“The most familiar quotations are the most likely to be misquoted.”

—  Carl Van Doren

As quoted in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1941) by Alice Mary Smyth, p. vii
Context: The most familiar quotations are the most likely to be misquoted. Some misquotations are still variable, some have settled down to false versions that have obscured the true ones. They have passed over from literature into speech.

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Carl Van Doren 14
American biographer 1885–1950

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