Whether its a Facebook status or a bumper sticker, everyone loves a great quote. However, some of the most famous quotes in history, from Gandhi to Mark Twain, aren’t what you think they are. Gandhi didn’t tell you to “be the change” and Twain didn’t only believe in “death and taxes.” Sometimes quotes take on new lives after their authors’ deaths, changing from the original phrasing. Or they find out they said something that they never said at all, which happened to George Carlin all the time.
Here are 31 of the most famous misquotes in history, from the slightly altered to the completely changed. In life, it turns out that there’s no phrase so great that you can’t totally butcher it.
1. “Great minds think alike.”
This is actually a shortened version of a longer quote, of which there are two versions. For the full quote, you want to say, “Great minds think alike, small minds rarely differ” or “Great minds think alike, and fools seldom differ.” Same idea, different phrasing.
