It is not uncommon for people to attribute famous quotes to the wrong sources. How are you at identifying correct quote sources?
Let’s start with a saying that is sometimes misattributed: “Cleanliness is next to godliness.”
Yes, John Wesley says it in one of his sermons, but he puts the saying in quotation marks, thus indicating that the saying did not originate with him.
Francis Bacon has been credited as the saying’s originator.
The saying could have its origin in the Talmud.
Regardless who first said it or wrote it, the saying “Cleanliness is next to godliness” is not from the Bible.
Alas, some people do believe that it comes from the Bible.
Maybe they are correct. Maybe the saying was on the tablet that Moses dropped.
Now, let’s consider a quote that (thus far) has not been misattributed to the Bible: “April showers bring May flowers.”
This particular saying has been attributed to the 1901 A Book of Rhymes by Charles Welsh.
The saying has also been attributed to Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.
The Pokanoket people might have had a saying about the arrival of May flowers …
… but it probably wasn’t anything like the English version.
The real originator of this saying is 16th-Century English poet Thomas Tusser. In his poetry book Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry, Tusser writes,
Here is a saying that features word-play: “Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools talk because they have to say something.”
This particular saying is frequently attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. Yet, nobody (thus far) has been able to cite just where in Plato’s works the saying allegedly appears.
Without such a citation, it is possible that the attribution to Plato is nothing but a popular falsehood that keeps being repeated because people assume that the attribution is correct.
Plus, this particular saying is also attributed to a more-recent source: 20th-Century novelist Saul Bellow.
Until someone can point out just where in Plato’s works that the philosopher allegedly writes such a statement, we really have no evidence that Plato wrote it. Granted, he did write additional stuff while serving in the U.S. Army:
Anyway, if Saul Bellow didn’t come up with this particular word-play, then here is one that is definitely his:
I don’t think that anyone is going to mistake that last statement for a Bible verse.
The “Wanted” posters say the following about David: “Wanted: A refugee from planet Melmac masquerading as a human. Loves cats. If seen, contact the Alien Task Force.”