*The first poem in the Mother Goose book of rhymes starts "Find a pin, pick it up", not "Find a penny, pick it up"
* None of {{Enid Blyton}}'s ''Famous Five'' books include the phrase "lashings of ginger beer". That comes from the infamous MadeForTVMovie parodies by British comedy troupe ''The Comic Strip'', "Five Go Mad In Dorset" and "Five Go Mad on Mescalin". It has its origins in the Five's (or at least their human members') [[TrademarkFavouriteFood penchant for ginger beer]] and the fact that their [[FoodPorn lovingly described meals]] do frequently sport [[AuthorVocabularyCalendar lashings]] of an appropriate accompaniment such as gravy or cream.
*There is no-one to say "follow the white rabbit" in ''AlicesAdventuresInWonderland'', the line only appears in ''TheMatrix''.
* Hagrid's oft-quoted line "you're a wizard, Harry" appears only in the first ''HarryPotter'' film -- in the book, his line was "Harry -- yer a wizard".
*Coleridge's ''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'' is often quoted as "Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink"; the actual line is "Water, water everywhere, '''nor any''' drop to drink"
** Naturally, [[GarthMarenghisDarkplace Garth Marenghi]] got it wrong.
**This misquote's popularity is most likely due to its usage in the movie "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" in which Mr. Wonka says "Bubbles, bubbles everywhere, but not a drop to drink...yet".
*'''Considering TheBible is the most translated text in the world, and was not originally written in English, take many of the following with a grain of salt''': A line frequently quoted from TheBible is "money is the root of all evil". While technically a correct quote, it leaves out three important words. The full quote (from the somewhat {{Macekre}}d King James version anyway) is "''the love of'' money is the root of all evil." Another translation is "the love of money is '''a''' root of all kinds of evil," which changes the meaning almost entirely.
** Another Biblical example. The story of the Garden of Eden is often summarized as "the Devil tricks Adam and Eve into eating an apple," but none of this is accurate. The snake is simply a snake, and is not identified as the devil. And the fruit is never specified as an apple (the word though is hard to translate into English as it means any tree fruit, including nuts) - the idea of it being an apple comes from the Latin word ''malus'', which means both "apple" and "evil". Muslims traditionally say the forbidden fruit was dates.
** {{Pride}} [[YeOldeButcheredeEnglishe cometh not]] before a fall. Rather, what TheBible really says is, "Pride cometh before ''destruction'', and the haughty spirit before a fall".
** Let's not forget the misconception that the Bible says "do not drink". It actually says "do not get drunk", which is smart anyway.
*** And in fact, it never outright says that either, though it implies "do not get ''too'' drunk".
** Although the Bible mentions cleanliness several times, you won't find a single verse that actually says, "Cleanliness is next to Godliness."
***Or "God helps those who help themselves." The original was from Greek polytheism, and in Christianity it's a massive BrokenAesop.
**Another: "Spare the rod [and] spoil the child" is by Samuel Butler; the closest the Bible gets is "He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him." (Prov 13:24)
**"No rest for the weary/wicked." is probably a corruption of Isaiah 57:21 "There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked."
**"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." doesn't appear; it's "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." (Matthew 7:12)
***It depends on the translation. The NIV says "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets."
**Nowhere does anyone say "The lion shall lie down with the lamb"; Isaiah 11:6 runs:
-->The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them.
**None of St Paul's letters say "When in Rome, do as the Romans do"; the quote is from St Ambrose: ''si fueris R?mae, R?m?n? v?vit? m?re; si fueris alib?, v?vit? sicut ibi'' (“if you are in Rome, live in the Roman way; if you are elsewhere, live as they do there.”
**"IAmLegion" does not appear in most translations. The actual line is "My name is Legion". (Mark 5:9)
*Not a quote, but reference is frequently made to RobinsonCrusoe finding Friday's footprint in the sand. The footprint he finds could have belonged to any one of several dozen "savages"; it was almost certainly not Friday's.
*"'Will you '''walk''' into my parlor,' said the spider to the fly", not "come into my parlor."
*''[=~The Devil's Dictionary~=]'' said the brain was "An apparatus with which we think '''what''' we think", not "An apparatus with which we think we think."
*''[[NineteenEightyFour 1984]]'' is about "doublethink", "crimethink", "goodsex", "sexcrime" and "duckspeak", not "double talk", "groupthink" or "{{doublespeak}}".
** It's not [[http://unspeak.net/ unspeak]] either.
** Misquoting Orwell is [[FutureSlang doubleplusungood]].
*** To be fair, the appendix did explain the devational morphology of Newspeak in detail, and practically begs any fan of the book to make up their own examples. unregard antetext, replace: posttext shows wordmake rules Newspeak plusdeepwise. nearwise asks goodthinkers wordmake.
* In Spanish-speaking countries, it is very common to attribute to DonQuixote the expression ''"Ladran, Sancho, señal que cabalgamos"'' ''("There's barking, Sancho, it shows that we're riding")''. Neither the sentence nor anything similar is ever uttered by the aspiring vagrant knight.
