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Who really said it

A Man Is a Fool If He Drinks Before He Reaches Fifty, and a Fool If He Doesn't Drink Afterward

Not coined by Frank Lloyd Wright — an older doctors’ adage Unknown — an anonymous medical saying In print by 1900 · quoted by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1958
Disputed In copyright

Wright really did say a version of this out loud — he is quoted delivering it in the New York Times Magazine of 22 June 1958, explaining his single pre-dinner Irish whisky. But he did not invent it: Quote Investigator ↗ finds the same saying in print as anonymous medical advice by 1900, and hypothesises that Wright (like William Faulkner, who used a version of it too) heard it from a doctor. The exact wording asked about here is not Wright’s either: it is the slightly altered form Evan Esar printed under Wright’s name in 20,000 Quips and Quotes in 1968.

Last verified 7 Sep 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“A Man Is a Fool If He Drinks Before He Reaches Fifty, and a Fool If He Doesn't Drink Afterward” Frank Lloyd Wright, quoted in the New York Times Magazine, 22 June 1958. Wright was repeating an anonymous doctors' adage in print since 1900; the shorter "before he reaches fifty … doesn't drink afterward" wording is Evan Esar's 1968 rewrite. Provenance via quotle.info · Verbatim: “A man is a fool if he drinks before he reaches the age of 50, and a fool if he doesn't afterward.”

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Frank Lloyd Wright. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by The New York Times Company (1958 article by Arturo and Janeann Gonzalez); Evan Esar / Doubleday (1968 reworded form)). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the themes of wisdom, time and happiness. Theme: "A Man Is a Fool If He Drinks Before He Reaches Fifty, and a Fool If He Doesn't Drink Afterward". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "A Man Is a Fool If He Drinks Before He Reaches Fifty, and a Fool If He Doesn't Drink Afterward". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

Where Wright actually said it

Wright’s documented wording
“A man is a fool if he drinks before he reaches the age of 50, and a fool if he doesn’t afterward.”
Where he said it
“Life Begins at 40 (x 2),” New York Times Magazine, 22 June 1958, p. SM10
Earliest known form
Journal of Social Science, no. 38 (December 1900), pp. 127–28 — anonymous: “Some one has said…”
The wording that circulates
Evan Esar, 20,000 Quips and Quotes (Doubleday, 1968), p. 243 — Wright’s words slightly modified

Before dinner he often sips a single Irish whisky with a water chaser. “A man is a fool if he drinks before he reaches the age of 50, and a fool if he doesn’t afterward,” he explains. New York Times Magazine, 22 June 1958

The 1958 passage as transcribed by Quote Investigator ↗ from the New York Times Magazine feature “Life Begins at 40 (x 2)” by Arturo and Janeann Gonzalez. Note that Wright says “the age of 50” and “if he doesn’t afterward” — not the shorter, tidier sentence that now travels under his name. The original article is available only through subscription newspaper archives (ProQuest); the date and wording are independently indexed by WIST ↗.

Quote Investigator: the full 1792–1968 citation trail

How we verified this

  • 1792 — the underlying idea is already in print, with the threshold set at thirty: a Salem, Massachusetts newspaper carries “He who drinks before he is thirty, can take no great pleasure in drinking.” Not yet the saying, but the same reasoning. Quote Investigator ↗
  • 1900 — the earliest known matching form, offered as medical advice at the American Social Science Association’s annual meeting and printed in the Journal of Social Science, no. 38, credited to nobody: “Some one has said, ‘A man is a fool who drinks before he is fifty, and a blank fool who does not do so moderately thereafter.’” The issue at the Internet Archive ↗
  • 1901–1951 — the saying keeps surfacing as doctor’s advice, the threshold sliding between forty and fifty: a 1901 medical journal crediting “the elder Gross”; a 1942 profile of Goodyear co-founder Charles Seiberling quoting his physician; a 1943 Cleveland Plain Dealer profile; a 1951 newspaper column. Quote Investigator ↗
  • 1958, then 1968 — Wright delivers his version to the New York Times Magazine on 22 June 1958, as confirmed by WIST ↗; ten years later Evan Esar reprints it in 20,000 Quips and Quotes with the wording slightly altered, and it is Esar’s sentence, not Wright’s, that the internet quotes today.
In copyright

Both documented forms of this sentence are modern publications: Wright’s wording appeared in the New York Times Magazine of 22 June 1958, and the popular wording first appears in Evan Esar’s 20,000 Quips and Quotes (Doubleday, 1968), so the texts shown here are treated as in copyright. The anonymous 1900 form in the Journal of Social Science is long out of copyright — but it is a different sentence, and it is not the one people quote.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

What the internet gets wrong

This line is pinned to Frank Lloyd Wright on every quotation aggregator going, usually with no source. Wright is a genuine part of the story — but two separate things about the popular credit are wrong.

Frank Lloyd Wright Repeated, not coined

The saying was already in print as anonymous medical advice in the Journal of Social Science, no. 38 (December 1900): “Some one has said, ‘A man is a fool who drinks before he is fifty, and a blank fool who does not do so moderately thereafter.’” A 1901 medical journal credits “the elder Gross” with a version set at forty. Quote Investigator ↗ concludes that Wright heard it from others — conceivably his doctor.

Evan Esar, 20,000 Quips and Quotes (1968) Altered

Wright’s documented sentence is “before he reaches the age of 50 … and a fool if he doesn’t afterward.” The shorter form now in circulation — “before he reaches fifty … and a fool if he doesn’t drink afterwards” — is the one Esar printed over Wright’s name in 1968, which Quote Investigator ↗ describes as Wright’s words “slightly modified.”

