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

Who really said it

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain - and most fools do

Not Benjamin Franklin — actually Dale Carnegie Dale Carnegie 1888–1955 · American writer & lecturer
Disputed In copyright

The line is Dale Carnegie’s own, from How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), Part One, Chapter 1. Because Carnegie is discussing Benjamin Franklin’s tact on the surrounding pages, the aphorism drifted onto Franklin’s name—but Franklin never wrote it (CheckYourFact ↗).

Last verified 14 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain - and most fools do” Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936) — not Benjamin Franklin

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

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by Dale Carnegie estate / Simon & Schuster). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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

In context

Evoking the world of Dale Carnegie — American writer & lecturer, author of How to Win Friends and Influence People. Theme: "Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain - and most fools do". 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 "Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain - and most fools do". 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

The real source

Work
How to Win Friends and Influence People
Author
Dale Carnegie
First published
1936 · Simon & Schuster
Location
Part One, Ch. 1 (“If You Want to Gather Honey, Don’t Kick Over the Beehive”)

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain — and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.

Carnegie’s own words, immediately after his discussion of Benjamin Franklin’s diplomacy—the proximity is what spawned the false Franklin credit. Some reprints reorder it as “criticize, complain, and condemn.”

Dale Carnegie on Wikiquote (sourced)

How the credit gets traced

  • CheckYourFact ↗ rates the Franklin attribution false and names Carnegie’s 1936 book as the source.
  • Wikiquote ↗ lists the line in its sourced section for How to Win Friends and Influence People.
  • Goodreads ↗ reproduces the full passage credited to Carnegie’s book.
In copyright

How to Win Friends and Influence People was first published in 1936 by Simon & Schuster, so in the United States the text remains under copyright (works published 1931–1977 run 95 years from publication). The wording is Carnegie’s, not a public-domain Franklin line.

Fact-check

Why Franklin gets the credit

The line is routinely pinned on Benjamin Franklin across social media, quote sites, and posters—but the attribution is a documented error.

Benjamin Franklin Misattributed

Franklin never wrote or said this. Carnegie discusses Franklin’s diplomatic manner on the very pages where the line appears, and readers collapsed the two—crediting Franklin with Carnegie’s own commentary (CheckYourFact ↗).

The words are Dale Carnegie’s, from How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), and are listed in the sourced section of his Wikiquote page ↗.

Context

Why it mattered

Carnegie built his book’s opening principle—“Don’t criticize, condemn, or complain”—around the idea that criticism is easy and useless. This one-liner is his sharpest compression of that lesson: the “fool” framing turns a self-help maxim into a memorable jab.

Its migration to Benjamin Franklin is a textbook case of how proximity breeds misattribution: a modern author quotes an admired historical figure, and over time the famous name absorbs the modern line.

Any fool can criticize — and most fools do.

Explore

Filed under

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

Character Wisdom

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.

CheckYourFact: did Franklin say it?checkyourfact.com

Fact-check rating the Franklin attribution false and naming Carnegie’s 1936 book.
Dale Carnegie — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Sourced quotations for How to Win Friends and Influence People, including this line.
The passage on Goodreadsgoodreads.com

Full quotation credited to Carnegie’s book.
Benjamin Franklin — Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Background on the founder to whom the line is wrongly credited.
Dale Carnegie — Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Biography of the book’s author and the true originator of the line.

The true author

About Dale Carnegie

Dale Carnegie

1888–1955 · American writer & lecturer, author of How to Win Friends and Influence People

Dale Carnegie was an American writer and public-speaking teacher whose 1936 bestseller How to Win Friends and Influence People became one of the most influential self-improvement books ever written. His first principle—“Don’t criticize, condemn, or complain”—is the setting for this aphorism, which is his own gloss on the idea. He often illustrated his points with historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, which is precisely how his lines came to be mistaken for theirs.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1936), Part One, Chapter 1.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain - and most fools do’?” Last verified 14 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/any-fool-can-criticize-condemn-and-complain-and-most-fools

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