109 Misquoted Sayings

In our daily conversations and social media interactions, we often come across sayings and quotes that have wiggled their way into popular usage—yet not always in their original forms. Have you ever heard someone quote a famous line only to realize that it doesn’t quite sound right? You're not alone. Misquotations happen more frequently than we realize, altering the words of literature, cinema, and history into something entirely different. In this blog post, we delve into 109 of the most commonly misquoted sayings, shedding light on their true origins and meanings. Join us on this enlightening journey as we set the record straight on these oft-mangled phrases.

1. “Love all, trust a few,Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemyRather in power than use; and keep thy friendUnder thy own life's key: be check'd for silence,But never tax'd for speech.” - William Shakespeare

2. “So far, about morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.” - Ernest Hemingway

3. “There are only two forces at work in this world- black and white. Only people are grey.” - Chris Heimerdinger

4. “In thinking of America, I sometimes find myself admiring her bright blue sky — her grand old woods — her fertile fields — her beautiful rivers — her mighty lakes, and star-crowned mountains. But my rapture is soon checked, my joy is soon turned to mourning. When I remember that all is cursed with the infernal actions of slaveholding, robbery and wrong, — when I remember that with the waters of her noblest rivers, the tears of my brethren are borne to the ocean, disregarded and forgotten, and that her most fertile fields drink daily of the warm blood of my outraged sisters, I am filled with unutterable loathing.” - Frederick Douglass

5. “Hard to say what's right when all I wanna do is wrong.” - Prince

6. “It is very unnerving to be proven wrong, particularly when you are really right and the person who is really wrong is proving you wrong and proving himself, wrongly, right.” - Lemony Snicket

7. “Even a broken clock is right twice a day.” - Stephen Hunt

8. “It's not given to people to judge what's right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.” - Leo Tolstoy

9. “Psychopaths... people who know the differences between right and wrong, but don't give a shit. That's what most of my characters are like.” - Elmore Leonard

10. “Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.” - Leo Tolstoy

11. “It is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions.” - Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

12. “Just because I do not accept the teachings of the devotaries does not mean I've discarded a belief in right and wrong.""But the Almighty determines what is right!""Must someone, some unseen thing, declare what is right for it to be right? I believe that my own morality -- which answers only to my heart -- is more sure and true than the morality of those who do right only because they fear retribution.” - Brandon Sanderson

13. “Everybody is wrong about everything, just about all the time.” - Chuck Klosterman

14. “Gossip, as usual, was one-third right and two-thirds wrong.” - L.M. Montgomery

15. “What can go wrong, will go wrong. ” - Murphey

16. “The only thing wrong with immortality is that it tends to go on forever.” - Herb Caen

17. “If I am right, Thy grace impartStill in the right to stay;If I am wrong, O, teach my heartTo find that better way!” - Alexander Pope

18. “Can't it be stopped?" said Lina. She shifted around under her blanket, trying to find a place to sit where rocks weren't digging into her.Maybe it can be stopped at the beginning," Maddy said. "If someone sees what's happening and is brave enough to reverse the direction."Reverse the direction?"Yes, turn it around."How would you do that?"You'd do something good," said Maddy. "Or at least you'd keep yourself from doing something bad."But how could you?" said Lina. "When people have been mean to you, why would you want to be good to them?"You wouldn't want to," said Maddy. "That's what makes it hard. you do it anyway. Being good is hard. Much harder than being bad.” - Jeanne DuPrau

19. “This isn't right. This isn't even wrong.” - Wolfgang Pauli

20. “Friendship is like peeing on yourself: everyone can see it, but only you get the warm feeling that it brings.” - Robert Bloch

21. “Had not enough gone wrong?” - Brom

22. “If I could, Sister James, I would certainly choose to live in innocence. But innocence can only be wisdom in a world without evil. Situations arise and we are confronted with wrongdoing and the need to act.” - John Patrick Shanley

23. “Do what you think is right. Don't let people make the decision of right or wrong for you.” - Steve Maraboli

24. “Even if toxic people are right about what is "good," they are wrong if the approach is not healthy.” - John L. Lund

25. “There is no right and wrong, and precepts are for fools. Every thing is just as it is! And we must experience things without condemning them, because if we condemn them, then we are becoming too involved.” - Ru Freeman

