Start hereOn 2 June 1897, the New York Journal printed Mark Twain's answer to a report that he was dying in poverty in London. First he explained that a cousin had been ill. Then came the famous part: "The report of my death was an exaggeration."
A famous line can sound like a complete thought. Read on, though, and the next lines often name a speaker, add a condition or say why it was said. Below are twelve more famous lines, each read with the words around them.
Where we could, we read the primary source: the poem, letter, lecture or book where the line first appears. Each verdict is on one claim about what a source says, never on whether the saying is wise.
This is the third page in our series on quotes read in full. Part 1, Quotes That Get Cut Short, covers fifteen sayings. Quotes That Change When You Read the Next Sentence covers twelve more, including Acton on power, Keynes on the long run and Churchill on democracy.
The verdicts
1. Poems where the next lines push back
In both poems, the famous line is only part of what the poem says.
1. “Good fences make good neighbours”
Partly Robert Frost’s poem says good fences make good neighbours. The line belongs to the neighbour, and the poem’s speaker questions it, though he is also the one who calls the neighbour out to mend the wall.
How sure: Strong the whole poem is in print, and the saying is in the neighbour’s mouth both times.
He sees no need for this stretch of wall: “He is all pine and I am apple orchard”. The neighbour answers only with the saying: “Good fences make good neighbours”.
Our reading: the poem holds two views of the same wall, and it lets both stand. If you quote the line, it helps to say it is the neighbour’s view. Before you set a rule at home or at work, you could ask the speaker’s question: what is it keeping in, and what is it keeping out?
2. “I took the one less traveled by”
Still argued “The Road Not Taken” praises choosing the road fewer people take. In the poem the two roads are “really about the same”, and readers still argue over whether the ending is sincere or a gentle joke.
How sure: Unsettled the poem’s words are clear, but readers and critics still argue about the tone of its ending.
The poem opens Frost’s book Mountain Interval, first copyrighted in 1916.
In the spring of 1915, Frost sent a draft titled “Two Roads” to the English critic Edward Thomas. In a letter of 26 June 1915, he told Thomas that the sigh was “a mock sigh, hypo-critical for the fun of the thing”.
Orr writes that Edward Thomas and an early biographer, Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant, read the ending as sincere. Frost’s biographer Lawrance Thompson reports that Frost expected Thomas to take the poem “as a gentle joke”.
Our reading: the poem can be read as praise for a bold choice, or as a smile at how we tell our choices afterwards. Both readings are in the text. When you tell the story of a past decision, it can help to note what you actually knew at the time.
2. Lines said at a particular moment
Each of these lines is tied to one moment in its source, and that moment shapes what it means.
3. “Fortune favours the brave”
Partly “Fortune favours the brave” is a motto about boldness paying off. In Pliny’s letter, his uncle says it while steering toward Pomponianus at Stabiae during the eruption of Vesuvius, and he died on that trip.
How sure: Strong the letter survives in Latin and in translation, and the saying sits in the middle of the rescue story.
Pliny the Younger told the story of his uncle’s last day in a letter to Tacitus, Letters 6.16.
His uncle, Pliny the Elder, first meant to take a closer look at a strange cloud rising over the mountain. Then a note came from a woman named Rectina, whose villa lay at the foot of Vesuvius, asking him to come to her aid.
Near the shore, he stopped to think about turning back, and when the pilot advised it, he said: “Fortune favours the brave; steer to where Pomponianus is”. In the Latin, his words are “Fortes fortuna iuvat: Pomponianum pete”.
Pomponianus was at Stabiae, across the bay. Later, on the shore, his uncle “instantly fell down dead; suffocated, as I conjecture,” Pliny writes.
Our reading: in Pliny’s story, the brave act is a rescue, taken with the danger in plain view. Before you call a risk brave, it can help to ask who it is for, and what you would lose if it goes wrong.
4. “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated”
Partly Mark Twain said reports of his death were greatly exaggerated. A newspaper story of 1897 has him say “The report of my death was an exaggeration”, after explaining that a cousin had been ill. The word “greatly” appears in a Washington paper the next day, and in Twain’s own retelling of 1906.
How sure: Strong Quote Investigator traced the wording through newspapers of 1897 and 1898.
Then came the famous part: “The report of my death was an exaggeration”.