* Ask "What is the meaning of life?" on the Internet and it's almost guaranteed that somebody will respond "[[TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy 42.]]" The answer is right; the question is way, ''way'' off. In fact, the question is [[spoiler:still unknown... or "What do you get when you multiply six by seven?" depending on whether or not you believe the bag-grabbing ploy worked.]] Technically, 42 isn't even the meaning of life - rather, it is the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
** Actually, the Question is [[spoiler:"What do you get when you multiply six by NINE?" according to the bag-grabbing ploy.]]
*** That question is presumed to be wrong even before they deduce it (Because the Golgafringians interfered with the program), but it ought to be, our heroes presume, ''close''.
** There's some textual evidence that the question is "Pick a number, any number." It comes up at least twice in the books, and at one point Marvin cryptically says that 5 is the "wrong" answer. Of course, this only makes marginally more sense than the other theory, starting from the fact that it isn't a ''question'', but since [[spoiler: the question and the answer cannot exist simultaneously without unmaking reality]], this is probably intentional.
* "The best-laid plans of mice and men" is frequently attributed to Robert Burns, but the actual line in his poem ''To a Mouse'' is, "The best-laid ''schemes'' o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley (i.e., 'Go oft astray')".
* Dante never referred to ''The Divine Comedy'' by that name: he simply called it his "comedy."
*Poet Dylan Thomas is said to have said "I've just had eighteen straight whiskeys in a row - I do believe that is some sort of record." as his last words, but actually he said the enigmatic "I see white mice and roses."
*In Parson Weems's story about the young George Washington, he never says "I cannot tell a lie. It was I who chopped down the cherry tree.", because he doesn't chop it down, he "barks" it, slicing the bark off with a hatchet.
-->The following anecdote is a case in point. It is too valuable to be lost, and too true to be doubted; for it was communicated to me by the same excellent lady to whom I am indebted for the last. "When George," said she, " was about six years old, he was made the wealthy master of a hatchet! of which, like most little boys, he was immoderately fond, and was constantly going about chopping everything that came in his way. One day, in the garden, where he often amused himself hacking his mother's pea-sticks, he unluckily tried the edge of his hatchet on the body of a beautiful young English cherry-tree, which he barked so terribly, that I don't believe the tree ever got the better of it. The next morning the old gentleman, finding out what had befallen his tree, which, by the by, was a great favourite, came into the house; and with much warmth asked for the mischievous author, declaring at the same time, that he would not have taken five guineas for his tree. Nobody could tell him anything about it. Presently George and his hatchet made their appearance. "George," said his father, " do you know who killed that beautiful little cherry tree yonder in the garden? " This was a tough question; and George staggered under it for a moment; but quickly recovered himself: and looking at his father, with the sweet face of youth brightened with the inexpressible charm of all- conquering truth, he bravely cried out, '''"I can't tell a lie, Pa; you know I can't tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet."''' "Run to my arms, you dearest boy," cried his father in transports, "run to my arms; glad am I, George, that you killed my tree; for you have paid me for it a thousand fold. Such an act of heroism in my son is more worth than a thousand trees, though blossomed with silver, and their fruits of purest gold."
* In the original ''{{Frankenstein}}'' novel, Doctor Frankenstein never said "It's alive!" when he gave life to his creature. This line first arose during a film adaptation, and has since been associated with the Frankenstein story, even though it appears nowhere in the original.
** Furthermore, (though this doesn't ''quite'' fit considering it's not a line of dialogue) it's worth saying that the monster was never called or referred to as "Frankenstein." Frankenstein was the name of the doctor that created him.
*** ''Furthermore'', Victor Frankenstein was in college during the events of the novel, so he wasn't technically a doctor either.
* This phenomenon is discussed in ''MoreInformationThanYouRequire'', which [[LittleKnownFacts jokingly claims]], among other things, that when Franklin D. Roosevelt said "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," he was, in fact, referring to just his cabinet, who were protected by a thick steel wall. "Normal Americans need to [[TheFly be afraid, very afraid]] indeed. And not just of the Depression, but also flash floods, night-stabbers, and plague."
** [[RobotChicken And spiders]].
* "The spice must flow!", while spoken by the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in the '84 Lynch film and spoken often, was never actually in any of the six books.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* Paul Hogan's infamous Australian tourism adds didn't say "Throw another shrimp on the barbie" but "I'll slip an extra shrimp on the barbie for you."
*Hunter S. Thompson didn't say ""The TV business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."; it was
-->The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason.
* "Just the facts, Ma'am" came not from ''{{Dragnet}}'', but from the various StanFreberg parodies of the show. The phrase Jack "Joe Friday" Webb actually used on the show was "All we want are the facts, Ma'am" (and sometimes "All we know are the facts, Ma'am").
* Carl Sagan's TV appearances were famous for his distinctive pronunciation of the word "billions" -- but the phrase "billions and billions" so commonly associated with him actually came from a Tonight Show parody by Johnny Carson.
** He actually named one of his books "Billions and Billions" after this quote, and explained where it came from. (He also noted that the pronunciation of "billions" came from a desire to avoid confusion with "millions".)
