Always go to other people's funerals; otherwise they won't go to yours
Not Yogi Berra — an old joke he explicitly deniedUnknown (in print by 1876, decades before Berra was born)Anonymous · earliest documented printing 1876 · popularised via Punch, 1911
The joke was circulating in print long before Yogi Berra was born in 1925 — Quote Investigator ↗ traces it to an 1876 novel and a January 1911 Punch cartoon caption. Berra himself denied it twice: to William Safire in 1987 and again in his 1989 autobiography.
“Always go to other people's funerals; otherwise they won't go to yours” not Yogi Berra. The joke was in print by 1876 and in Punch in January 1911, before Berra was born; he denied it to William Safire (New York Times, 15 Feb 1987) and again in his 1989 book Yogi: It Ain't Over. Via Quotle.info
⚠ The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Yogi Berra. Use the credit shown above instead.
Can you use it?
? We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.
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In context
Evoking the themes of friendship and wisdom. Theme: "Always go to other people's funerals; otherwise they won't go to yours". 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 "Always go to other people's funerals; otherwise they won't go to yours". 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 the joke actually comes from
Earliest documented printing
The Youth of the Period (1876), per Quote Investigator
Best-known early printing
Punch, cartoon caption, 25 January 1911
Berra’s denial
William Safire, “Mr. Bonaprop,” The New York Times, 15 February 1987; repeated in Yogi: It Ain’t Over (1989)
Status
Misattributed — an anonymous joke, not a Yogi-ism
IF YOU NEVER GO TO OTHER PEOPLE’S FUNERALS I DON’T SEE HOW YOU CAN EXPECT THEM TO COME TO YOURS.
Punch, 1911
The Punch cartoon caption of 25 January 1911, as transcribed by Quote Investigator — fourteen years before Yogi Berra was born.
1876 — a character in the novel The Youth of the Period says “if I don’t attend other people’s funerals they won’t come to mine,” the earliest citation found by Quote Investigator ↗.
1911 —Punch runs it as a cartoon caption; Wikiquote ↗ cites this as its first unattributed appearance in print, no later than January 1911.
1987 — William Safire phones Berra for his New York Times column “Mr. Bonaprop” and Berra disclaims the line; Safire calls it “not an authentic bonaprop by Berra,” per Quote Investigator ↗.
1989 — Berra puts the denial in his own autobiography Yogi: It Ain’t Over, a book in which he also questions other sayings credited to him, as Quote Investigator ↗ documents.
The modern wording has no identifiable author or first-publication record — it is an anonymous joke that surfaced in many variants, so no copyright status can honestly be asserted for this phrasing. The specific early printings that are datable (the 1876 novel, the 1911 Punch caption) are long out of copyright, but they use different words.
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.
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Fact-check
Why everyone says Yogi
This is a textbook Yogi-ism by adoption: a floating joke with no owner, attached decades later to the most quotable name available.
✕
Quote sites and greeting-card loreYogi Berra Denied by Berra
Aggregators list it as a Berra quote with no source, edition, or date. Wikiquote ↗ files it under Misattributed and notes it was in print, unattributed, no later than January 1911.
✕
Chicago political folkloreJohnny Powers, 19th ward boss Later folklore
Quote Investigator ↗ records a 1946 LIFE article and a 1973 newspaper column linking the saying to Chicago ward-boss politics — long after the joke was already in print.
✕
Literary attributionClarence Day Reuse, not origin
Day’s 1935 New Yorker story “Father Plans to Get Out” has “If you don’t go to other men’s funerals, they won’t go to yours,” per Quote Investigator ↗ — but that is 1935, decades after the earliest printings.
✓The jest was circulating before Berra was born, and Berra said so himself: “I didn’t say, ‘always go to other people’s funerals; otherwise, they won’t go to yours’” — Yogi: It Ain’t Over (1989), quoted by Quote Investigator ↗.
Context
How a Victorian joke became a Yogi-ism
Berra’s real sayings were odd enough to be unmistakable, which made his name a magnet: once a person becomes shorthand for “funny paradox,” ownerless jokes drift onto them. This one had been drifting for a long time already — through a Victorian novel, Cornish dialect stories, a Punch cartoon, Clarence Day in The New Yorker, and Chicago ward-boss lore — before it landed on a Yankees catcher who was not yet born when it first saw print.
What makes this case unusually clean is that the accused denied it. When New York Times language columnist William Safire phoned him in 1987 to check a batch of alleged Yogi-isms, Berra disclaimed the funeral advice; two years later he put the denial in his own book, per Quote Investigator ↗.
The joke was in print by 1876. Berra was born in 1925.
Why the trail is hard to follow
The line survives in many wordings — “berrin’s” in Cornish dialect, “other men’s funerals,” “folk’s funerals” — which is why it resisted tracing for so long. Quote Investigator notes the numerous variations across publications and decades as the reason it is difficult to trace.
The version circulating today (“Always go to other people’s funerals; otherwise they won’t go to yours”) is essentially the phrasing Berra quoted in order to reject it — the modern wording is the accusation, not a documented utterance.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra (1925–2015) was a Hall of Fame catcher for the New York Yankees who won ten World Series titles as a player, more than anyone in Major League history. His crooked, paradoxical one-liners became famous enough that unattributed jokes started migrating onto his name — a drift he summed up himself with “I really didn’t say everything I said.” The funeral line is one he specifically refused to claim.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Anonymous joke, in print by 1876
Earliest documented printing: J. F. Shaw Kennedy, The Youth of the Period (1876), as traced in “Joke Origin: Always Go To Other People’s Funerals — Otherwise, They Won’t Come To Yours,” Quote Investigator, September 27, 2015. Berra’s denial: William Safire, “Mr. Bonaprop,” The New York Times, February 15, 1987; Yogi Berra with Tom Horton, Yogi: It Ain’t Over (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1989).
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Always go to other people's funerals; otherwise they won't go to yours’?” Last verified 22 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/always-go-to-other-peoples-funerals-otherwise-they-wont-go/