Quotations from famous people are one of the most popular topics on the RuNet. Any Jason Statham from memes will confirm this. But many of these quotes are either distorted, or belong to another person, or are simply a figment of the imagination of their creators.
Here are the top 10 fake quotes from famous people. And what they actually said.
10. John F. Kennedy
"The USSR won the space race at the school desk"
Of course, such words are very flattering to the ear of a Russian who still remembers the Soviet education system. Alas, Kennedy never uttered them.
While still a senator in 1958, Kennedy did indeed talk about the Soviet and American education systems, comparing them, in his speech to graduates of Loyola University in Maryland. But he did not call the system of the United States' main enemy the best in the world.
On the contrary, Kennedy believed that it was Americans who needed to study hard to win the Cold War.
«I know that the fight we are now engaged in will be won or lost in the classrooms of America." Kennedy said in 1958.
9. Boris Yeltsin
"I'm tired, I'm leaving"
This phrase is like a glitch in the Matrix. Yes, Yeltsin said "I'm leaving," but he didn't say anything about being tired. However, many (including me) clearly remember that the phrase of Vladimir Putin's predecessor sounded like "I'm tired, I'm leaving."
This effect of false memories coinciding in most people is called the Mandela effect.
There is a version that the expression “I’m tired, I’m leaving” was invented by the “Ural Pelmeni” – participants of KVN in 1998, and this was confirmed by Alexander Maslyakov in his book “KVN is alive!”
8. Winston Churchill
"Stalin took over Russia with a plough and left it with an atomic bomb"
Churchill is believed to have spoken this phrase while speaking to the House of Lords on December 21, 1959, in memory of the 80th anniversary of Joseph Stalin's birth.
However, if we turn to the work of Martin Gilbert, the official biographer of Winston Churchill, there is no evidence that the former Prime Minister of Great Britain visited Parliament on December 21. On the contrary, between December 15 and 29, he felt so bad that he could not even answer Emery Reeves' letters, and the doctor did not allow Sir Winston to travel.
Who is the author of the quote about the plough and the atomic bomb? According to Wikiquote, it was invented by British émigré journalist Isaac Deutscher. In 1953, he wrote an obituary for Stalin, and later wrote an article about the late Soviet leader for the 1956 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
And there are lines there "He got Russia using wooden ploughs and left it equipped with nuclear reactors" (in the originals “...He found Russia working with wooden plows and left it equipped with atomic piles..”. To add more impact to the phrase, an unknown translator translated “atomic piles” as “atomic bomb”.
7. Gaius Julius Caesar
"And you, Brutus?"
This sad phrase has come down to us thanks to the play Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare's dramatic retelling of the life of the ancient Roman politician and military leader.
The words conjure up a moving image: a dying Caesar, realizing that he has been betrayed—and stabbed to death—by his friend (or, in another version, adopted son), Marcus Junius Brutus.
However, the Roman biographer Suetonius claimed that the man's final words may have been even sadder. He reports that Caesar may have said, "You too, my child?" in Greek before succumbing to his injuries.
Suetonius himself considered it more likely that Caesar died without saying a word.
6. Marie Antoinette
"If they don't have bread, let them eat cake!"
This expression, allegedly belonging to the Queen of France and Navarre, Marie Antoinette, shows how far the monarchy was from the common people.
In fact, the phrase comes from Jean-Jacques Rousseau's 1765 autobiography Confessions, published in 1782. The philosopher recalled that a certain "great princess," hearing that starving peasants were short of bread, once said: "Then let them eat brioche." This is a sweet bun with eggs and butter. However, Rousseau did not attribute the expression specifically to Marie Antoinette. And at the time Rousseau was writing his biography, she was only 9 years old.
5. Mark Twain
"A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its pants."
As it turns out, lies aren't the only thing that moves fast. In the Internet age, fake quotes can also travel around the world in the blink of an eye. For example, a quote about lies and truth was "shared" by several famous people at once, including not only the writer Mark Twain, but also American President Thomas Jefferson and even British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
The reality is that Irish satirist and cleric Jonathan Swift has the best claim to this quote. The phrase "Lies fly, and truth limps after them" appears in one of his works from 1710.
4. Otto von Bismarck
"It is impossible to defeat the Russians, we have seen this for hundreds of years. But the Russians can be instilled with false values, and then they will defeat themselves."
Perhaps this phrase, attributed to the creator of the unified German Empire, would never have gone beyond the forums of far-right organizations, if not for the advertising campaign of the Historical Park "Russia - My History" at VDNKh. As part of this campaign, the quote, allegedly from Bismarck, began to be popularized and has survived to this day.
By the way, even more offensive to Russia false quotes of the Iron Chancellor, such as "Treaties with Russians are not worth the paper they are written on" are also fakes. These phrases are not cited in the Chancellor's notes and letters, nor in his speeches, nor in the memoirs of his contemporaries.
3. Marilyn Monroe
"Give a girl the right shoes and she can conquer the world."
This expression is attributed to the delightful blonde, but Marilyn never said it. But it was said by another famous American actress and singer - Bette Midler. Russian viewers know her from the films "Hocus Pocus", "The Stepford Wives", "Ruthless People" and others.
2. Albert Einstein
"When you sit with a cute girl for two hours, it seems like only a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove for a minute, it seems like two hours."
This eloquent explanation of Einstein's most famous theory wasn't said by him, but rather taken from a joke that appeared in a 1929 New York Times article about Einstein. The reporter put the anecdotal statement in quotation marks, and poof! The famous (and misattributed to the famous physicist) quote was born.
1. Bill Gates
"640 KB should be enough for everyone"
Usually, fake quotes are hard to disprove because the person who supposedly said them has long since passed away. But not in this case.
640K refers to the amount of memory a computer has. The phrase is often used to show that although Bill Gates is considered one of the smartest and most tech-savvy people on the planet, even he could not have foreseen the radical technological changes in home computers.
Gates, however, is alive and has publicly denied ever saying such a thing. The genius, billionaire, philanthropist and perennial conspiracy theorist told Bloomberg News in 1996:
«I've said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not this one. No one who works with computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is enough for all time.»
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