A Washington paper used the word “greatly” the next day, on 3 June 1897. A Nebraska paper printed a version with “grossly” in January 1898. When Twain retold the story in an instalment of his autobiography in 1906, he had himself say: “Say the report is greatly exaggerated”.
Our reading: the joke is dry and exact, and the sentence before it shows how the rumour began, with a cousin’s illness. When a rumour about you spreads, a short, calm, exact answer may be easier for others to repeat.
5. “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing”
Doesn't hold up Vince Lombardi coined “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing”. The earliest match Quote Investigator found is a 1948 joke about fans by another coach, Henry “Red” Sanders.
How sure: Moderate this rests on newspaper searches, and an older use could still turn up.
In November 1962, Esquire quoted Lombardi as saying “Winning isn’t everything” but “wanting to win is!”. Quote Investigator suspects that Lombardi did use the older saying, and later switched to the milder one.
Our reading: the line began as a joke about what fans demand of a coach. Lombardi’s 1962 version is about wanting to win, which is a goal you can work on every day, win or lose.
3. Lines with a condition or a doubt attached
Here the original keeps a condition, a doubt or a reason that the short version drops.
6. “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler”
Partly Einstein said “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler”. He made the point in a longer 1933 sentence with a condition, and the earliest close version Quote Investigator found is a 1950 paraphrase by the composer Roger Sessions.
How sure: Strong the 1933 lecture is in print, and the 1950 writer said he was giving the idea “in effect”.
In an Oxford lecture on 10 June 1933, Einstein said the “supreme goal of all theory” is to make the “irreducible basic elements” “as simple and as few as possible”. The sentence goes on: “without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience”.
Our reading: the condition is the useful half. Keep things simple, but only as far as the facts allow. When you shorten an explanation, check that it still fits every case it has to cover.
7. “God does not play dice”
Partly Einstein dismissed quantum mechanics with “God does not play dice”. His letter first calls quantum mechanics “very worthy of respect”, and the dice line is a conviction he states, not a proof.
How sure: Moderate the letter is published, but English translations differ, and we read it as quoted by the editors of his papers.
In the passage the editors quote, in their translation, he writes: “Quantum mechanics is very worthy of respect”. Then: “But an inner voice tells me that it is not the genuine article after all”. After a line about “the secret of the Old One”, the passage closes: “I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not play dice”.
The editors note that the letter is quoted “in varying translations”. They add that in a message to a meeting in Grantham, Einstein wrote a phrase like it, “God does not play dice”, then struck it out.
Our reading: the letter holds respect and doubt side by side. You can take a new idea seriously and still say plainly what about it does not convince you yet.
8. “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”
Doesn't hold up The image of standing on the shoulders of giants is Newton’s own. Newton did write the line, in a letter of 1675/76, but a medieval writer credits the image to Bernard of Chartres.
How sure: Strong Newton’s letter survives, and the medieval passage is in print.
On 5 February 1675/76, Newton wrote to Robert Hooke, his older colleague at the Royal Society. At a meeting that January, Hooke had protested that what Newton set out about light could be found in his own book, Micrographia.
His next words give the reason: we can see more, and farther, than they could (our translation). That is not because our sight is sharper or our bodies taller, but because the giants’ size lifts us up.
Our reading: the medieval version is a lesson in modesty. We see further because others carried us there. When you share your work, you can name the people and sources it rests on.
4. Lines that moved to a more famous name
Each of these lines is now credited to a famous name that the record does not support. Crediting a line to the wrong person is called a misattribution.
9. “Lies, damned lies, and statistics”
Can't confirm Benjamin Disraeli said “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics”. Mark Twain credited the line to Disraeli in 1907, but Quote Investigator found no solid evidence that Disraeli said it.
How sure: Moderate this rests on searches of old texts, and a search cannot prove a line was never said.
Twain printed the line in a part of his autobiography published in 1907, and credited it to Disraeli.
Just before it, Twain notices that his own figures on how much he writes at a sitting “have a defect”. He writes: “Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself”.
Quote Investigator found “no substantive evidence that Disraeli crafted this remark”. Disraeli died in 1881, and the remark was credited to him after his death, by 1895.
Our reading: Twain’s own sentence is the useful part, because he aims the line at his own numbers. When your figures show what you hoped, it is worth checking how you arranged them.