* Ralph Kramden never actually said "Bang-zoom, to the moon!" on ''TheHoneymooners'' -- it's actually a blend of two different catchphrases, "One of these days, one of these days. Bang! Zoom!" and "To the moon, Alice, to the moon!". Similarly, many other catch phrases associated with that show and Jackie Gleason are mixes-and-matches of bits of actual catch phrases. Also, "Pow, right in the kisser!" was allegedly a Kramden CatchPhrase in the (now lost) early variety show sketches, but did not actually appear in the regular series. (For a complete list of Gleason catch phrases, including links to sound files, see [[http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Park/1568/GleasonTVCatchphrases.html this page]].)
* This exchange from the first episode of ''FatherTed'' is often misquoted:
-->'''Tom:''' Father! I've killed a man.
-->'''Ted:''' Er, well, we'll talk about that later, Tom. Right now, I'm going to be on the telly!
* The phrase "[[ReversePolarity Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow!]]" , despite being seen as a TechnoBabble CatchPhrase of the Third Doctor in ''DoctorWho'', was never used in that form in his era of the show, with the closest thing to it being his warning to [[EvilCounterpart the Master]] in ''The Sea Devils'' that "I reversed the polarity of the neutron flow", and that things were thus about to get explosive (although he reversed the polarity of other things quite a bit, and once "fused the controls to the neutron flow"). He repeated it when he reappeared in the 20th anniversary special. Ironically, the line was used by the Fifth Doctor more than the Third Doctor, and has been used a number of times by other Doctors, ''because'' it was seen as a CatchPhrase.
** More recently, the Tenth has lamented the fact that he's losing his touch at reversing polarities.
*** Tegan's fake swear word "Rabbits!" is a similar case. She only said it twice in the 19 serials featuring her as a companion, yet it's remembered by viewers as her CatchPhrase and included in nearly every novel and short story she appears in (all written over a decade after she left the show).
* "Nil points!" never appears in the EurovisionSongContest. It's actually "Nul points" (pronounced "null pwoh"... it's French). And, anyway, they never say it at all because of the way they do the scores.
* Two famous kids' show "bloopers" were never said, despite millions of people saying they were watching and/or listening: "[[IsThisThingStillOn That oughtta hold the little bastards]]" as attributed mainly to radio host Uncle Don, and "Cram it, Clownie!" as attributed mainly to a disgruntled kid on ''TheBozoShow''.
* In the Mr. Bill sketches from ''SaturdayNightLive'' the phrase is just, "Oh no!" and not "Oh no, Mr. Bill!". It's pretty strange how this misquote was started seeing as how it's said by Mr. Bill himself.
** This is possibly Memetic Mutation melding the "Oh no!" from an earlier catchphase, "Look out, Mr. Bill!" which was reportedly spawned by a radio show in the 1940's or 50's.
** Or the quote came from Mr. Bill merchandise, which often featured both the catchphrase and the name of the character, in that order, without quotation marks.
* Another ''StarTrek'' example: The Borg are oft quoted as saying "Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated." While they arrange those sentences in any number of ways in their various appearances (sometimes in the midst of a full paragraph or two), they never use that one. The closest they come is in the ''Next Generation'' episode "I, Borg", where the Borg, "Hugh", says, "We are Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile." Ironically, the story treatment for the ''DeepSpaceNine'' premiere calls the Borg's line "immortal words," even though the construction they used had yet to be spoken in any form of StarTrek.
**Bones never said "Dammit, Jim! I'm a doctor, not a --" He said "I'm a doctor, not a --" and similar phrases though: [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVhcB9ucmdg&feature=related see here]] And he said "He's dead, Jim" all the time, in case you're wondering.
**Spock never said "It's life, Jim, but not as we know it." He does say something similar in "The Devil In The Dark":
-->Within range of our sensors, '''there is no life''', other than the accountable human residents of this colony beneath the surface. '''At least, no life as we know it'''.
*** It does, however, appear in the song ''Star Trekkin'''. Repeatedly.
**It should be noted that the ''proper'' phrasing of the TropeNamer isn't used as often as people think it is: everyone knows "Scotty, beam me up," but Scott was actually ''not'' the main operator of the transporter. He was the chief engineer, and spent most of his time down in the engine room making sure the ship didn't blow up. If they ''broke down,'' it might require his attention, and he might be the one to do beaming once it gets fixed, but it's not like this happened often enough for it to be the primary thing he's remembered for. Routine beaming was ''actually'' done by a guy named "Mr. Kyle," but for some reason, we aren't all saying "Kyle, beam me up" forty years later.
** While we're talking Scotty, he has likely never said ''"She canna' take much more of this!"'' onscreen. It's in the theatrical trailer of ''StarTrekVI'' but was cut from the version seen in theaters.
* Australian talk show host Derryn Hynch never actually used the line "Shame, shame." he is often associated with, it comes from Steve Vizard's recurring impersonation of him on sketch comedy ''Fast Forward''.