26. “Take sides! Always take sides! You will sometimes be wrong - but the man who refuses to take sides must always be wrong.” - Robert A. Heinlein

27. “But the thought of being a lunatic did not greatly trouble him; the horror was that he might also be wrong.” - George Orwell

28. “Doing the right thing for someone else occasionally means doing something that feels wrong to you.” - Jodi Picoult

29. “The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creatures that cannot.” - Mark Twain

30. “One rarely falls in love without being as much attracted to what is interestingly wrong with someone as what is objectively healthy.” - Alain De Botton

31. “Clear thinking at the wrong moment can stifle creativity.” - Karl Lagerfeld

32. “Well, I'm stubborn and wrong, but at least I know it.” - Vanessa Carlton

33. “It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.” - William Kingdon Clifford

34. “There's a hard life for every silver spoon.There's a touch of gray for every shade of blue.That's the way I see life.If there was nothing wrong...Then there'd be nothing right.” - Shinedown

35. “That's the beauty of argument, if you argue correctly, you're never wrong.” - Christopher Buckley

36. “It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.” - John Maynard Keynes

37. “The secret to being wrong isn't to avoid being wrong! The secret is being willing to be wrong. The secret is realizing that wrong isn't fatal.” - Seth Godin

38. “It's sometimes funny to watch some people doing something the wrong way but doing it confidently. Even more funny, they succeeded.” - Toba Beta [Betelgeuse Incident]

39. “... In love, everyone does things that hurt the other person, so there really is no "Right" and "Wrong". You just have to decide what you're willing to forgive” - Yvonne Wood

40. “I can't help it. I'm just a big gasbag. I still got leftover barbeque gas." She squeezed her eyes shut tight and did a full minute-long far. "Excuse me," she said.” - Janet Evanovich

41. “Perhaps she was just looking for love in the wrong places. In all the safe places. What if love was not safe at all?” - Mary Balogh

42. “Occasionally we all do wrong things from right motives. Only time can prove us right or wrong. The past is the past. Nothing can change it now, and who is to say that it was all wrong, anyway?” - Mary Balogh

43. “Lesson number one, she muttered, love is beyond your grasp. Lesson two: nowhere is it written that you're guaranteed fairness. And three: there's only right and wrong.” - Sandy Blair

44. “Some string theorists prefer to believe that string theory is too arcane to be understood by human beings, rather than consider the possibility that it might just be wrong.” - Lee Smolin

45. “The Wrong we have Done, Thought, or Intended Will wreak its Vengeance onOur SOULS.” - Carl Gustav Jung

46. “Misconceptions play a prominent role in my view of the world.” - George Soros

47. “At a certain level of learning and understanding,right or wrong ain't the issue, but different interest.” - Toba Beta

48. “Good laws make it easier to do right and harder to do wrong.” - William Ewart Gladstone

49. “What's right isn't what's worked.” - Toba Beta

50. “There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. ” - Ayn Rand

51. “Everybody is right when there are no wrongs.” - Santosh Kalwar

52. “I don't know,' he said irritably. 'Is it meant to improve you?'She swiveled toward him, eyes wide with shock.'Because nothing could,' he added. Her mouth dropped in astonishment. Blotchy scarlet rushed her complexion. One would have thought he'd shot her.Oh dear God!He realized belatedly how wrong it had sounded.'No! God... that is to say.. nothing is necessary to improve you. Nothing could possibly make you better... than you already are.” - Julie Anne Long

53. “in a constitutionally ordered state, where laws are derived from broad principles of right and wrong and where those principles are enshrined and protected by agreed upon procedures and practices, it can never be in the long-term interest of the state or its citizens to flout those procedures at home or associate too closely overseas with the enemies of your founding ideals.” - Tony Judt

54. “The world is full of men who want to be right, when actually the secret of a man's strength and his pathway to true honor is his ability to admit fault when he has failed. God wants to fill the church with men who can say they are wrong when THEY ARE WRONG. A man who is willing to humble himself before God and his family and say:"I was wrong." will find that his family has all the confidence in the world in him and will much more readily follow him. If he stubbornly refuses to repent or admit he was wrong, their confidence in him and in his leadership erodes.” - Jim Anderson

55. “Doing what is right will always keep you moving forward toward your destiny, but choosing the wrong way will keep you stuck in the same spot:No Where!-Anita R. Sneed-Carter” - Anita R. Sneed-Carter

