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Who really said it

Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung

Not Voltaire — actually Beaumarchais Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais 1732–1799 · French playwright, author of the Figaro comedies
Disputed Free to reuse

The quotable line belongs to Beaumarchais, not Voltaire. In Le Barbier de Séville (1775), Act I, sc. ii, Figaro quips “Aujourd’hui, ce qui ne vaut pas la peine d’être dit, on le chante” — “nowadays, what isn’t worth saying is sung.” The familiar English “anything too stupid to be spoken is sung” is a loose paraphrase; George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman (1903) even dramatises the mix-up, having a character credit “Voltaire” before being corrected to Beaumarchais.

Last verified 8 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung” Paraphrase of Beaumarchais, The Barber of Seville (1775), Act I, sc. ii — often misattributed to Voltaire

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

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In context

Evoking the world of Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais — French playwright & author of the Figaro comedies. Theme: "Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung". 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.

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Provenance

The real source

Real author
Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (1732–1799)
Work
Le Barbier de Séville, Act I, sc. ii (1775)
Speaker
Figaro
Original line
“Aujourd’hui, ce qui ne vaut pas la peine d’être dit, on le chante.”

Aujourd’hui, ce qui ne vaut pas la peine d’être dit, on le chante. — “Nowadays, what isn’t worth saying is sung.”

Spoken by Figaro in Le Barbier de Séville, Act I, sc. ii. The popular English “anything too stupid to be spoken is sung” is a paraphrase of this line, not a quotation of Voltaire.

Wikiquote: Voltaire — Misattributed

How we verified this

Public domain

The source work, Beaumarchais’ Le Barbier de Séville, was first performed and published in 1775 and is long in the public domain; the English paraphrase circulated by Shaw’s Man and Superman (1903) is likewise public domain in the United States. The exact English wording “too stupid to be spoken is sung” is an anonymous later paraphrase with no identifiable copyright holder.

Fact-check

Why it’s pinned on Voltaire

Voltaire is the internet’s favourite magnet for stray Enlightenment wit, so a snappy anti-opera one-liner drifts to him by default — but the quotable line is Beaumarchais’, and the mix-up is over a century old.

Voltaire Misattributed

Wikiquote files it under Voltaire’s ‘Misattributed’ section, pointing instead to Beaumarchais’ Le Barbier de Séville (1775). The Voltaire Foundation likewise treats it as a misattribution, quoting Shaw’s scene that corrects “Voltaire” to Beaumarchais — not that Voltaire wrote this line.

The line is Figaro’s in Beaumarchais’ Barber of Seville; the English “too stupid to be spoken is sung” is a paraphrase that Shaw’s Man and Superman already joked was wrongly given to Voltaire.

Context

Why it mattered

The barb is aimed at opera: a sentiment too silly to survive being merely spoken can still pass if you set it to music. Figaro tosses it off in the opening scene of Le Barbier de Séville as a piece of worldly cynicism.

By 1903 the attribution was already a running joke: in Shaw’s Man and Superman, Tanner credits “Voltaire” and his chauffeur Straker corrects him — “It wasn’t Voltaire: it was Bow Mar Shay.”

“Nowadays, what isn’t worth saying is sung.”

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Filed under

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

Creativity Truth

Go further

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

Voltaire — Misattributed (Wikiquote)en.wikiquote.org

Lists the quote as misattributed and gives the Beaumarchais source with the French original.
Pierre Beaumarchais (Wikiquote)en.wikiquote.org

Sourced entry for the Figaro line, Act I sc. ii, with French and English.
Man and Superman (full text)fulltextarchive.com

Shaw’s 1903 play staging the Voltaire-vs-Beaumarchais correction.
Voltaire and the one-linerblog.oup.com

Voltaire Foundation piece on how one-liners get pinned on Voltaire, including this one.
Le Barbier de Séville (Project Gutenberg)gutenberg.org

Public-domain French text of Beaumarchais’ play; Figaro’s line appears in Act I, sc. ii.

The real author

About Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais

Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais

1732–1799 · French playwright & author of the Figaro comedies

Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (1732–1799) was a French playwright, watchmaker, inventor and financier best remembered for the two Figaro comedies — Le Barbier de Séville (1775) and Le Mariage de Figaro (1784), later set to music by Rossini and Mozart. The quip about singing what isn’t worth saying is spoken by his fast-talking valet Figaro in the first play’s opening act.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, Le Barbier de Séville (1775), Act I, sc. ii. Line often paraphrased in English and misattributed to Voltaire; cf. George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman (1903).

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung’?” Last verified 8 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/anything-that-is-too-stupid-to-be-spoken-is-sung

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