Episode 1: Marie Antoinette Never Said 'Let Them Eat Cake': Famous Quotes That Weren't

Alex Calder investigates how misattributed quotes become powerful historical shorthand that shapes our understanding of historical figures and events. The episode explores famous "quotes" like Marie Antoinette's "Let them eat cake," Voltaire's defense of free speech, and Einstein's definition of insanity—none of which these people actually said. Alex examines why we attribute these statements to historical figures who embody their sentiments, how these misquotations serve as convenient historical shorthand, and why we continue to repeat them even after learning they're incorrect. The episode reveals how fabricated or misattributed quotes tell us more about our need for simple narratives than about the historical figures themselves, while demonstrating how even small historical distortions can significantly shape public understanding of the past.

This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
History is a set of lies agreed upon. That's a
quote often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, except Napoleon never actually
said it, which, when you think about it, kind of
proves the point, doesn't it. Welcome to history rewritten, the
myths we believe about the past. I'm Alex Calder. This

(00:32):
is a show about how the history you think you
know is often a carefully curated fiction, a simplified narrative
that bears only a passing resemblance to the messy, complicated
reality of what actually happened. Today, we're diving into the
fascinating world of misattributed quotes, those snappy, memorable lines we

(00:53):
love to repeat that famous historical figures never actually said.
Let's start with perhaps the most infamous example. Let them
eat cake. You know the story. France is experiencing bread
shortages in the late eighteenth century. The peasants are starving.
When informed of this crisis, Marie Antoinette, the out of

(01:15):
touch queen, callously replies, quille monge de la brioge, let
them eat cake. It's the perfect encapsulation of aristocratic indifference
to suffering. A damning indictment of the French monarchy's disconnection
from its subjects, and a tidy explanation for why the
French Revolution turns so bloody. There's just one problem. Marie

(01:39):
Antoinette never said it. Not only is there no record
of her ever uttering those words, but the phrase was
actually attributed to an unnamed great princess in Jean Jacques
Rousseau's autobiography Confessions, which was written in seventeen sixty five,
when Marie Antoinette was only nine years old and still

(01:59):
living in Austria, Rousseau wrote at length, I remembered the thoughtless
saying of a great princess, who, on being informed that
the country people had no bread, replied, then let them
eat brioche. The original French tax uses brioche, not cake. Anyway,

(02:20):
Brioche is a rich, bottery bread, still tone deaf to
suggest as an alternative to regular bread, but not quite
the same as suggesting dessert. It's like the difference between
saying if they can't afford rice, let them eat risotto
versus if they can't afford rice, let them eat rice pudding.

(02:41):
Both are out of touch, but one is slightly less absurd.
So why do we associate this quote with Marie Antoinette.
It's a classic case of a convenient narrative filling a
psychological need. The French Revolution needed villains, and Marie Antoinette,
foreign born allegedly promiscuous, another myth we don't have time

(03:04):
to fully unpack today, and extravagant, made a perfect target.
The quote so perfectly encapsulated everything revolutionary is claimed was
wrong with the monarchy that it stuck regardless of its authenticity.
This pattern attributing quotes to historical figures who embody the
sentiment regardless of whether they actually said it, is something

(03:28):
we'll see over and over again. It's like historical fan
fiction that eventually gets accepted as canon. Here's another classic example.
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend
to the death you're right to say it. This stirring
defense of free speech is almost universally attributed to Voltaire,

(03:49):
the eighteenth century French Enlightenment writer and philosopher. It appears
in countless books about freedom of expression, is quoted in
supreme court cases, and has become a found dational principle
of liberal democracy. Voltaire never said it. The quote was
actually written by Evelyn Beatrice hall An English writer who

(04:09):
published a biography of Voltaire in nineteen o six under
the pseudonym SG. Tallentyre. In The Friends of Voltaire, Hall
was attempting to summarize Voltaire's attitude toward Claude Adrian Helvetius,
another philosopher whose book had been burned in seventeen fifty nine.