* The (in)famous Bishop and the Nightie" affair on ''TheLateLateShow'' never had a woman say she was "naked" on her wedding night. In February 1966, there was a segment on the show where a Mr and Mrs Fox had to answer questions about their marriage; Mrs Fox was asked what colour nightdress she wore on her wedding night; she said "Transparent," then admitted "I didn't wear any!"; after the audience stopped laughing, she changed her answer to "white." There was no outcry -- only three phone complaints, and one telegram from Thomas Ryan, Catholic Bishop of Clonfert (''"Disgusted with disgraceful performance."''), who later offered extreme criticism of the show, calling on "all decent Irish Catholics" to protest. They didn't.
* The German crime series ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derrick_%28TV_series%29 Derrick]]'' often has Derrick send his assistant Harry to get the car to drive him somewhere. Thus, the phrase "Harry, hol schön mal den Wagen" ("Harry, go get the car in the meantime") was coined, though none of the 281 episodes of the legendary show actually featured the renowned phrase. The line was finally included in a tongue-in-cheek animated special made after the live action version had been cancelled.
* A popular trend in ''{{Stargate SG-1}}'' fanfiction is to have O'Neill call artifacts "rocks" while Daniel insists that they are "artifacts". However, such an exchange never occurs in the show itself.
** It should also be noted that no [[EngagingChevrons chevrons were engaged]] on Stargate SG-1 until around season 3. Even after that, they were "encoded" most of the time.
* The show ''{{Friends}}'' has maybe one actual occasion where Chandler uses any variant of the phrase "Could I ''be'' more (blank)?" without it being a parody of said speaking pattern.
**''Ross'' has (maybe) the first use in episode 2.05, "Could you BE less enthused?"
* There is not a single episode of ''Lassie'' in which [[TimmyInAWell Timmy falls down a well]]. He fell down just about everything else, yes, but Lassie had never had to get help for Timmy falling down a well.
*"Suits you, sir!" was never ever said in ''TheFastShow''. The line was ''always'' "'''Suit''' you, sir!"
* Not entirely sure, but I believe "Lucy, you've got some 'splainin' to do" is an example. I recall Ricky once asking for a "chance to 'splain" something to her, but never the commonly-repeated phrase.
** The other wiki disagrees.
* Not every ''{{Seinfeld}}'' episode contains a reference to {{Superman}}- not even close. Counting strictly verbal references, only about 50 of the 180 episodes do. Some fans will point to an ever-present Superman magnet on Jerry's refrigerator and try to claim that ''this'' satisfies the claim, but even this doesn't work; for one thing, the magnet didn't appear until the middle of the fourth season, and for another, not every episode features a scene in Jerry's apartment.
* Jan Brady said "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!!!" ''once'' through the entire series of ''TheBradyBunch''. It entered pop culture through SNL parodies.
* Tonto on ''TheLoneRanger'' never said "What you mean ''we'', white man?" (sometimes changed to "What you mean we, Kemosabe?" to make the reference clearer) That was from a popular joke about the show.
* People seem to think that every "Holy..." quote by Robin has to end with "Series/{{Batman}}!" This does not happen every time.
* "You dirty rat", [[{{Casablanca}} "play it again, Sam"]] and [[{{Tarzan}} "Me Tarzan, you Jane"]] are all referenced to in an episode of [[QuiteInteresting QI]]:
-->"Why do these films always forget to put their most famous line in?"
* On ''You Bet Your Life'', whenever a contestant lost they were asked one final question that contained its own answer. The popular example of these kinds of questions is "Who is buried in Grant's Tomb?", which was never actually used, for good reason: the correct answer is no one, as Ulysses S. Grant and his wife are not buried but entombed there.
* The Robot from LostInSpace never said "Danger, danger, Will Robinson".
* In {{NCIS}}, Abby never said 'Stop looking up my skirt!' She actually said 'And don't look up my skirt!'
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]
* In the melody of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" (i.e. the Valkyrie {{Leitmotif}} from ''The Ring of the Nibelungs''), the sixteenth note in each bar is often played inaudibly. Suffice to say, [[LooneyTunes "Kill the wabbit! Kill the wabbit!"]] is a rhythmically incorrect rendition - the missing note would be in between "kill" and "the".
*Yellow Submarine is invariably misquoted: it's "In the town where I was born lived a man who sailed to sea / And he told us of his life in the land of submarines." Pretty much everyone will sing "In the town where I was born lived a man who sailed '''the''' sea / And he told us of his life in '''a yellow submarine'''."
* Neither 50 Cent himself nor anyone from G-Unit has, ever referred to him as "Fiddy". He slurs his speech (either due to dialect or the damage to his jaw or both) but he's always saying "Fifty".
* The lyrics to "As Time Goes By" have the line "a kiss is still a kiss," which does not exactly parallel the following line, "a sigh is just a sigh." The people who quote the lyric as "a kiss is just a kiss" have the defense that it's what Dooley Wilson sang in ''{{Casablanca}}''. (Of course, they probably also believe that the song originated with ''Casablanca''.)
* John Lennon never said that the Beatles were "bigger than Jesus", it was:
-->"Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. We're '''more popular than Jesus''' now - I don't know which will go first, rock and roll or Christianity."
