25 Common Quotes You’ve Been Getting Wrong Your Whole Life

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25 Common Quotes You’ve Been Getting Wrong Your Whole Life
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It’s okay. You didn’t know. We’ll give you a pass this time, but next time we won’t be so nice. So take a look at these misquotes now and be ready for us to pop around any corner at any time with a quick quiz.

Maybe keep this tab open in your browser for quick refreshers from time to time.

Curiosity Killed the Cat

CRACKED.COM Curiosity killed the cat. ENGLISH IDIOM The original phrase, dating back to a play in 1598, was care killed the cat, meaning that worry/sorrow killed the cat.

Martin Luther King Jr.

DIDN'T HAPPEN I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one. - Martin Luther King, Jr. Jessica Dovey The quote has I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, addin been traced to cannot drive out darkness: only light can do th this random Yesterday at 2: 15pm Like Comment Christina S David T Amber O Facebook post, Reena S made after the beautifully said!!!j would Yesterday at 2: 19pm Unlike 1 person killing of bin Julia S I agree, but I am still glad

Leo Durocher

NOT QUITE Nice guys finish last. - Leo Durocher Не actually said the nice guys are all over there, in seventh place. That's an important distinction; his original intent - encouragement to toughen up, to change, to become better-is a far cry from the hopeless mantra of misogynist gremlins who wish they could be meaner to women. Also? Seventh place is technically second-to-last. Checkmate, sexism. CRACKED.COM

Marilyn Monroe

WRONG Well-behaved women rarely make history. - Marilyn Monroe Pulitzer prize-winning historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich wrote this about Puritan funeral services. Not exactly Tinder profile fodder. CRACKED.COM

Marilyn Monroe (Once More)

WRONG AGAIN If you can't handle me at my worst, you don't deserve me at my best. - Marilyn Monroe No one knows who actually said this, but it wasn't Marilyn. The ironic thing is that she hated misattributed quotes: When I was a little girl I read signed stories in fan magazines and I believed every word of them. Then I tried to model my life after the lives of the stars I read about. If I'm going to have that kind of influence, I want to be sure it's because of something I've actually said or written. CRACKED.COM

Machiavelli

MISQUOTE The ends justify the means. -Machiavelli What he actually said was one must consider the final result, which is slightly less... Machiavellian. CRACKED.COM

Gandhi

SORRY, NAH First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. then they attack you. Then you win. - Gandhi Wise words! Just... actually said by a union activist, to the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, in 1918. CRACKED COM

Jack Swigert

NEGATIVE HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM - Jack Swigert What he actually said was okay, Houston, we've had a problem here, which sounds a lot more like a guy calmly doing his job than a frantic ASA engineer suddenly SUNGER freaking out about the vacuum of space. CRACKED.COM

Marie Antoinette

NEVER HAPPENED Let them eat cake. - Marie Antoinette The flippant tone is accurate, but it was philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau who attributed the quote to a hypothetical great princess. CRACKED.COM

Julius Caesar

NOPE Et tu, Brute? - Julius Caesar Caesar is generally thought to have said kaì sú, téknon, which translates to even you, son? But some historians think it was something a bit more defiant; roughly, you're next! CRACKED.COM

Lord Acton

CRACKED.COM Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely, LORD ACTON The full quote is Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men... Although the difference is subtle, the indication that not all power corrupts is important.

William Shakespeare

CRACKED.COM Music has charms to soothe a savage beast WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE The quote is taken from playwright William Congreve, not Shakespeare, who wrote Music has charms to soothe a savage Breast. Не was referring to people's hearts, not animals.

Juvenal

CRACKED.COM Who watches the watchmen? JUVENAL The original text is about women being unfaithful liars: 'Bolt her in, constrain her!' But who can watch the watchmen? They keep quiet about the girl's secrets and get her as their payment; everyone hushes it up.

Oscar Wilde

CRACKED.COM Be yourself, everyone else is aleady taken OSCAR WILDE There's no credible source that links this to Wilde. Не did write, Most people are other people. Their thoughts are some one else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

Nelson Mandela

CRACKED.COM Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. NELSON MANDELA The quote that's often misattributed to Mandela is actually from the first book by Marianne Williamson. Yup, the Democratic Presidential hopeful/joke Marianne Williamson.

Robert Frost

CRACKED.COM Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - / I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference. ROBERT FROST The Road Not Taken was Frost's way of criticizing a friend for crying over what might have happened.

Jerry Seinfeld

What's the deal with airline food?? Jerry Seinfeld Seinfeld never earnestly began a joke that way. The two times he said it - once on an SNL gameshow sketch, once in-character on Seinfeld - he was mocking the myriad hack comedians who lazily ripped him off. CRACKED.COM

Ricky and Lucy

Lucy! You got some 'splainin' to do!! Ricky Ricardo Ricky asked Lucy to 'splain plenty of things, but he never actually said this particular catchphrase. People weren't obsessively watching reruns at the time, SO no one caught it when a reporter printed the misquote. CRACKED.COM

Lassie

25 Common Quotes You’ve Been Getting Wrong Your Whole Life

Dr. Suess

OW Those who matter don't mind, and those who mind don't matter. Dr. Seuss Sometimes attributed to Sir Mark Young, sometimes to Bernard Baruch. In both cases, it was more about rich people complaining about seating at fancy 1940's dinner parties, and less about seizing the day after you graduate high school. CRACKED.COM

Dracula

I vant to suck your blood! Dracula In the 1931 movie, Dracula just straight-up never says it! The closest he comes - and it's also unnecessarily creepy - is I never drink... wine. CRACKED.COM

Kurt Vonnegut

Wear sunscreen. Kurt Vonnegut We all know the Vonnegut commencement speech that inspired the Baz Luhrman song, right? It was actually a 1997 column by Mary Schmich for The Chicago Tribune. CRACKED.COM

William Shakespeare (Again)

The phrase Now is the winter of our discontent is from Shakespeare's play Richard III and is used to imply that the speaker is unhappy. The actual phrase is Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York. A reference to the House of York having turned the tide in the Wars of the Roses to their favor, it is a pun within a metaphor meaning Now the good times are here. CRACKED.COM

Harvard

CRACKED.COM ILLIGITIMI NON CARBORUNDUM is a phrase taken to mean Don't Let the Bastards Grind You Down. It's really fake Latin from the twentieth century. There's no verb, so the closest translation is: Outlaws Are Not Silicon Carbide. (an industrial abrasive) Crap Latin aside, Harvard still uses the phrase in the school fight song.

Helen Keller

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart. For us, this quote implies that emotions are more important than material goods. Its original meaning is more direct: The deaf-blind author, lecturer, and activist Helen Keller (1880-1968) wrote it down from the words of her teacher Anne Sullivan to make a point that people who can't see and hear can still experience beauty and happiness like everybody else. CRACKED COM

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