(04:29):
She wrote, I disapprove of what you say, but I
will defend to the death you're right to say. It
was his attitude now. Hall later clarified in a letter
that she had not intended to attribute these exact words
to Voltaire, but was trying to encapsulate his thinking. It
was her characterization of his views, not a direct quote,

(04:52):
but the line was so pithy, so quotable, that it
was soon being attributed directly to Voltaire himself. What makes
this misattribution particularly interesting is that it's not entirely wrong
in spirit. Voltaire was indeed a vocal advocate for freedom
of thought and expression, fighting against censorship and religious intolerance.

(05:14):
The quote, while not his words, does capture something essential
about his philosophy. Maybe that's why it's stuck. It feels true,
even if it isn't factually accurate. This brings us to
an important point about why misquotations persist. They often capture
something emotionally or intuitively true about the person, even if

(05:37):
they're technically false. We want Einstein to have said profound
things about imagination because we see him as a creative genius.
We want Churchill to have uttered, stirring, defiant phrases because
we see him as the embodiment of resolve in the
face of Nazi aggression. This misquotes satisfy our desire for

(05:57):
historical figures to be consistent, comprehensible characters, rather than the complex,
contradictory humans they actually were. Let's take Einstein for example.
Here are just a few famous Einstein quotes that Einstein
never actually said. The definition of insanity is doing the
same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

(06:21):
This is probably the most widely misattributed Einstein quote. It
appears nowhere in his writings or recorded statements. Some sources
trace it to an archotics anonymous publication from the nineteen eighties,
about three decades after Einstein's death. Everyone is a genius,
But if you judge a fish by its ability to

(06:41):
climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing
that it is stupid. This quote, often used in educational
contexts to argue for different learning styles, has no connection
to Einstein whatsoever. It appears to have emerged in the
early twenty first century and got retroactive attached to Einstein
to give it more authority. I fear the day technology

(07:05):
will surpass human interaction, the world will have a generation
of idiots. Despite showing up on countless social media posts
next to photos of people staring at their phones, there's
zero evidence Einstein ever said this. It would have been
a remarkably prescient statement for a man who died in
nineteen fifty five, before the digital age. The irony here

(07:28):
is almost too perfect. We're sharing made up quotes about
the dangers of technology. Using technology. Einstein has become such
a shorthand for genius that attaching his name to a
quote instantly gives it more credibility, regardless of whether he
actually said it. So why do we keep doing this?

(07:49):
Why do we persistently attribute quotes to people who never
said them. Part of it is simple cognitive convenience. Our
brains love patterns and consistency. It's easier to remember Einstein
said this about imagination than some unknown person said this,
and we think it aligns with Einstein's general views on creativity.

(08:10):
Famous names function as mental shortcuts, helping us categorize and
remember information. There is also the appeal to authority. A
quote carries more weight when it comes from Marie Antoinette,
or Churchill or Einstein than when it comes from an
anonymous source or a lesser known figure. We invoke these
historical heavyweights to bolster our arguments, essentially saying, see this

(08:36):
incredibly important person agrees with me. The Internet, of course,
has supercharged this phenomenon. Social media allows misattributions to spread
globally in minutes, often accompanied the compelling images that further
cement the association in our minds. A quote in an
elegant font superimpose over a thoughtful looking Einstein sign or

(09:00):
a determined Churchill feels true in a way that transcends
mere factual accuracy. But just as technology accelerates the spread
of misquotations, it also gives us unprecedented tools to debunk them.
Quote verification sites, digital archives of historical documents, and scholarly
databases allow us to check attributions with a thoroughness that

(09:24):
would have been impossible a few decades ago. The problem
isn't that we can't verify quotes, it's that we often
don't bother to try. Let's look at a few more
famous mis quotations that have shaped our understanding of historical
figures and events. Let the meat Cake painted Marie Antoinette
as callously out of touch. But what about quotes that

(09:47):
create positive, even heroic images. Consider this famous line attributed
to Winston Churchill. If you're going through hell, keep going.
It's the perfect encapsulation of churchill bulldog determination during Britain's
darkest hours in World War Two. It appears on motivational posters,

(10:07):
in self help books, and in countless Churchill biographies. There
is no evidence Churchill ever said it. The Churchill International Center,
which meticulously documents Churchill's writings and speeches, has found no
record of this quote in any of his works. It
doesn't appear in contemporary accounts, wartime speeches, or his extensive memoirs.