* In an overlap with RefrainFromAssuming, the German national anthem is still known in the Anglosphere as "Deutschland über Alles", despite the verse featuring those lyrics no longer being officially part of the song (whose melody is also OlderThanTheyThink).
*Bob Geldof didn't say "Give us your fucking money!" at LiveAid -- TheOtherWiki explains:
-->Nearly seven hours into the concert in London, Bob Geldof enquired how much money had been raised; he was told £1.2 million. He is said to have been sorely disappointed by the amount and marched to the BBC commentary position. Pumped up further by a performance by Queen that he later called "absolutely amazing", Geldof gave an infamous interview. David Hepworth, conducting the interview, had attempted to provide a list of addresses to which donations should be sent; Geldof interrupted him in mid-flow and shouted: "'''Fuck the address, let's get the numbers!'''" After the outburst, giving increased to £18,000 per minute.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Radio]]
* A popular (and today, somewhat antiquated) phrase referring to a need for a speedy escape is "Time to get the hell out of Dodge!"- a reference to the long-running radio and TV show ''{{Gunsmoke}}'', which took place in Dodge City. Trouble is no one ever actually ''says'' those words over the course of the series. Occasionally, Marshal Dillon would instruct some bad guys to "get the hell out of dodge", but the phrase is never used as a suggestion among them.
* An IconicItem for a ''genre'': There was no such thing as a secret decoder ring for [[RadioDrama old-time radio shows]]. The idea is a mashup of secret decoder badges (which weren't rings because it's hard to fit the alphabet on a ring) and secret compartment rings. ''After'' the end of old-time radio, some companies did offer such rings as a form of nostalgia, including Ovaltine in 2000.
** This is partly just a matter of a misnomer, since a popular style of decoder was the cypher disk, consisting of one or more circular plates with letters printed around the circumference. These plates are occasionally described as rings.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* The classic ''DungeonsAndDragons'' RuinedFOREVER 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".
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theater]]
* There are a few {{Shakespeare}}an examples of this.
** "Lead on, Macduff", which is a common misquotation of MacBeth's "Lay on, Macduff", often used in a completely different context from how it is used in the play.
** Also from ''{{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.
*** Not to mention that it means something mostly different than what people think it means
** Although Hamlet undoubtedly knew Yorick very well, he never said it 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.
*** Also, this scene in which he is holding Yorick's skull is completely separate from the ''"To be or not to be"'' soliloquy later in the play where he holds no skull.
*** The "To be or not to be" soliloquy is MUCH EARLIER in the play than the graveyard scenes. That soliloquy is before he kills Polonius and is sent off to England, which means it is OBVIOUSLY before Ophelia's death which is why the grave that Yorick's skull is removed from is being dug in the first place.
***"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."
**''{{Macbeth}}'': "Double, double toil and trouble." (i.e. twice as much toil and twice as much trouble), not "Bubble bubble, toil and trouble."
*** To be fair, that doesn't actually make any more ''sense'' - but since the next line is "Fire burn and cauldron bubble" it would mean that Shakespeare rhymed "bubble" [[PainfulRhyme with itself]] twice in two lines...
**** It makes '''perfect sense'''. "Double" in this context is an imperative verb: "toil, increase twofold; trouble, do likewise".
** Prospero from ''The Tempest'' 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."
**"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 Romeo Montague that I love?
**"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 name '''would smell''' as sweet."
**''KingJohn'': “To gild refined gold, to paint the lily” was shortened to "gild[ing] the lily", which makes less sense.
**Sort-of a misinterpretation from ''{{Richard III}}'': ''"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 to express sorrow, but this is not what the speech means in context.
**''Julius Caesar'': "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.
*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 woman scorned" is actually "Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor Hell a fury like a woman scorned."
[[/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]]
* While a lower-grade, more obscure, {{Narm}}ier variant, Rose never accused Raiden of having a room that was 'empty like your soul' in ''MetalGearSolid''. The misquote was popularised by the webcomic ''VGCats'' and is quoted more often than the (not quite as stupid) real line.
** Similarly, "WelcomeToCorneria" from ''[[EightBitTheater 8-Bit Theater]]'', while the original line in ''FinalFantasyI'' was "Coneria, the city of dreams" (also note there is only one r, thought that's more a case of SpellMyNameWithAnS).
* Mai Shiranui of the ''FatalFury'' and ''TheKingOfFighters'' video games doesn't say [[{{Mondegreen}} "Me bouncy!" or "Me boingy!"]] when she wins a fight; she says "Nippon Ichi!" ("Japan's No. 1!")
** And 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...
*** In a similar vein, Geese Howard never actually says "[[GratuitousEnglish I're stein my hands wit yur brood!]]" in any of the FatalFury, Real Bout or KOF games. The line actually originates from the [[CapcomVsWhatever Capcom vs SNK]] series. Unfortunately, its also become an irritating case of NeverLiveItDown as well.
* People seem to have a habit of quoting the Mushroom Retainers' line from ''SuperMarioBros'' 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".