56. “There are people in the world, who are just wrong, and then there are the masses of population that are right, or at the very least they lie in the veil of between. I on the other hand, do not belong to any group. I don’t exist. It’s not that I don’t have substance; I have a body like everyone else. I can feel the fire when it burns against my skin, the rain when it caresses my face and the breeze as it fingers my hair. I have all the senses that other people do. I am just empty, inside.” - J.D. Stroube

57. “This singularity of meaning--I was my face, I was ugliness--though sometimes unbearable, also offered a possible point of escape. It became the launching pad from which to lift off, the one immediately recognizable place to point to when asked what was wrong with my life. Everything led to it, everything receded from it--my face as personal vanishing point.” - Lucy Grealy

58. “Divinity for the sake of the simple-minded is beautiful. Those theological assertions you write, say, or live by that you later feel foolish about, it means God still lives in you enough to tell you that they were indeed foolish. By mistakes you know you are alive.” - Criss Jami

59. “It's best to let her go," he says.No, no, that's wrong. It's never right to give up on someone.” - Lauren DeStefano

60. “The last thing I heard before falling asleep was, "Everything is okay now."No matter how much I wanted to believe Stellan, I knew he was terribly wrong.” - Markelle Grabo

61. “Trust the Simi. She ain't never wrong.” - Sherrilyn Kenyon

62. “When you think you're right, you're most likely wrong.” - Jodi Picoult

63. “Being democratic is not enough, a majority cannot turn what is wrong into right. In order to be considered truly free, countries must also have a deep love of liberty and an abiding respect for the rule of law.” - Margaret Thatcher

64. “Life was a short window and there was no sense in doing the wrong thing over and over even if it was so difficult to stop.” - Anna Godbersen

65. “It's a sad thing to see, because as far as I know, this man Gavo had done nothing to deserve being shot in the back of the head at his own funeral. Twice.” - Téa Obreht

66. “The world dread nothing so much as being convinced of their errors.” - William Hazlitt

67. “Lying's wrong, but when the world spins backwards, a small wrong may be a big right.” - David Mitchell

68. “Olivier took a deep breath, then turned and bowed in farewell. Gersonides nodded in return, then thought of something."The manuscript you brought me, by that bishop. It argues that understanding is more important than movement. That action is virtuous only if it reflects pure comprehension, and that virtue comes from the comprehension, not the action."Olivier frowned. "So?""Dear boy, I must tell you a secret.""What?""I do believe it is wrong.” - Iain Pears

69. “Beethoven said that it's better to hit the wrong note confidently, than hit the right note unconfidently. Never be afraid to be wrong or to embarrass yourself; we are all students in this life, and there is always something more to learn.” - Mike Norton

70. “What's wrong with people?" she says, almost too quiet for me to hear. "Were they born with parts missing or did it fall out somewhere along the way?” - Isaac Marion

71. “I'm too old to figure out the rights and wrongs of everything.” - Barbara Else

72. “Sometimes it's right to do the wrong thing.” - Finian Whish

73. “I thought I understood what was best. I knew too little and believed too soon.” - Gloria Whelan

74. “There is no wrong time to do the right thing.” - Charles M. Blow

75. “When everyone is against you, it means that you are absolutely wrong-- or absolutely right.” - Albert Guinon

76. “Being sad with the right people is better than being happy with the wrong ones.” - Philippos

77. “Anyone who ever bet against you was wrong. Don’t let their opinion blind you from your reality. You were not meant to live their life; LIVE yours!” - Steve Maraboli

78. “Being over there changes a man. Right and wrong don't look so different anymore to some.” - M.L. Stedman

79. “There is no right or wrong, only what we believe is more right or more wrong” - Evan Meekins

80. “It's risky most of the time, but its better to listen to your heart.” - Jonathan Anthony Burkett

81. “The word 'heresy' not only means no longer being wrong; it practically means being clear-headed and courageous. The word 'orthodoxy' not only no longer means being right; it practically means being wrong.” - G.K. Chesterton

82. “And just when I though things were starting to get better, everything had gone wrong again.” - Rachel Ward

83. “He's wrong he's so he's so wrong he's more wrong than an upside-down rainbow.” - Tahereh Mafi

84. “I find there are usually no extremes in relationships, even friendship. One is not always right or never wrong.” - Boone Brux