(10:32):
Like many Churchill misquotations, it seems to have emerged decades
after his death and retroactively attached itself to him because
it fits our image of who Churchill was. Here's another one.
Often attributed to Churchill. Success is not final. Failure is
not fatal. It is the courage to continue that count. Again,

(10:55):
the Churchill experts find no record of him saying this,
despite how frequently it appear under his name. What Churchill
actually said during Britain's darkest days was powerful enough without embellishment.
His genuine we shall fight on the beach's speech and
this was their finest hour address contained rhetoric just as

(11:17):
stirring as any of the quotes falsely attributed to him.
But the misquotes persist because the day still complex historical
moments in the tidy portable wisdom, Sometimes misattributions cross over
into outright fabrication designed to serve political purposes. Consider this

(11:37):
quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson. The beauty of the Second
Amendment is that it will not be needed until they
try to take it. This is a favorite among gun
rights advocates, suggesting that one of America's most revered founding
fathers endorse the idea of armed resistance against government tyranny.

(11:59):
Jefferson never said or wrote anything of the sort. This
quote appears nowhere in his extensive writings, correspondents, or speeches
it doesn't even sound like eighteenth century prose. It's a
modern invention, likely created in the late twentieth century and
backdated Jefferson to give it the weight of historical authority. Similarly,

(12:21):
this quote has been attributed to George Washington. When government
takes away citizen's right to bear arms, it becomes citizen's
duty to take away government's right to govern. Again, there
is zero historical evidence Washington ever said this. It's a
modern creation designed to suggest that the father of our
country would support armed resistance against gun control measures. These

(12:44):
fabricated quotes aren't just innocent mistakes. Their deliberate attempts to
conscript historical figures for contemporary political battles, putting words in
the mouths of the dead to influence the living. They
transform complex historical figures with nuanced views into one dimensional
mascots for modern causes. But not all misattributions are sinister.

(13:08):
Sometimes they are just the result of confusion or simplification.
Take the famous space related quote, Houston, we have a problem.
This line attributed to Apollo thirteen astronaut Jim Lovell after
an oxygen tank exploded on the spacecraft in nineteen seventy
has become shorthand for any unexpected difficulty. What Lovell actually

(13:33):
said was Houston, we've had a problem here. Fellow astronaut
Jack Swygert first reported, Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here,
to which Houston responded, this is Houston, say again. Please.
Then Lovell clarified, Houston, we've had a problem. The misquote

(13:55):
changing from past present tense comes from the nineteen ninety
five film Apollo thirteen, where actor Tom Hanks, playing level
says Houston, we have a problem. The movie version is
more traumatic and immediate, which helps explain why it replaced
the actual quote in popular memory. It's a small change,

(14:17):
but it illustrates how even well documented recorded statements can
be sadly altered as they pass into popular culture. What's
particularly interesting is that even after learning a quote is misattributed,
many of us continue to use it anyway. We might
add a caveat, as Einstein supposedly said, or to paraphrase

(14:39):
what Churchill may or may not have actually said, but
we still invoke the famous name because it gives the
statement more impact. We know the history is wrong, but
the narrative utility is too powerful to abandon. This gets
at something profound about how we use history. For most
of us. Most of the time, his story isn't primarily