* In ''ZeroWing'', the captain doesn't say "Launch every 'Zig'" or "Launch all 'Zig'", but rather "[[TakeOffEveryZig 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.
*** The flash video also changed "Somebody" to "Someone" in that line.
** And in an inversion, nobody remembers that one of the crew members said "Captain!" because it wasn't in the MemeticMutation flash video.
*In TheLegendOfZelda: The Wand Of Gamelon (The [[SoBadItsHorrible Goddess-awful]] [[DisContinuity non-canon]] [[TheLegendOfZeldaCdiGames Phillips CD-i game]]) 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.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* In ''HomestarRunner'', Homsar never said "I was raised by a cup of coffee!" That was actually Strong Bad, giving his idea of what an interview with Homsar would be like. Nevertheless, other appearances of the quote (such as on the official Homsar shirt) have associated it with Homsar himself.
**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.
** 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''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomic]]
* The famous line from ''TheAdventuresOfDoctorMcninja'', "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.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* In ''{{Yu-Gi-Oh The Abridged Series}}'', 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.
** Yugi's catchphrase is "super special awesome," though this is just a shortened version of the original quote, which is much longer and harder to quote.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* In ''TheSimpsons'' episode "Radioactive Man", during the acid flood segment, a line given by Rainier Wolfcastle is often falsely quoted as saying "My eyes! The goggles, they do nothing!" When the actual line is "Ah, my eyes! The [[GogglesDoNothing goggles do nothing]]!"
** "Can't sleep, clown'll eat me" is misquoted in many ways, such as "Can't sleep, the clowns will eat me."
*** This is probably due to an Alice Cooper song by that name. "can't sleep clowns will eat me."
** Bart has never said the words "Cowabunga, Dude!" on the show. "Aye Carumba!", yes, but not "Cowabunga".
*** Except in 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]]) Bart says this and, upon cutting, states he has never said those words in his life.
****Yes he has! He said "Cowabunga" (though admittedly, not "Cowabunga dude") in the most watched episode ''[[http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7257396 Bart Gets an F]]'' in Season 2!
***After all that line is actually from Michelangelo from ''TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles''.
--->'''Leonardo:''' The pizza just got here!
--->'''Michelangelo:''' COWABUNGA dude!
* [[{{Kirby}} King Dedede]] in KirbyRightBackAtYa spawned a meme with his inexplicably heavy Southern accent, coming from the phrase "I wanna monstah to clobbah dat dere Kirbeh," from the intro, and also the memetic joke spelling "Kirbeh" of the title character. However, in the intro, and most of the time in the show, Dedede actually pronounces "Kirby" correctly, though the person singing the theme song pronounces it "Kirbeh" once or twice.
* "Should work with no problems" is a quote fans often attribute to Gadget from ''[[ChipAndDaleRescueRangers Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers]]''. 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 made a running gag in the series.
* People often credit the {{Powerpuff Girls}} with the phrase "Girl Power!" when in actually they never say this in the show. {{Lampshaded}} 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 say that?" Buttercup replies nervously with "uh, yeah we say it all the time".
* No 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, and many villains said nothing as they were carried off.
** They say it all the time on "What's New, Scooby Doo?"
*** That was added because it was already popular.
** It's also good to note that this was tossed the direct to video movies because of its popularity.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* QueenVictoria ''never'' said "We are not amused." (Which didn't stop Rose of ''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 the fact that she spent 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.
* Similarly, Marie Antoinette did not say "Let them eat cake" (''Qu'ils mangent de la brioche''). 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. 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.
** So, basically you're saying [[{{Portal}} the cake is a lie]]?
** 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 Ferson, 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.
* "Not a lot of people know that" is a line frequently attributed to MichaelCaine, but actually originates from a PeterSellers impression of him.
* Similarly "And... why not?" wasn't originally said by BarryNorman, but from impressions of him on SpittingImage.
* In one of the first debates in the 2004 USA Presidential Election, John Kerry listed the handful of countries that made up George W. Bush's "grand coalition" fighting in Iraq when the war began: Great Britain, Australia, and the United States. Bush's first response was "Well, actually, he forgot Poland", which was eventually warped into the [[MemeticMutation "You forgot Poland" meme]].
** Grand Coalition? It was Coalition of the Willing (A mistake like that on this of all pages...)
*** Kerry: "Secondly, when we went in, there were three countries: Great Britain, Australia and the United States. That's not a grand coalition."
* 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".
* 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."
* Al Gore, possibly channeling Yogi Berra, once said: "During my time in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." Through MemeticMutation, this naturally led to ''Al Gore, inventor of the Internet''.
** The actual statement he gave, which no one ever seems to quote in its entirety, makes it 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.
** Of course the Department of Defense had been funding research into ARPAnet and DARPAnet and what have you before Gore was ever in Congress.
* Jim Lovell never said, "Houston, we have a problem" during ''{{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 staring 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.
* An interesting twist happened during Apollo 11. Neil Armstrong's first words on the moon were "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." However, a garbled transmission dropped the article "a" so that to the rest of the world, he said the more famous if totally nonsensical "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Both are legitimately acceptable in documentaries.