85. “И разбирам колко много нежност разпилях, но не по който трябва.” - Камелия Кондова

86. “Accidents are not accidents but precise arrivals at the wrong right time.” - Dejan Stojanovic

87. “Why is it that we are constantly proving the world wrong but never proving ourselves right?” - Lisa Cander

88. “There was something else I couldn't quite define--something that made me uneasy. We were a wrong fit, like unmatching puzzle pieces.” - Heather Anastasiu

89. “Whenever you see confusion, you can be sure that something is wrong. Disorder in the world implies that something is out of place. Usually, at the heart of all disorder you will find man in rebellion against God. It began in the Garden of Eden and continues to this day.” - A.W. Tozer

90. “Life is like defusing a bomb, once you cut the wrong wire your whole life is ruined.” - Mohamed Zahy Hussain

91. “The end justifies the means. Sometimes you have to do the wrong thing to get the right result.” - Sebastian Fitzek

92. “It’s not easy to kill; it’s not supposed to be. If it is, then there’s something wrong with you. But sometimes good people have to do unpleasant things just so we can come home at night to our kids.” - Skip Coryell

93. “Just because it's something original, eccentric or you're not used to it; doesn't mean it's wrong.” - Sandra Chami Kassis

94. “If you lose a man because you thought the best but were all wrong, then that's his fault. If you lose him because you thought the very worst and were wrong, then that's yours. And there's nothing so sad as missing out on love for lack of a little faith.” - Jennifer Blake

95. “I don’t like seeing you hit.”“Well, to be quite honest, I don’t like being hit unless it’s by you.” As soon as it was out of my mouth, I realized what I had said. “That sounded all sorts of wrong.”“Insanely so, actually.”“To be clear,” I said to any overhearing ears, “I hit him back--”“Hard.”“It’s a very give-and-take, non-abuse type hitting situation…”The sides of Liam’s mouth folded up like an accordion. “You should probably stop now.”“I’m trying. My mouth keeps moving of its own accord.” - Tammy Blackwell

96. “I give you full credit for the discovery, I crawl, I grovel, my name is Watson, and you need not say what you were just going to say, because I admit it all.” - Dorothy L. Sayers

97. “As you grow older, it becomes harder to feel 100 percent happy; you learn all the things that can go wrong, you become superstitious about tempting fate, about bringing disaster upon your life by accidentally feeling too good one day.” - Douglas Coupland

98. “… you were so worried about legal and illegal that you never stopped to think about whether it was right or wrong.” - Terry Pratchett

99. “I hate to be wrong. It makes me feel like a failure. Being wrong has the same affect on me as a lack of food or sleep. It lowers my entire mood. But, I need to be proved wrong sometimes, as it restores humility, and doesn't allow my ego to swell to stupidly big sizes.” - Paul Kelly

100. “Not doing anything can be worse than doing the wrong thing.” - Alexandra Potter

101. “How can you say that so casually? You're talking about the possible death of hundreds of people, yourself included."He gave a negligent shrug. "Wrong place, wrong time. Life sucks.” - shannon k. butcher

102. “Finding the right one is never easy. Especially, when the wrong one looks so right.” - Hanifa Johnson

103. “Good means not merely not to do wrong, but rather not to desire to do wrong.” - Democritus

104. “I'VE NEVER BEEN VERY SURE ABOUT WHAT IS RIGHT, said Bill Door. I AM NOT SURE THERE IS SUCH A THING AS RIGHT. OR WRONG. JUST PLACES TO STAND.” - Terry Pratchett

105. “You are always a little bit wrong” - Hank Green

106. “If I ever have to cast an acting role, I want the wrong person for the part. I can never visualize the right person in a part. The right person for the right part would be too much. Besides, no person is every completely right for any part, because part in a role is never real, so if you can't get someone who's perfectly right, it's more satisfying to get someone who's perfectly wrong. Then you know you've really got something.” - Andy Warhol

107. “What other people may think of the rightness or wrongness is nothing in comparison to my own deep knowledge, my innate conviction that it was wrong.” - Elizabeth Gaskell

108. “Right and wrong are very complicated; sometimes I get confused which one to follow.” - M.F. Moonzajer

109. “There might be a million wrong people in your life, but when the right one comes everything looks dark.” - M.F. Moonzajer