William Faulkner Same adage

William Faulkner of Oxford (1965) records the photographer J. R. Cofield recalling Faulkner say: “But a man shouldn’t fool with booze until he’s fifty; then he’s a damnfool if he doesn’t.” Different wording, same borrowed saying — per Quote Investigator ↗.

Charles Seiberling (1942), “the elder Gross” (1901), Charles Coburn (1959) Floating credit

All three appear in the record with their own versions, the threshold sliding between forty and fifty — and the doctor’s fingerprints are all over it: Seiberling credited his own physician (“my doctor told me…”), and the 1901 version is credited to the surgeon “the elder Gross.” That is the signature of a proverb, not a quotation. Quote Investigator ↗

Wikiquote’s Frank Lloyd Wright page Not listed

The line appears nowhere on Wikiquote’s Wright page ↗ — not in the sourced quotes, not even among the unsourced attributions.

Wright did say it, on the record, in the New York Times Magazine of 22 June 1958. He was passing on a doctors’ adage that had been in print since at least 1900 — and the sentence now quoted under his name is Evan Esar’s 1968 rewording of what Wright actually said. Quote Investigator ↗

Context

Why a doctors’ joke ended up on an architect

It reads like vintage Wright — the flourish, the two-part symmetry, the licence granted to himself at exactly the age he had already passed. But the saying’s real habitat was not the drafting table. It was the consulting room. Between 1900 and the early 1950s it turns up again and again as something a physician said to a patient: in the proceedings of the American Social Science Association in 1900, in a medical journal in 1901, in the mouth of a Goodyear co-founder in 1942 quoting his doctor, in a Cleveland newspaper profile in 1943, and in a newspaper column in 1951 whose author had it from his own physician.

What Wright supplied was not the idea but the megaphone. In June 1958 a New York Times Magazine feature on people still thriving past eighty caught him sipping a single Irish whisky before dinner, and he explained himself with the adage. That is the moment a piece of half-humorous medical folk wisdom acquired a famous author — and once a saying has a famous author, nobody goes looking for the anonymous one.

Wright supplied the megaphone, not the idea.

Three loose ends worth knowing

The age discrepancy in the 1958 piece. Quote Investigator describes Wright as 89 when the article ran. Wright was in fact born on 8 June 1867 ↗, but claimed throughout his life to have been born in 1869 — which is the birth year that makes 89 the right answer in June 1958. The understatement was his own, and it is a small reminder that Wright was an unreliable narrator of his own life.

Faulkner said it too. William Faulkner of Oxford (1965) records the photographer J. R. Cofield remembering Faulkner’s version: “But a man shouldn’t fool with booze until he’s fifty; then he’s a damnfool if he doesn’t.” Two very famous men, the same borrowed adage, no contact between them required.

The threshold kept moving. Fifty in 1900, 1943, 1958 and 1965; forty in 1901, 1951 and in the actor Charles Coburn’s 1959 version. A line with a floating number is almost always a proverb rather than a quotation — nobody misremembers the punchline of a sentence they wrote themselves.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Wisdom Time Happiness

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Investigator: the full citation trailquoteinvestigator.com

The authoritative investigation, with dated citations from 1792 to 1968 — the anonymous 1900 form, the 1901 “elder Gross” version, Wright’s 1958 remark, Faulkner’s 1965 version and Esar’s 1968 rewording.
WIST: the Wright entry, sourcedwist.info

Dave Hill’s citation-first quotation database gives Wright’s wording and sources it to the New York Times of 22 June 1958 — independent confirmation of the date.
Wikiquote: Frank Lloyd Wrighten.wikiquote.org

Notably, Wikiquote’s Wright page does not carry this line in any section — not even as attributed.
Wikipedia: Frank Lloyd Wrighten.wikipedia.org

Life dates (8 June 1867 – 9 April 1959) and the fact that Wright claimed throughout his life to have been born in 1869.
Journal of Social Science, no. 38 (Dec 1900)archive.org

The Internet Archive’s scan of the exact issue Quote Investigator cites for the earliest known matching form of the saying.
William Faulkner of Oxford (1965)archive.org

The Internet Archive’s copy of the Webb & Green collection containing J. R. Cofield’s recollection of Faulkner’s version of the same adage.

The man who made it famous

About Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright

1867–1959 · American architect, designer, writer & educator

Frank Lloyd Wright (born Frank Lincoln Wright, 8 June 1867 – 9 April 1959) was the American architect behind Fallingwater, the Guggenheim and the Prairie and Usonian houses — and, in his last decades, a national character as much as a designer, dispensing opinions to reporters with total confidence. This particular opinion, though, he was passing on rather than minting: by the time he offered it to the New York Times Magazine in 1958, the saying had been circulating among American physicians for well over half a century. He is the reason it is famous, not the reason it exists.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Best-available source

Arturo and Janeann Gonzalez, “Life Begins at 40 (x 2): Eight Notable Oldsters Tell How to Stay Young Beyond 80,” New York Times Magazine, June 22, 1958, SM10, quoting Frank Lloyd Wright. Earlier anonymous form: Journal of Social Science, no. 38 (December 1900), 127–28. Reworded form: Evan Esar, 20,000 Quips and Quotes (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1968), 243. Citations as documented by Quote Investigator, “Quote Origin: A Man Is a Fool If He Drinks Before He Reaches Fifty, and a Fool If He Doesn’t Drink Afterward,” August 31, 2013.

This verification page

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