Bennett Cerf really did print this sentence — in his syndicated newspaper column “Try and Stop Me” on 28 October 1965, where he swapped “revealing” in for “brief.” He did not write it. Quote Investigator ↗ traces the joke back through Evan Esar to an unsigned entry in the New York humour weekly Life on 12 September 1912, and concludes that its creator is anonymous.
“An Anecdote Is A Revealing Account of an Incident That Never Occurred in the Life of Some Famous Person” Anonymous. Earliest known printing unsigned in Life (New York), 12 September 1912, as "a brief account of an incident that never occurred in the life of some famous man." Bennett Cerf printed this "revealing" wording in his syndicated column "Try and Stop Me" on 28 October 1965, but did not originate it. Source: Quote Investigator.
⚠ The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Bennett Cerf. Use the credit shown above instead.
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In context
Evoking the themes of truth, doubt and wisdom. Theme: "An Anecdote Is A Revealing Account of an Incident That Never Occurred in the Life of Some Famous Person". 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 "An Anecdote Is A Revealing Account of an Incident That Never Occurred in the Life of Some Famous Person". 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 line actually comes from
Earliest known printing
Life — “Life’s Lucid Lexicon”
Date & page
12 September 1912 · volume 60, issue 1559, page 1774 · New York
This exact wording
“Try and Stop Me” by Bennett Cerf, Reading Eagle, 28 October 1965, page 18
Attribution
None. Unsigned in 1912; Esar and Brunvand both declined the credit, and Cerf printed it without one.
Anecdote: A revealing account of an incident that never occurred in the life of some famous person.
Reading Eagle, 28 October 1965
As printed in Bennett Cerf’s syndicated column “Try and Stop Me,” 28 October 1965. Fifty-three years earlier the same joke had run unsigned in the humour weekly Life, two words different: “Anecdote—A brief account of an incident that never occurred in the life of some famous man.”
12 September 1912 — the earliest printing anyone has found runs unsigned in “Life’s Lucid Lexicon,” a joke column in the New York humour weekly Life: “Anecdote—A brief account of an incident that never occurred in the life of some famous man.” No author is named. Quote Investigator ↗
1951 — the definition appears on page 24 of the revised and enlarged Esar’s Comic Dictionary, already reading “some famous person” — that half of the shift predates Cerf by fourteen years. Evan Esar takes no credit: his foreword says the book’s contents are of popular origin and therefore unattributed. Quote Investigator ↗
28 October 1965 — Bennett Cerf runs the quip in his syndicated column “Try and Stop Me” in the Reading Eagle, page 18, substituting “revealing” for “brief.” That variant is the one circulating under his name today. Quote Investigator ↗
Cerf’s trade was collecting, not coining. His 1944 best-seller is catalogued as Try and Stop Me: a collection of anecdotes and stories, mostly humorous, with Cerf credited as its compiler. Internet Archive ↗
The joke itself is old enough to be free: the 1912 Life printing — “a brief account — some famous man” — was published well before 1931 and is public domain in the United States. This exact wording is not that one. The “revealing…famous person” form is first documented in Bennett Cerf’s syndicated column of 28 October 1965, so the sentence as quoted here should be treated as in copyright. No rightsholder is established: the wording is anonymous in origin, so whatever right subsists in the 1965 column as published would sit with the newspaper syndicate that ran it — not with Cerf, who did not write the line.
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
Three names it gets hung on
This is a joke about attributions that never happened, which has spent a century collecting attributions that never happened. All three men most often credited with it printed it; none of them wrote it, and two said so outright.
✕
the “revealing” wordingBennett Cerf Popular credit
Cerf did print this exact sentence, in his syndicated column of 28 October 1965, which is why his name rides with it. But the joke was already fifty-three years old by then, and Cerf’s column was a digest of other people’s material. Quote Investigator ↗
✕
the older “brief” wordingEvan Esar Cited, not claimed
A 1976 article in Mid-South Folklore called it “Evan Esar’s facetious definition,” pointing to his book The Humor of Humor. Esar refused the credit himself: his own dictionary’s foreword states that its contents are of popular origin and therefore unattributed, and in The Humor of Humor he introduces the line as something the Comic Dictionary says. Quote Investigator ↗
✕
a 1991 newspaper columnJan Harold Brunvand Passed it on
The urban-legend scholar quoted the definition in the Deseret News on 6 December 1991, and readers have credited him ever since. He introduced it as the work of “another wit” and never claimed it. Quote Investigator ↗
✓Nobody owns it. After following the line from 1991 back to an unsigned 1912 lexicon entry, Quote Investigator ↗ concludes that the creator of this sharp definition remains anonymous — Cerf, Esar and Brunvand were each passing along a joke that had arrived with no name attached.
Context
The joke that proves itself
There is a small, perfect irony here. A one-line definition mocking the way anecdotes attach themselves to famous men has spent more than a century attaching itself to famous men. It was born anonymous in a 1912 humour column, drifted through an Australian paper and a London monthly by 1914, got printed in a joke dictionary whose compiler explicitly declined authorship, and finally landed on Bennett Cerf — a man whose entire public reputation was built on repeating other people’s stories.
Cerf is the ideal magnet for it. He co-founded Random House, sat on What’s My Line? for years, and published one best-selling anthology of gags after another. When a quip needs a plausible owner, a professional wit with a syndicated column is the obvious place for it to settle. The 1965 column entry is genuine; the ownership it implies is not.
A joke about fake attributions, faked onto a famous name.
Read the full story
The line travelled fast and early. Quote Investigator records it in The Windsor Magazine of London in February 1914 and in Sydney’s Sydney Mail that April, under the heading “Some Definitions by a Modern Cynic” — both still without an author.
One edition detail matters if you go looking for it yourself: the entry is in the 1951 revised and enlarged Esar’s Comic Dictionary (Horizon Press, page 24). Quote Investigator notes that the earlier 1943 Harvest House edition has no alphabetical entry for “anecdote” at all.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1898–1971 · Random House co-founder, joke anthologist, What's My Line? panelist
Bennett Cerf co-founded Random House in 1927 with Donald S. Klopfer and became its best-known public face, but a much larger audience knew him from the television panel show What’s My Line?, on which he appeared from 1951. His fame outside publishing rested on humour: Try and Stop Me (1944), Shake Well Before Using (1948) and a long run of similar collections. Those books were compilations — anecdotes, puns and gags gathered from other people and older printed sources, with Cerf credited on the 1944 volume as its compiler. That is precisely how this definition reached his column, and why his name on it settles nothing about who wrote it.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Earliest documented printing
“Life’s Lucid Lexicon,” Life (New York) 60, no. 1559 (September 12, 1912): 1774, unsigned. The “revealing” wording is first documented in Bennett Cerf, “Try and Stop Me,” Reading Eagle (Reading, PA), October 28, 1965, 18. Citation trail assembled by Garson O’Toole, Quote Investigator, September 23, 2010.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘An Anecdote Is A Revealing Account of an Incident That Never Occurred in the Life of Some Famous Person’?” Last verified 1 Sep 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/an-anecdote-is-a-revealing-account-of-an-incident-that/