Straight from today’s Quotle — here’s who really said it, and the story behind it. Play again

Who really said it

Adversity introduces a man to himself

Nobody famous — printed as ‘Anonymous’ from the start Unknown Anonymous · earliest located printing 1945
Disputed Rights unconfirmed

There is no Einstein source — no letter, no interview, no speech, and no source of any kind has ever been produced; the line does not appear on Wikiquote’s Einstein page in any section, including ‘Disputed’ and ‘Misattributed’. The earliest printing located in digitised American print is 1945, in a US railway union magazine, where it is credited to ‘ANONYMOUS’. As late as 1970 it was still being introduced as an anonymous saying — President Nixon, honouring the Apollo 13 crew, called it something ‘it has been said’, reported in the New York Times. The story that Einstein said it at the 1922 Nobel ceremony fails on a fact anyone can check: he was not at that ceremony.

Last verified 21 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Adversity introduces a man to himself” An anonymous American saying, in print by 1945 and credited ‘Anonymous’ from its first appearance. Not Albert Einstein.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Albert Einstein. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Six words, anonymous, and in print by 1945 — too short to carry copyright in practice, and no author or estate has ever claimed it, so a short, credited use is unproblematic. No formal public-domain determination has been made. Keep the credit anonymous — do not attach Einstein’s name.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

A restrained 1940s American working-life scene — a railroad yard or union hall in muted documentary tones, worn work clothes, a printed union-magazine page on a wooden table, hard post-war winter light through a workshop window. Atmospheric and 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 an anonymous 1940s American saying. Clean background, a single muted accent colour, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture reminiscent of a mid-century filler column, 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

The source

Origin
Anonymous — no author has ever been named
Earliest located
1945, The Conductor and Brakeman, p. 168
Earliest newspaper
1 January 1946, Greensboro Record
Einstein source
None — none has ever been produced

Adversity introduces a man to himself. — ANONYMOUS Anonymous, 1945

The earliest located printing, with the credit as it appeared. Note that the anonymity is not something later researchers imposed — it is on the line the first time it shows up in print.

Barry Popik — the dated citations from 1818 to 1970

How we traced it

  • The quotation researcher Barry Popik ran the phrase through digitised American print. The earliest exact instance is 1945, in The Conductor and Brakeman — the magazine of a US railway union, volumes 62–63, page 168 — where it is printed as a filler line with the credit ‘ANONYMOUS’ already attached the citations ↗.
  • It moves into newspapers on 1 January 1946, in Josephine Lowman’s syndicated column ‘Why Grow Old?’ in the Greensboro Record — again as ‘Anonymous.’ That is the tell. A saying that arrives already labelled anonymous, in a filler slot, is a proverb doing what proverbs do; it is not a misplaced quotation from a famous man.
  • There are older cousins but no parent. William Beloe’s The Sexagenarian (1818) has ‘a literary life, like adversity, introduces a man to strange and opposite acquaintance’; an Alabama newspaper in 1895 has ‘practical education introduces a man to himself.’ And as late as 19 April 1970, President Nixon — honouring the Apollo 13 crew — introduced it as ‘it has been said that adversity introduces a man to himself’, reported on page one of the New York Times. That is the formula you use when there is nobody to name.

Six words, anonymous, and in print by 1945 — too short to carry copyright in practice, and no author or estate has ever claimed it, so reuse is unproblematic. But that is a practical judgement, not a determination: the copyright and renewal status of the 1945 periodical has never been checked, and no formal public-domain finding has been made here. Since the line is not Einstein’s, the tangle around Einstein’s own texts (public domain in the UK and EU since 1 January 2026, unresolved in the US, actively asserted by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) does not apply here at all. Just do not attach his name. This is not legal advice.

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

The attribution problem

This one comes with a story attached, which is unusual and makes it easy to test. The story is that Einstein said it at his Nobel ceremony in 1922. It fails in two separate places, either of which would be enough.

Not Albert Einstein no source of any kind

No letter, interview, speech or manuscript — no source of any kind has ever been produced. The line does not appear on Wikiquote’s Einstein page in any section, including ‘Disputed’ and ‘Misattributed’. The credit appears on quote aggregators with no citation at all.