10. “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes”
Doesn't hold up Mark Twain said a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. No solid support links the saying to Twain or Churchill, and Jonathan Swift wrote the idea in 1710.
How sure: Strong Swift’s essay is in print, and Quote Investigator traced the saying’s family through the centuries since.
He wrote: “Falsehood flies, and Truth comes limping after it”. The sentence goes on: “when men come to be undeceived, it is too late, the jest is over, and the tale has had its effect”.
Quote Investigator credits Swift with what he wrote in 1710, and says the preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon popularised a version in a sermon in 1855. It found “no substantive support for assigning the saying to Mark Twain or Winston Churchill”.
Our reading: Swift’s point is about timing. A correction that arrives late may arrive after the harm is done. If you share something that turns out to be wrong, a quick note in the same place gives the correction a head start.
11. “Not everything that counts can be counted”
Doesn't hold up Albert Einstein said “Not everything that counts can be counted”. The earliest known printing of the full saying is in a 1963 sociology book by William Bruce Cameron, who had used half of it in 1957. The link to Einstein appears decades after his death.
How sure: Strong the 1963 book is in print, and Quote Investigator’s earliest Einstein link is from 1986.
In his 1963 book Informal Sociology, William Bruce Cameron wrote: “It would be nice if all of the data which sociologists require could be enumerated”. He went on: “because then we could run them through IBM machines and draw charts as the economists do”.
The earliest link to Einstein that Quote Investigator found is from 1986, more than thirty years after he died in 1955. It suggests crediting Cameron instead.
Our reading: the line was a sociologist’s note on the limits of counting. When something you care about is hard to measure, you can keep a short written note on it beside the numbers.
12. “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt”
Doesn't hold up Abraham Lincoln said it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt. The earliest known version is in a 1907 book of nonsense verse by Maurice Switzer, and the earliest known credit to Lincoln is from 1931.
How sure: Strong the 1907 printing is known, and the Lincoln credit comes long after his death in 1865.
Maurice Switzer’s book Mrs. Goose, Her Book was published in 1907. It reads: “It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it”.
The earliest credit to Lincoln that Quote Investigator reports is in Golden Book magazine, November 1931. Quote Investigator found “no substantive evidence that either Abraham Lincoln or Mark Twain employed this maxim”.
A much older proverb makes a related point: “Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise”. The verse goes on: “and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding”.
Our reading: both are about restraint in speech, not about staying quiet when you have a real question. In a meeting, you could ask the short question you have, and skip talk that only fills the silence.
5. How to check the next line yourself
Five quick checks, drawn from the twelve lines above.
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Find who is speaking. In a poem or a letter, the famous line may belong to someone else, like the neighbour in “Mending Wall”.
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Read to the end of the passage. For Pliny, Swift and Twain, the next lines change what the famous line is about.
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Look for the condition. Einstein’s 1933 sentence keeps a “without” clause that the short version drops.
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Check when the name was first attached. A credit that first appears long after a person died, as with Lincoln and Einstein here, is weak evidence on its own.
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Use a quote history. Quote Investigator lists the earliest printings it finds, with dates. Our guide to spotting a fake quote shows more ways to check.
For more lines checked against the record, see Did They Really Say That? and its part 2.
Quick answers
Did Einstein say "God does not play dice"?
Close to it. In a letter to Max Born, printed in volume 15 of his Collected Papers, he wrote that he was convinced "He does not play dice". The passage the editors quote first calls quantum mechanics "very worthy of respect".
Did Mark Twain say "reports of my death are greatly exaggerated"?
His words, as printed in the New York Journal on 2 June 1897, were "The report of my death was an exaggeration". A Washington paper used the word "greatly" the next day. Twain used it himself in 1906, retelling the story in his autobiography: "Say the report is greatly exaggerated."
Did Vince Lombardi say "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing"?
The earliest match Quote Investigator found is a talk of 9 November 1948 by another coach, Henry "Red" Sanders, joking about fans. In November 1962, Esquire quoted Lombardi as saying "wanting to win is!"
Who first said "standing on the shoulders of giants"?
Newton used it in a letter to Robert Hooke dated 5 February 1675/76. The image is older. John of Salisbury credits it to Bernard of Chartres, who used to say we are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants.
Who said "a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes"?