** Not quite. This has been hacked and spun so much over the years that several versions are in circulation. The "garble/squelch" explanation doesn't fly simply because there wasn't a pause or garble in the transmission long enough to hide even a short "a". The simple truth is that Neil Armstrong was given a line to speak and fluffed it. 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.
** And then there's the "[[http://www.snopes.com/quotes/mrgorsky.asp Good luck Mr. Gorsky]]" legend...
* 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."
* 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. (emphasis added)
* A number of people, including Bill Bryson, have quoted Mariah Carey 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.
* Impressions of Jerry Seinfeld almost invariably use the phrase "Who are these people?". The only time Seinfeld actually uttered this phrase was in a ''SaturdayNightLive'' sketch parodying said phenomenon.
** The phrase may have come from Gilbert Gottfried's impression of Seinfeld.
* Vincent van Gogh did not cut off his entire ear, only his earlobe.
** Paul Gauguin cut off the earlobe in a fight. [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/8033650.stm The other story was likely just a cover]].
** Well, no - that recent theory isn't backed up by good evidence and is [[http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2009/may/05/art-van-gogh-ear-gauguin very likely nonsense]]. Nothing much in Van Gogh's letters or elsewhere suggests this, and the only full account is by Gauguin.
* Columbine High School shooting survivor Valeen Schnurr, not Cassie Bernall, was the person who said "yes" when she was asked by the killers if she believed in God.
**And this was only after she supposedly yelled out 'Oh God' and then that's when the question was asked.
* PT 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.
* 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 the fact 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}}''.
*Churchill 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.
* Niccolò Macchiavelli never said, "The ends justify the means", but the far more moderate and reserved (and MagnificentBastard-ish) “One must consider the final result.”
*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.
*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 [=~Finagle's Law~=].
* No one's sure who first said "writing about music is like dancing about architecture." The earliest known source is Elvis Costello in a 1983 interview, but there are reports of the quote being in existence before then. Other suspects include Frank Zappa, Laurie Anderson, David Byrne, Miles Davis and even Martin Mull.
* There's a book on this subject called ''Nice Guys Finish Seventh'', by Ralph Keyes. The title of the book itself is a BeamMeUpScotty condensation of Leo Durocher's actual quote that got mangled into the more famous "nice guys finish last." His actual quote is "the nice guys over there are in seventh place", which was actually second-to-last that season.
*Paul Revere is quoted as having rode 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.
*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." Actually derived from a statement by Lord Acton, "Power '''tends to'' corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."
**On a similar note, Nixon never said, "I am not a crook." It was "Well, I'm not a crook."
* 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.
*Benjamin Franklin's supposed proverb, "The proof is in the pudding" is actually, "The proof of the pudding is in the taste".
** It is in fact, "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 Don Quixote.
** 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.
*** Related is not a misquote as such but a misunderstanding; "The exception proves the rule". If "proof" is interpreted in the modern sense of "demonstration to be true", this is a contradiction in terms; but the older "proof" meaning "test" is the correct interpretation. This was once lampshaded by Sherlock Holmes as "an exception disproves the rule".
*** Appropriately for the page, that's not actually true either. ''Exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis'': the exception proves that, in the cases not excepted, the rule exists. In other words, if you have to make an exception to a rule, you're admitting that the rule exists in the first place; otherwise there's no need for an exception.
** BenjaminFranklin 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 three things in life that are certain, death, taxes and that it is raining in Tavistock."
* 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."
* Automobile manufacturer Henry Ford never offered Ford Model T's in "any colour 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, blue, but not black.
* People are still quoting ElvisPresley as saying, "The only thing negroes can do for me is shine my shoes and buy my records", despite the fact that there is absolutely no evidence of him ever uttering this, and in fact everyone who ever worked closely with Presley commented on his total lack of prejudice.
* 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.
*JuliusCaesar never said "Et tu, Brute?" except in the Shakespeare play. Actual accounts say he either said nothing or ''"Kai su, teknon!"'' (Greek for "You too, my child?")
** Some think that the latter quote was Caesar's admission that Brutus was his son. This is not possible: Caesar was only 13 when Servilia became pregnant, and although they did later become lovers, the relationship started 19 years after Brutus' birth. He may, of course, have meant "son" in a less literal sense, as one might under the circumstances.
*** Back in their time, there was no distinction between biological and adopted sons. So it was less literal than we would understand today, but not due to the circunstances.
**** According to most historians, and as well related by author Colleen McCullough in her research for her novels on ancient Rome, it's mostly believed that Caesar very likely not only said nothing, but could not say anything, due to the severity of his wounds, including several that hit his facial region. Both in McCullough's novel and in the HBO series "Rome", Caesar is depicted as covering his face with his tunic after the stabbings.
** There's also a possibility that he said [[CaptainObvious "Why, this is violence!"]]
* Sarah Palin 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 true]], although really not any better as an argument that she has foreign policy experience.
*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."
*G.K. Chesterton never said "When people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing - they believe in anything."
