[Ads-l] Mark Twain Does It Again

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Thanks JL. I have received requests in the past for all three of those
remarks. I created a QI article for the first misquotation. The other
two inquiries are in my queue of thousands. I will add these requests
to my electronic files. Here is a link to the pertinent QI article:

Quote Origin: It’s Easier to Fool People Than to Convince Them That
They’ve Been Fooled
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/12/23/fooled/

Twain did make a comment which semantically aligned with the statement
above although it was distinct. In December 1906 Mark Twain dictated
remarks for his autobiography which was being published in
installments in "The North American Review".

[ref] 1907 January 4, The North American Review, Volume 184, Chapters
>From My Autobiography--IX by Mark Twain, (Dictated December 2, 1906)
Start Page 1, Quote Page 12, The North American Review Publishing
Company, New York. (Google Books Full View) [/ref]

[Begin excerpt]
How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to
undo that work again!
[End excerpt]

Reuters published a Fact Check about "The truth has no defense against
a fool determined to believe a lie" in 2023:
https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-twain-fools-idUSL1N385208

Garson

On Fri, Aug 8, 2025 at 8:23 AM Jonathan Lighter
<00001aad181a2549-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
>
> Mark Twain  keeps coming up with new, brilliant aphorisms despite being
> long dead. This makes him a greater writer than Shakespeare.
>
> I found three of the latest in one place. A quick search suggests
> (strongly) that he never said or wrote any of them while alive:
>
> "It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been
> fooled."
>
> "No amount of evidence will ever convince an idiot."
>
> “The truth has no defense against a fool determined to believe a lie."
>
> Over to you, Garson.
>
> JL
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org