TO MIS-QUOTE THOMAS JEFFERSON

Jefferson Memorial, Washington, D.C. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Thomas Jefferson once famously wrote, "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."
Or did he? Numerous social movements attribute the quote to him. "The Complete Idiot's Guide to U.S. Government and Politics" cites it in a discussion of American democracy. Actor Chuck Norris's 2010 treatise "Black Belt Patriotism: How to Reawaken America" uses it to urge conservatives to become more involved in politics. It is even on T-shirts and decals. (click below to read more)


"People will see a quote and it appeals to an opinion that they have and if it has Jefferson's name attached to it that gives it more weight," she says. "He's constantly being invoked by people when they are making arguments about politics and actually all sorts of topics."

A spokeswoman for the Guide's publisher said it was looking into the quote. Mr. Norris's publicist didn't respond to requests for comment.

To counter what she calls rampant misattribution, Ms. Berkes is fighting the Internet with the Internet. She has set up a "Spurious Quotations" page on the Monticello website listing bogus quotes attributed to the founding father, a prolific writer and rhetorician who was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence.

The fake quotes posted and dissected on Monticello.org include "My reading of history convinces me that most bad government has grown out of too much government." In detailed footnotes, Ms. Berkes says it resembles a line Jefferson wrote in an 1807 letter: "History, in general, only informs us what bad government is." But she can't find that exact quotation in any of his writings.

Another that graces many epicurean websites: "On a hot day in Virginia, I know nothing more comforting than a fine spiced pickle, brought up trout-like from the sparkling depths of the aromatic jar below the stairs of Aunt Sally's cellar."

Jefferson never said that either, says Ms. Berkes. The earliest reference to the quote comes from a 1922 speech by a man extolling the benefits of pickles, she says.

Jefferson is a "flypaper figure," like Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, Winston Churchill and baseball player and manager Yogi Berra—larger-than-life figures who have fake or misattributed quotes stick to them all the time, says Ralph Keyes, an author of books about quotes wrongly credited to famous or historical figures.


In 2010, President Barack Obama used a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln in a speech to Democratic lawmakers ("I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I'm not bound to succeed, but I'm bound to live up to what light I have"). The remark quickly was outed by John Pitney Jr., a professor at Claremont McKenna College who tracks fake quotes attributed to Lincoln, Alexis de Tocqueville and others. Mr. Pitney says the remark isn't found in any of Lincoln's papers, speeches or known remarks.

In an article on NPR's website, Mr. Pitney pointed out that the fake quote had been used in the past by other politicians, including Ronald Reagan. Mr. Pitney says no one at the White House contacted him after his piece, but they haven't used the quote since. The White House didn't respond to requests for comment.

Winston Churchill had so many sayings misattributed to him that one academic gave the phenomenon a name: "Churchillian drift." Richard Langworth, editor of "Finest Hour," a journal published by the Churchill Centre, an international organization dedicated to promoting scholarship and appreciation of the late British prime minister, says he constantly fields questions about Churchill quotes from speechwriters, students and Churchill fans—but "not so much professors, who think they know everything."

"It's a hopeless task," he says, complaining the Internet is like an electronic "Hyde Park Corner" where anybody can say anything, whether it is true or not. "You would need an army of secretaries to reply to all these tweets. Twitter and Facebook have made it worse, because people glom onto these things and pass it on and there it goes."

Mr. Langworth says Chris Matthews, a fellow Churchill Centre board member and host of MSNBC's "Hardball," has misquoted Churchill. Last year Mr. Matthews made a promotional ad for MSNBC in which he recounted Churchill being told during World War II that he should cut government funding for the arts.

"Then what are we fighting for?" Churchill replied, according to Mr. Matthews.

Mr. Langworth says Churchill never said it, though many over the years have used what Mr. Langworth calls "this famous 'red herring' nonquote."

Mr. Matthews, a self-described "Churchill nut," insists he hasn't misquoted his hero, but adds, "How can you prove someone never said something?"

Jeff Looney, editor of "The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series" at Monticello, says, "The burden is on the people to say where they got it, and usually they can't."

Last year, a group of atheists and agnostics put up a billboard in Costa Mesa, Calif., quoting Jefferson as having said, "I do not find in Christianity one redeeming feature. It is founded on fables and mythology." Group leaders took the billboard down when the quote was shown to be erroneous.

Ms. Berkes acknowledges she has her work cut out for her. "Jefferson is a figure that just is ever present in the American mind," she says.

Jefferson might agree. "If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed," he supposedly said.

Actually, he didn't. Ms. Berkes says that came from a 1981 speech by President Reagan for National Library Week, in which he paraphrased Jefferson. Ms. Berkes thinks someone later assumed those to be Jefferson's actual words and the quote is now often attributed to him.