[Ads-l] Slight Antedating of Lincoln-Attributed Quotation

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Wow! Thanks for sharing a magnificent new 1885 citation, Fred. Now,
the earliest known citation attributes the saying to Abraham Lincoln.
Admittedly, the attribution evidence is still weak because Lincoln
died in 1865. But the new citation is a valuable advance in our
knowledge.

Garson

On Tue, Feb 10, 2026 at 8:08 AM Shapiro, Fred
<00001ac016895344-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
>
> The great quotationeer Garson O'Toole pushed back the earliest dating for the great Abraham-Lincoln-attributed quotation about fooling all the people.  Garson's dating was 9 September 1885 (in a Syracuse newspaper).  I used this dating in the New Yale Book of Quotations.
>
> I have now found a slightly earlier occurrence of the attribution to Lincoln:
>
> 1885 The Voice (New York) 3 Sept. 3 / 4 (Newspapers.com)  Was it not Mr. Lincoln who said: "You can fool the people some of the time, and you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all the time."
>
> NOTE:  This citation is in a letter to the editor by H. Clay Bascom..  The letter is dated 24 Aug. 1885.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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