**The nearest he got was "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 FatherBrown story "The Oracle of the Dog".
*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?"
*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 using the term "useful idiots" to describe his own supporters.
*"Only the dead have seen the end of war." is often attributed to {{Plato}}, but it's actually not recorded before its 1924 use by George Santayana.
*"Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you somone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you with someone with no brains." - Churchill? Bismarck? Shaw? Disraeli? A forgotten hack? No one knows.
** TheOtherWiki cites Bismarck with the comparable "He who is not a socialist at 19, has no heart. He who is still a socialist at 30, has no brain."
*British Conservative leader David Cameron 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.'''
*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.
*A.E. Housman never wrote: "We were soldiers once, and young", or even anything closely approximating it.
* There's no record of 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."
*"The only traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, sodomy and the lash." - Sir WinstonChurchill never said this; his personal secretary, Anthony Montague-Browne, said that although Churchill did not say this, he wished he had.
** You mean it wasn't Admiral Nelson?
*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 ''GoodOmens'' will know, is probably using "nice" in its less well-known sense of "requiring great precision".
*[[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.
* "The death of one man is a tragedy. [[AMillionIsAStatistic The death of millions is a statistic.]]" - Despite the general misconception, Joseph Stalin never said that. The quote, in fact, is the final line of chapter eight of ''The Black Obelisk'' (1956) by Erich Maria Remarque.
* "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.
*"We are going to build the Tories out of London." — attributed to Herbert Morrison, 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."
*Deng Xiaoping never said, "To get rich is glorious."
*Rodney King didn't say, "Can't we all just get along?" during the riots, but "People, I just want to say, you know, '''can''' we all get along?"
* 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.
** He also didn't say "We only use ten percent of our brain." In fact, Scientology made that up.
** Not only that, but [[NinetyPercentOfYourBrain there has never been any scientific research that has confirmed that we only use ten percent of our brains]], despite people claiming so since the 1930's.
*** Not quite true: there ''was'' some (pretty horrifying) research done where scientists would cauterize off a portion of a rat's brain and then see if that rat could still run a maze. They discovered that rats could still do it [[NightmareFuel even if a good nine-tenths of their brains had been burned off]], though the remaining 10% had better involve the sensory and motor centers. Thus, it was proved that following the smell of food was something that only involves 10% of the brain (which [[TruthInTelevision stands to reason]]). Why Scientology decided that food-following is the sum total of human intelligence is... best left for the WildMassGuess section. (But then, they ''are'' Scientologists. How smart could they be?)
*Gandhi's last words may have been "Hey Ram" (Hindi: "O Ram", Ram being a god), or maybe not.
*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.
*Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was mistranslated as "Israel must be wiped off the face of the map"; it was actually, "The Zionist regime should be wiped from the page of time." Whether the mistranslation was deliberate or not is unknown.
*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 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.
*Confederate AmericanCivilWar 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.
*"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. 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.”
*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''.
*Otto von Bismarck is said to have said “To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making.” but actually, 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.”
*Nor did Bismarck say, "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."
*AndrewJackson supposedly said, “To the victors [belong] the spoils.” to justify handing out political offices to his cronies. Actually, William Marcy said “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.”
*Yamamoto is quoted as saying “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant.”; 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.”
*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 did not quite say, “War is hell.” it was NapoleonBonaparte, of all people.
*The Conservative prime minister Harold Macmillan, 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 VII did not offer the in-depth commentary on unemployment, "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."
*"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."
*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."
* Mark Twain did not say "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.". He did, however, say "The report of my death is an exaggeration."
* "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." did not necessarily originate from Franklin, it's an excerpt from a letter written in 1755 from the Assembly to the Governor of Pennsylvania.
*"I have seen the future, and it works." is, actually, "I have been over into the future, and it works."
*"You, sir, are no Jack Kennedy." came from "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."
*"Football isn't a matter of life or death, it's much more important than that." wasn't said by Bill Shankly, but by Shelley Rohde in the form of "Someone said 'football is more important than life and death to you' and I said 'Listen, it's more important than that'."
*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."
*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"
* Meta example: an ad for a cable company shows a movie loving family communicating entirely in movie quotes. They must be phonies though, because most of the quotes are Beam Me Up Scotties.
* 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 pharse only appeared around a century after his death.
*Carl Sagan never actually said "Billions and Billions!". However, he did write a book with that name, parodying the phrase that was itself invented as a parody to the way he used to talk about the ''{{Cosmos}}'' (using 'billions' and 'trillions' a lot, since the Universe is just [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale that big]]). He explains the entire thing in the first chapter of that book, naturally.
*Kissinger never said "Who do I call if I want to speak to Europe?"
*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.
* Hulk Hogan never actually [[WearingAFlagOnYourHead wore the American Flag on his head]] despite popular belief.
* 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 about the lack of information about the lives of Puritan women in colonial New England?
* 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.
* Khrushchev never said "we will bury you" but a quote more along the lines of "Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will dig you in."
* 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."
* There is no proof that Louis XIV of France ever said "L'État c'est moi" (I am the State).
* 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.

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