They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions [Hardcover]

Paul F. Boller Jr. (Author), John George (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0195055411 | ISBN-13: 978-0195055412 | Publication Date: May 18, 1989 | Edition: First Edition

Abraham Lincoln never said, "You cannot fool all the people all the time." Thomas Jefferson never said, "That government is best which governs least." And Horace Greeley never said, "Go west, young man." In They Never Said It, Paul Boller, Jr., and John George examine hundreds of misquotations, incorrect attributions, and blatant fabrications, outlining the origins of the quotes and revealing why they should be consigned to the historical trashcan.
Many of the misquotes are quite harmless. Some are inadvertent misquotes that have become popular (Shakespeare actually said, "The best part of valor is discretion"), others, the inventions of reporters embellishing a story (Franklin Roosevelt never opened a speech to a DAR group with the salutation, "My fellow immigrants"). But some of the quotes, such as Charles Darwin's supposed deathbed recantation of evolution, are blatantly dishonest and falsify the historical record. And others are chillingly vicious, filled with virulent racial and religious prejudices that completely distort the views of the person supposedly quoted and spread distrust and hatred among the gullible. These include the forged remarks attributed to Benjamin Franklin that Jews should be excluded from America, and the fabricated condemnation of Catholics attributed to Lincoln.
An entertaining and yet thought-provoking book, They Never Said It sorts out a great deal of history and sets it right, going beyond a mere catalog of popular misconceptions to reveal how conservatives and liberals, atheists and evangelists, all have at times twisted and even invented the words of eminent figures to promote their own ends. It is the ultimate debunking reference, a perfect complement to handbooks of quotations.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This book full of spurious quotes and deliberate misattributions has a lesson for anyone who has ever nodded admiringly at a well-turned quotation that makes a partisan point with stunning effect. The lesson is to be wary of just such marvelous distillations of political wisdom. They're probably fakes....This is...a serious book, written with high good humor and solid research."--The Washington Times

"An infectiously browsable book."--Booklist

About the Author

About the Authors:
Paul F. Boller, Jr. is Professor of History Emeritus at Texas Christian University. His many books include the bestselling Presidential Anecdotes, Presidential Campaigns, and Presidential Wives. John George is Professor of Political Science and Sociology at Central State University, in Oklahoma. He is the author of Public Opinion: Coalitions, Elites and Masses (with Harry Holloway).

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; First Edition edition (May 18, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195055411
• ISBN-13: 978-0195055412
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,339,851 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spoiling a good story, March 21, 2003

By 

Andrew S. Rogers (Stamford, Connecticut) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions (Hardcover)

It may well be true, as Roy Howard never said (p. 51) that "too much fact checking has ruined many a good news story." But the many misquotations listed here, some very well known, often have fascinating stories in themselves. In a day when, thanks to the Internet, misquotations, urban legends, and dubious "facts" fly faster and farther than ever, this book is a very valuable resource to have around.

My major complaint with this book is that I wish it had been much longer -- for example, there are numerous quotes attributed to Winston Churchill (like the one about being a liberal when you're 25) that could stand to be debunked alongside the two included in this volume.

Still, though, it's very helpful to be able to demonstrate to folks that Lenin never said anything about "useful idiots" (p. 76), that Lincoln never made the long statement beginning, "You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift..." (p. 82), or that Voltaire never "defend[ed] to the death your right to say it" (p. 124). For those reasons alone, I would recommend this book be kept and studied by anyone who cares about truth, accuracy, and stomping urban legends to the death they deserve.

19 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dr. George is amazing, March 23, 2000

By 

Kimberly L. Cole "Kimmy Cole" (Oklahoma) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions (Hardcover)

He's my professor in college at UCO, and he's an amazing man.

This work is just an extenstion of his personality -- exacting, intelligent, and focused on what's really true rather than just what people say.

If you're at all interested in accuracy, or if you're a big fan of quotations (like I am), than this is a wonderful book for you!

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Often informative, but the Cold War audience it was written for has moved on, February 8, 2011

By 

Christopher Culver - See all my reviews
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This review is from: They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions (Paperback)

THEY NEVER SAID IT is a collection of "fake quotes, misquotes and misleading atributions" compiled by Paul F. Boller Jr and John George. The authors were troubled by references to prestigious dead men to score political points without caring about the veracity of the quotation:

"Using quotations is a time-honored practice. There have always been people who liked to liven up what they were saying with appropriate statements from the writings of others. Today, however, quotations tend to be polemical rather than decorative. People use them to prove points rather than to provide pleasure. Quotemen (and quotewomen) do not simply quote; they quote in order to score points, usually of a political nature, and thereby throw their opponents off balance. Sometimes they merely quote a highly esteemed authority -- Jefferson, Lincoln, Emerson -- in order to bolster their own position."

One finds many quotations that have become set phrases in English, such as Marie Antoinette's "Let them eat cake,", Jimmy Cagney's "You Dirty Rat", and Galileo's "Eppur si muove". Others were part of McCarthy-era polemics about Communist intrigue.

As this is not meant to be an exhaustive compendium of spurious quotations, but rather somewhat light entertainment, the datedness of the work makes it less enjoyable than it might have been upon its 1990 publication. So many of the quotes date from postwar anti-Semites or John Birch Society figures, but these groups' rhetoric is increasingly forgotten. Samuel Goldwyn gets a long list of quotations that no one remembers any more, but Yogi Berra's similar sayings are not mentioned at all. For the book to be truly commendable, these quotations would have to not only be apocryphal, but persist in contemporary society. Still, there are enough fake quotations here that continue to circulate that reading this book can still be a profitable experience, but I can't recommend buying it.