(15:01):
about what actually happened in the past. It's about us
stories we tell to make sense of our present. Historical
accuracy often takes a back seat to narrative convenience. Let's
take another example. Be the change you wish to see
in the world. This is universally attributed to Mahatma Gandhi
and appears on everything from elementary school posters to corporate

(15:24):
mission statements. It encapsulates a philosophy of personal responsibility and
nonviolent action that feels authentically Gandhian. But Gandhi never said
these exact words. What he actually said was much longer
and more nuanced. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies
in the world would all to change. As a man

(15:47):
changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the
world change towards him. We need not wait to see
what others do. The sentiment is similar, but the actual
statement is more complex and conditional than the bumper sticker
version attributed to him. The misquote simplifies and absoluteizes a

(16:07):
more nuanced point about the relationship between personal transformation and
social change. Again, we see how misquotations often function as
compression algorithms for complex ideas, reducing nuanced thoughts to their
most memorable essence. This compression makes them more shareable but

(16:27):
less accurate, a trade off we seem willing to make
for the sake of rhetorical convenience. Sometimes the compression is
so severe that it fundamentally distorts the original meaning. Consider
this quote attributed to Edmund Burke. The only thing necessary
for the triumph of evil is for good men to
do nothing. It's a powerful call to action that has

(16:51):
been cited in discussions of everything from the Holocaust to
modern political apathy. Burke never said or wrote these exact words.
The closest verifiable statement from Burke is from his Thoughts
on the Cause of the Present Discontents, where he wrote,
when bad men combine, the good must associate ls they

(17:14):
will fall one by one and unpitted sacrifice in a
contemptible struggle. The sentiment is roughly similar, but the actual
quote is about the need for collective action against organized wrongdoing,
not individual moral responsibility to stand against evil. The misquote
simplifies Burke's point about political organization into a more universal

(17:38):
moral maxim It's fithier and more broadly applicable, which helps
explain why it has largely replaced the actual quote in
public discourse. This pattern of simplification, decontextualization, and reattribution reveals
something important about our relationship with the past. We don't

(17:59):
just get history wrong accidentally. We actively reshape it to
make it more useful for our present purposes. We prefer
our historical figures to speak in tweetable sound bites rather
than the often messy, qualified contexts specific ways they actually
express themselves. There's a deeper issue here as well. By

(18:20):
putting our words into historical figures mouths, we flatten the past,
making it seem more like the present than it actually was.
Real historical figures often had world views and assumptions radically
different from our own. Their authentic statements might strike us
as alien, uncomfortable, or difficult to relate to. Misquotations send

(18:44):
off these rough edges, making historical figures more palatable to
contemporary sensibilities. Let's consider one more example. First, they ignore you,
then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then
you in This is almost always attributed to Gandhi as
a description of the progression of nonviolent resistance movements. Once again,

(19:08):
there's no evidence Gandhi ever said this. The closest known
precursor comes from a nineteen eighteen trade union address by
Nicholas Klein. First they ignore you, then they ridicule you,
and then they attack you and want to burn you,
and then they build monuments to you. The misattribution to
Gandhi changes the significance of the quote. Coming from a

(19:31):
trade unionist, it's a statement about labor struggle in early
twentieth century America. Attributed to Gandhi, it becomes universalized as
a principle of nonviolent resistance, applicable to any social movement.
The misattribution doesn't just change who said it, it changes
what it means. This brings us to an important point.

(19:53):
Correcting these misattributions isn't just about historical pedantry. Getting the
attribution right often helps us understand the quote's original context
and meaning. When we recognize that first they Ignore You
came from American labor struggle rather than Indian independence movement,

(20:14):
we see it in a different light and can appreciate
the specific conditions that shaped its formulation. Similarly, recognizing that
let them eat cake was a literary device rather than
Marie Antoinette's actual words. Helps us understand how revolutionary propaganda
works to humanize its targets. It reminds us to be

(20:35):
skeptical of two perfect anecdotes that confirm our pre existing
views of historical figures or events. Now, I'm not suggesting
we need to become quote police, interrupting conversations to correct
every misattribution we hear. That would make us insufferable, and
I'm not in the business of turning history lovers into

(20:57):
the well. Actually people nobody wanted their dinner parties. But
I do think there's value in developing a healthier skepticism
toward historical quotes, especially those that seem suspiciously perfect for
our modern sensibilities. When you hear a historical quote that
perfectly encapsulates a contemporary issue, that's your cue to be suspicious.

