← All articles HISTORY · 21 October 2026

Who said it? 35 historical quotes with verified attributions

Quick answer: 35 famous quotes with who really said them and the source, including common misattributions.

Quotes 1–9

Several of these are commonly misattributed, so the “Source” column matters. For more surprising corrections, see historical myths and what actually happened.

#	Quote	Who said it	Source
1	“I came, I saw, I conquered.”	Julius Caesar	Reported by Plutarch and Suetonius after the Battle of Zela, 47 BC.
2	“Give me liberty, or give me death!”	Patrick Henry	Speech to the Virginia Convention, 1775.
3	“I think, therefore I am.”	René Descartes	Discourse on the Method, 1637.
4	“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”	Franklin D. Roosevelt	First inaugural address, 1933.
5	“I have a dream.”	Martin Luther King Jr.	March on Washington, 1963.
6	“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”	Neil Armstrong	On the Moon, 20 July 1969.
7	“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”	John F. Kennedy	Inaugural address, 1961.
8	“We shall fight on the beaches.”	Winston Churchill	House of Commons, 4 June 1940.
9	“Knowledge is power.”	Francis Bacon	Meditationes Sacrae, 1597 (in Latin).

#	Quote	Who said it	Source
10	“Eureka!”	Archimedes	Reported by Vitruvius, two centuries later.
11	“Et tu, Brute?”	William Shakespeare (for Caesar)	Written in the play Julius Caesar, 1599; not recorded from Caesar himself.
12	“The die is cast.”	Julius Caesar	Reported by Suetonius, on crossing the Rubicon in 49 BC.
13	“Man is by nature a political animal.”	Aristotle	Politics, 4th century BC.
14	“I know that I know nothing.”	Socrates	As reported in Plato’s Apology.
15	“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”	Albert Einstein	Interview, 1929.
16	“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”	Often credited to Gandhi	Not found in his writings; a paraphrase of a longer passage from 1913.
17	“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.”	Aristotle Onassis	Often wrongly credited to the philosopher Aristotle.
18	“Let them eat cake.”	Not Marie Antoinette	Appears in Rousseau’s Confessions before she arrived in France.

#	Quote	Who said it	Source
19	“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.”	Muhammad Ali	Said before the 1964 fight with Sonny Liston.
20	“Houston, we’ve had a problem.”	Jim Lovell	Apollo 13, 1970. Often misquoted as “we have a problem”.
21	“Veni, vidi, vici” is in which language?	Latin	Caesar’s report to the Senate.
22	“An eye for an eye.”	The Code of Hammurabi	The principle appears in the Babylonian law code, about 1750 BC.
23	“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”	Nelson Mandela	Speech in Madison Park, Boston, 1990.
24	“Elementary, my dear Watson.”	Not in Conan Doyle’s stories	The exact phrase first appeared in a 1929 film.
25	“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”	Lord Acton	Letter to Bishop Creighton, 1887.
26	“The pen is mightier than the sword.”	Edward Bulwer-Lytton	From the play Richelieu, 1839.
27	“Religion is the opium of the people.”	Karl Marx	Introduction to a critique of Hegel, 1843.

#	Quote	Who said it	Source
28	“Nothing is certain except death and taxes.”	Benjamin Franklin	Letter to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy, 1789.
29	“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”	Evelyn Beatrice Hall	Written in 1906 to describe Voltaire’s attitude; not Voltaire’s words.
30	“Seek knowledge even as far as China.”	Attributed to the Prophet Muhammad	Widely quoted; scholars classify this hadith as weak.
31	“Hope is the pillar that holds up the world.”	Pliny the Elder	Natural History, 1st century AD.
32	“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”	George Santayana	The Life of Reason, 1905.
33	“Carthage must be destroyed.”	Cato the Elder	Ended his Senate speeches with it, 2nd century BC.
34	“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”	Laozi	Tao Te Ching, chapter 64.
35	“Well-behaved women seldom make history.”	Laurel Thatcher Ulrich	From a 1976 academic article, often misattributed to Marilyn Monroe.

No. The phrase appears in Rousseau’s Confessions, written before she arrived in France.

Not in those words; it is a paraphrase of a longer 1913 passage.