Quote Investigator found no solid support for crediting it to Twain or Churchill. Jonathan Swift wrote the idea in 1710 as "Falsehood flies, and Truth comes limping after it".
Use this
Before you share a famous line, read the lines around it and check who first wrote it down.
Who said it, when, and what comes next?
Quick quiz
Nothing is scored or saved. Recalling it once now is what makes it last.
1. In Frost's "Mending Wall", who says "Good fences make good neighbours"?
Answer: The neighbour beyond the hill.Read it again ↑
2. What was Pliny's uncle doing when he said "Fortune favours the brave"?
Answer: Steering toward Pomponianus as Vesuvius erupted.Read it again ↑
3. Where is the earliest known printing of the full saying "Not everything that counts can be counted"?
Answer: A 1963 sociology book by William Bruce Cameron.Read it again ↑
How we checked this · Last checked November 2026
- We read each line in a scan or transcription of its poem, letter, lecture or book, mostly through Project Gutenberg, The Latin Library and the Internet Archive.
- For newspaper histories we relied on Quote Investigator, which lists the earliest printings it found with dates. A search cannot prove there is no older one.
- Einstein's letter to Max Born is quoted in the translation given by the editors of his Collected Papers. We could not read the letter itself, and the passage we read does not give the day it was written.
- We read John of Salisbury's Latin as printed in two editions, of 1848 and 1929, and quoted online, and in a hard-to-read scan of a 1610 printing. The English is our own translation.
- Frost's letters are still in copyright, so we quote only a few words from one, as given in an excerpt from David Orr's 2015 book.
- Each verdict is on one claim about what a source says, never on whether the saying is wise.
- Part 1 and the earlier next-sentence page cover other sayings, so we link to them rather than repeat them.
Sources
Texts
- Robert Frost, “Mending Wall”, in North of Boston (London: David Nutt, 1914) (archive.org scan); text from Project Gutenberg #3026.Primary
- Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken”, in Mountain Interval (New York: Henry Holt, copyright 1916) (Project Gutenberg #29345).Primary
- Pliny the Younger, Letters 6.16, to Tacitus, translated by William Melmoth, revised by F. C. T. Bosanquet (Project Gutenberg #2811); Latin text (The Latin Library).Primary
- Terence, Phormio, line 203, Latin text (The Latin Library).Primary
- Albert Einstein, letter to Max Born (Doc. 426), in The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, vol. 15, The Berlin Years: Writings and Correspondence, June 1925–May 1927 (Princeton University Press), as quoted in the volume’s Introduction (arXiv copy).Primary
- Isaac Newton, letter to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1675/76, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, as described by William B. Ashworth Jr., “Isaac Newton”, Scientist of the Day, Linda Hall Library, 5 February 2026.Primary
- John of Salisbury, Metalogicon 3.4, Latin text as printed by C. C. J. Webb (Oxford, 1929) and J. A. Giles (1848), quoted by Steve Perisho, “On the shoulders of giants”, Liber locorum communium, July 2013; the 1610 printing (archive.org scan).Primary
- Mark Twain, Chapters from My Autobiography (Project Gutenberg #19987).Primary
- Jonathan Swift, The Examiner, No. 15, 2–9 November 1710, in The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, vol. 9 (Project Gutenberg #13169).Primary
- The Holy Bible, King James Version, Proverbs 17:28 (Project Gutenberg #10).Primary
Phrase histories
- David Orr, excerpt from his 2015 book The Road Not Taken, Academy of American Poets (poets.org), 19 August 2015.Popular
- Quote Investigator, “Reports of My Death Are Greatly Exaggerated” (7 June 2024).Popular
- Quote Investigator, “Winning Isn’t Everything; It’s the Only Thing” (13 March 2017).Popular
- Quote Investigator, “Everything Should Be Made as Simple as Possible, But Not Simpler” (13 May 2011).Popular
- Quote Investigator, “There Are Three Kinds of Lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics” (22 June 2022).Popular
- Quote Investigator, “A Lie Can Travel Halfway Around the World While the Truth Is Putting On Its Shoes” (13 July 2014).Popular
- Quote Investigator, “Not Everything That Can Be Counted Counts” (26 May 2010).Popular
- Quote Investigator, “Better to Remain Silent and Be Thought a Fool” (17 May 2010).Popular