# Is this a real Mark Twain quote? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 14, 2012, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-real-mark-twain-quote/641026 "2012-11-14T20:27:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2012, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-real-mark-twain-quote/641026/1 "2012-11-14T20:27:17Z")
“It’s easier to fool people than convince them they’ve been fooled.” I keep seeing it today on Facebook, but I see no authoritative citation that indicates he ever said or wrote it. Anyone? ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2012, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-real-mark-twain-quote/641026/2 "2012-11-14T20:40:57Z")
Wikiquote has nothing, unless the paraphrase is very different. And they also store misattributions. Generally speaking, “quotes” by Twain, Wilde, Churchill, et al., are often really said by someone else, misquotes, or made up more often than not. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2012, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-real-mark-twain-quote/641026/3 "2012-11-14T20:57:44Z")
“Don’t believe everything you read on the internet.” - Abraham Lincoln. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2012, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-real-mark-twain-quote/641026/4 "2012-11-14T20:57:57Z")
Sounds more like PT Barnum. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2012, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-real-mark-twain-quote/641026/5 "2012-11-15T01:29:24Z")
So I assume no, then. Figured as much. I wonder when it started getting accredited to him. Google it and you’ll see a lot of hits for him. ---
**Author:** ![Man\_With\_a\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cab0a1/32.png) [@Man\_With\_a\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Man_With_a_Cat)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2012, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-real-mark-twain-quote/641026/6 "2012-11-15T02:45:48Z")
I wrote that. Fucking Twain always takes my best shit. ---
**Author:** ![jkville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c4cdca/32.png) [@jkville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jkville)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-real-mark-twain-quote/641026/7 "2014-03-30T17:13:54Z")
not certain whether he said it or that the mistaken attribution proves how true it is ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-real-mark-twain-quote/641026/8 "2014-03-30T17:33:53Z")
This seems to be a good source [Mark Twain quotations - Fool](http://www.twainquotes.com/Fool.html) and it does not list that quote. ---
**Author:** ![JWT\_Kottekoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3ec8ea/32.png) [@JWT\_Kottekoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JWT_Kottekoe)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-real-mark-twain-quote/641026/9 "2014-03-30T19:43:48Z")
This is beside the point, but a guy in high school convinced another that the word “gullible” is not in the dictionary. Pure genius, if you ask me. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-real-mark-twain-quote/641026/10 "2014-03-30T23:25:04Z")
Not even, I suspect, by Zombie Mark Twain. It’s not just quotes by Mark Twain that are misattributed. Anymore, I don’t trust ANY quotes on the internet that don’t have a citation. I’ve written on this Board about other “false quotes”, like the one supposedly by Plato that Sarah Palin used. Recently I debunked one from some glurge that a relative sent me. As far as this one goes, I observe that using Google n-gram viewer, I can’t find it attributed to anyone before 2000. It’s not in Wikiquote, even as a spurious quote. And this page doesn’t believe it either. It’s worth quoting the page: [And again, more mis-attributed quotes online – Scripturient](http://ianchadwick.com/blog/and-again-more-mis-attibuted-quotes-online/) > [@](#): > > And again, more mis-attibuted quotes online > > Posted on July 4, 2012 by Ian Chadwick > > 3 Votes > > Faux Mark Twain quote“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled.” Allegedly by Mark Twain, but unlikely, and not found in any published source I have of Twain’s quotations. Online sources, of course, don’t count as authorities because they lack all credibility. > > As one person commented on Yahoo, > The fact that “Quora attributes it to him” is worthless. Quora is yet another one of those idiotic “quote websites” that misquote and misattribute things all the time. > Note that Quora doesn’t bother to give an actual citation — what book was it from, what page, etc. Without a full citation, you have no assurance that this was said by Mark Twain or Herbert Hoover or some random dude who made it up yesterday. > It doesn’t appear (as Twain’s or anybody else’s) in either the 14th or 15th edition of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations. I suppose it’s possible that it comes from the newly released edition of his Autobiography, but I think it’s more likely that it’s just something misattributed by some stupid “quote website.” > > These comments are applicable to almost every quote site I’ve found, with rare exception such as [wikiquote.org](http://wikiquote.org). Most of these so-called quote sites are wastes of electrons because they share without qualification, without verification, without confirmation. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-real-mark-twain-quote/641026/11 "2014-03-31T00:13:33Z")
> [@](#): > > “Quora attributes it to him” Well anyway, on the internet , I read that Quora attributed it to him … How 'bout if I just attribute the quote to The Straight Dope Message Board?