(21:21):
Real historical statements are usually messier, more specific to their time,
and less perfectly aligned with current debates. The past isn't
just the present in funny clothes. It's a genuinely different place,
with its own concerns and frameworks. So why do these
misquotations matter? Because they represent a kind of historical colonization

(21:44):
where we impose our present concerns on the past, rather
than making the more difficult effort to understand historical figures
on their own terms. When we put our words in
their mouths, we're not really engaging with history. We're using
historical figures as ventriloquist dummies for our own ideas. This

(22:04):
matters because authentic engagement with the past can be profoundly valuable.
Real historical perspectives, not cleaned up simplified versions, can challenge
our assumptions, expand our thinking, and remind us that our
current certainties may look very different to future generations. But

(22:26):
we only get these benefits when we engage with the messy, complex,
often uncomfortable reality of the past, not a sanitized version
we create when we fabricate or distort historical quotes. It
also matters because many of these misquotations serve to simplify
complex historical events and figures, reducing them to caricatures that

(22:48):
support simplistic narratives. Marie Antoinette becomes the cartoonishly callous aristocrat
who deserved her faith, rather than a complex figure navigating
an impossible situation. Gandhi becomes a dispenser of inspirational bromids
rather than a complicated political strategist with views that would

(23:09):
surprise many who quote him today. These simplifications might seem harmless,
but they contribute to a flattened understanding of history that
makes us more vulnerable to manipulation. When we believe historical
figures can be reduced to a few memorable quotes, we're
more likely to accept contemporary attempts to reduce complex issues

(23:32):
to simplistic slogans. So what can we do. First, we
can develop a healthy skepticism toward quotes that seem too
perfect to modern or too conveniently aligned with contemporary positions.
If a purported historical quote could seamlessly fit into a
modern Twitter thread, it probably deserves extra scrutiny. Second, we

(23:57):
can use the verification tools now at oursposal website is
like quote investigator, The Yale Book of Quotations, and various
historical archives make it easier than ever to check whether
a historical figure actually said what they're claim to have said. Third,
and perhaps most importantly, we can try to appreciate the

(24:19):
value of real historical statements, even when they are messier
more qualified and less treatable than their apocryphal counterparts. Authentic
engagement with the past means accepting its differences from the present,
not just looking for confirmation of our existing views. Let's

(24:39):
be clear, Marie Antoinette never said let them eat cake,
but her actual story, a young woman sent to a
foreign country as a political pawn, navigating court intrigue and
revolutionary ferment, ultimately meeting a brutal end is far more
interesting and instructive than the caricature created by the that misattribution.

(25:01):
The same is true for Einstein, Churchill, Gandhi, and all
the other historical figures whose words we casually distort. The
real historical record, with all its complexity and nuance, offers
more genuine insight than any number of abricated quotes, no
matter how bithy or inspirational they might be. As Abraham

(25:23):
Lincoln definitely didn't say, don't believe everything you read on
the Internet just because there's a picture with a quote
next to it. In our next episode, we'll explore how
Hollywood transformed the brief, complex period of American frontier history
into an enduring mythology that bears little resemblance to historical reality,

(25:44):
but continues to shape our national self image. Until then,
remember to be skeptical of quotes that seem too perfect,
especially if they are attributed to Einstein. History doesn't repeat,
but it rhymes, and sometimes what we think is history
is just modern poetry with an antique signature. Quiet, please

(26:07):
dot Ai hear what matters.