Einstein was not at that ceremony the story collapses

Einstein was awarded the 1921 physics prize in November 1922 and was travelling in Asia when it was presented in Stockholm on 10 December 1922; the German ambassador, Rudolf Nadolny, accepted it on his behalf. He gave his own Nobel lecture later, in Gothenburg in July 1923, and it was about relativity. The occasion the story requires did not exist.

Decades too late chronology

The earliest instance located by Popik in digitised American print is 1945. If Einstein had said it in front of an audience in 1922, it would not take a railway union magazine more than twenty years to surface in print — and it would not have arrived credited to ‘ANONYMOUS’ when it did the citations ↗.

H. L. Mencken and various also unsupported

Mencken’s name circulates too, on the strength of his being a quotation-dictionary compiler — but compiling a saying into a dictionary is not authoring it, and where the line surfaces in such reference works it is listed as unattributed rather than credited to him. No source credits Mencken as the author. Every serious trace ends at the same place: anonymous.

An anonymous American saying, first located in print in 1945 and labelled ‘ANONYMOUS’ on that first appearance. Einstein has no documented connection to it, and the 1922 Nobel ceremony he is supposed to have said it at is one he did not attend the trail ↗.

Context

Why it resonates

It is a genuinely good line, which is the awkward part. Six words, one idea, and a claim that survives contact with experience: you find out what you are made of only when something goes wrong, and the introduction is usually unflattering.

It also arrived at exactly the right moment. 1945 in America is a country coming out of depression and war with a lot of people who had just met themselves under pressure. A proverb like that does not need an author; it needs a filler slot in a union magazine, which is precisely what it got.

It arrived in print already credited to 'ANONYMOUS'. That is not a lost attribution — that is the attribution.

The trail, in order

1818: William Beloe, The Sexagenarian — ‘a literary life, like adversity, introduces a man to strange and opposite acquaintance.’ The shape, not the sentence.

23 October 1895: the Troy (Alabama) Messenger — ‘practical education introduces a man to himself, and then to humanity.’

1945: The Conductor and Brakeman, p. 168 — the exact wording, credited ‘ANONYMOUS’.

1 January 1946: Josephine Lowman’s ‘Why Grow Old?’ column in the Greensboro Record — again ‘Anonymous’.

19 April 1970: President Nixon, honouring the Apollo 13 crew — ‘it has been said that adversity introduces a man to himself’ — reported on page one of the New York Times. Still nobody to name.

The Einstein credit spreads in the 2000s: Popik’s earliest dated instance is a 21 October 2009 tweet. No earlier attribution has been documented.

Explore

Filed under

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

Character Resilience

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.

‘Adversity introduces a man to himself’ — dated citationsbarrypopik.com

The citation trail: Beloe 1818, Troy Messenger 1895, the 1945 ‘ANONYMOUS’ printing, Greensboro 1946, and the New York Times still calling it anonymous in 1970.
Albert Einstein — Wikiquote, disputed and misattributeden.wikiquote.org

The reference list of Einstein’s sourced quotations. This line is not among them, in any section.
Albert Einstein — Nobel Prize 1921: questions and answersnobelprize.org

The official Nobel record the ‘1922 ceremony’ story depends on: it states that the prize was announced on 9 November 1922 and that Einstein, ‘too remote from Sweden’, could not attend the award ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December 1922.

Popularly credited author

Why it gets pinned on Einstein

Albert Einstein

1879–1955 · theoretical physicist

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) is the most misquoted person in modern history, and the reason is structural: he is the default author for any sentence that sounds wise and has no owner. This one is a textbook case — an anonymous American proverb from the 1940s that drifted onto his name decades later, helped along by his own biography of exile and refusal. No source of any kind has ever been produced for it, and it does not appear on Wikiquote’s Einstein page in any section — not among the sourced quotations, and not under ‘Disputed’ or ‘Misattributed’.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Anonymous saying. Earliest located printing: The Conductor and Brakeman, vols. 62–63 (1945), p. 168, credited ‘ANONYMOUS’. No Einstein source exists.

MLA (9th ed.)

“Adversity introduces a man to himself.” Anonymous. The Conductor and Brakeman, vols. 62–63, 1945, p. 168.

APA (7th ed.)

Adversity introduces a man to himself. (1945). The Conductor and Brakeman, 62–63, 168 [credited ‘Anonymous’].

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Adversity introduces a man to himself’?” Last verified 21 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/adversity-introduces-a-man-to-himself/

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