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Who really said it

Be Nice to People on Your Way Up. You'll Meet Them On Your Way Down

Not Jimmy Durante — actually Wilson Mizner Wilson Mizner 1876–1933 · American playwright, raconteur and Hollywood screenwriter
Disputed In copyright

The line is Wilson Mizner’s. It was already in print on 5 July 1932, in a San Francisco Chronicle item that credits “Wilson Miznor” — a misspelling — advising a rising film star; Durante’s version comes in an MGM picture released in September 1933. Walter Winchell, who broadcast the saying that same week and is often given the credit himself, handed it back to Mizner in his own syndicated column two days later.

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

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Be Nice to People on Your Way Up. You'll Meet Them On Your Way Down” Be nice to people on your way up because you'll meet 'em on your way down. — Wilson Mizner, as printed in Alva Johnston's New Yorker profile "Legend of a Sport," 10 October 1942. Commonly misattributed to Jimmy Durante, who spoke a version in the 1933 MGM film "Broadway to Hollywood"; the saying was already in print on 5 July 1932 crediting Mizner. Via quotle.info

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

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by Alva Johnston’s estate and the publisher of The New Yorker (F-R Publishing Corporation in 1942); for the 1932 wording, the San Francisco Chronicle). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Wilson Mizner — American playwright, raconteur and Hollywood screenwriter. Theme: "Be Nice to People on Your Way Up. You'll Meet Them On Your Way Down". 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 "Be Nice to People on Your Way Up. You'll Meet Them On Your Way Down". 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 paper trail starts in San Francisco, not in a Durante routine

Said by
Wilson Mizner (1876–1933)
Earliest known citation
“Directs Traveler On Road to Fame,” San Francisco Chronicle, 5 July 1932, p. 9, col. 6
Popular wording first printed in
Profiles: Legend of a Sport — Part I
That printing
Alva Johnston, The New Yorker, 10 October 1942, p. 21 — later worked into his book The Legendary Mizners (1953)

Wilson Miznor, globe-trotter, ex-Alaska mining chappie, scenario writer, playwright and sage of Hollywood, gave the following advice to a young and coming motion picture star: “Be kind to everyone on the way up; you’ll meet the same people on the way down.” San Francisco Chronicle, 5 July 1932

This is the earliest known printing, and the surname is misspelled — “Miznor” for Mizner. Note that it is not the familiar wording: the version everyone quotes today descends from Alva Johnston’s 1942 New Yorker profile, “Be nice to people on your way up because you’ll meet ’em on your way down.” The smoothed “meet them on your way down” form appears in no period source we could locate.

Quote Investigator’s full citation trail, 1932 to 1952

How the line travelled

  • 5 July 1932 — San Francisco Chronicle. The earliest known printing already names Mizner (as “Wilson Miznor”), giving career advice to a rising film star: “Be kind to everyone on the way up; you’ll meet the same people on the way down.” The citation was supplied to Quote Investigator by researcher Barry Popik in December 2014. Barry Popik ↗
  • 7–9 July 1932 — Walter Winchell. Winchell used the adage on air on 7 July; the Pittsburgh Press quoted it the next day in a radio round-up without attribution. In his own syndicated column on 9 July he named his source: “Which reminded a wag of Wilson Mizner’s classic advice.” Quote Investigator ↗
  • 4 September 1933 — where Durante enters. Brooklyn Daily Eagle columnist Art Arthur, in “Reverting to Type,” described Durante’s scene in MGM’s Broadway to Hollywood and flagged it: Durante “uses two lines lifted from Winchell’s columns.” Quote Investigator reproduces the item; the Wikipedia entry supports only the film’s release date. Quote Investigator ↗ Released 15 September 1933: Wikipedia ↗
  • 10 October 1942 — The New Yorker. Alva Johnston’s profile “Legend of a Sport” listed the saying among Mizner’s philosophical maxims in the wording that stuck. Johnston (1888–1950), a Pulitzer-winning reporter, later built the series into The Legendary Mizners. Wikipedia: Alva Johnston ↗
In copyright

Mizner’s remark was spoken, and every documented form of it reaches us through someone else’s printed page. The earliest is a San Francisco Chronicle item of 5 July 1932 and the familiar wording comes from Alva Johnston’s New Yorker profile of 10 October 1942 — both published well after 1930, so we treat the text as in-copyright rather than public domain and quote only the short passages needed to document the attribution.

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

Who else gets the credit

This is a quote with three claimants and one owner. Mizner said it, Winchell broadcast it, Durante performed it, and a film star tried to keep it — and the two people who did the least to earn it are the two whose names it still travels under.

Jimmy Durante Misattributed

Durante did say a version of it. In MGM’s Broadway to Hollywood (released 15 September 1933) he tells a swell-headed movie star, “Never snub people on your way up… because you meet the same people on your way down.” But the Brooklyn Daily Eagle columnist who noticed the moment on 4 September 1933 wrote that Durante “uses two lines lifted from Winchell’s columns.” The credit hardened when quotation anthologies printed it in Durante’s stage dialect from 1952 onward. Wikiquote files it on his page under Misattributed. Wikiquote ↗

Walter Winchell Popularizer, not author

Winchell used the adage on his radio programme on 7 July 1932, and Reader’s Digest (June 1933) and The Golden Book Magazine (August 1933) both printed it over his name. He never claimed it: in his syndicated column of 9 July 1932 he introduced it as “Wilson Mizner’s classic advice.” Quote Investigator ↗

George Raft Passed off as his own

A 1935 column in The Bee of Danville, Virginia grumbled that the film star had given one of Mizner’s gems as his own in a movie-magazine interview: “Be pleasant to the people you meet on the way up. They are the same people you are going to meet on the way down.” Quote Investigator ↗

The smoothed modern form Later polish

No period source reproduces the internet’s tidy “you’ll meet them on your way down.” The 1932 printing says “Be kind to everyone on the way up”; the 1942 New Yorker version, the closest documented ancestor of the popular form, says “you’ll meet ’em on your way down.” Quote Investigator reproduces every dated wording from 1932 to 1952 and not one of them is the smoothed form. Wikiquote does carry it — but on the strength of a 1994 secondary source, Stuart B. McIver’s Dreamers, Schemers and Scalawags, rather than a period printing. Quote Investigator ↗ Wikiquote ↗

Quote Investigator, working from citations supplied by researcher Barry Popik in December 2014, concludes that Wilson Mizner was probably the originator: the earliest known citation names him, Winchell disclaimed authorship in his favour, and Durante’s use came a year after the saying was already circulating. Quote Investigator ↗

Context

A gag about Hollywood, told to Hollywood

Mizner spent his last years inside the machine the line is about. He wrote screenplays for Warner Bros. and helped run the Brown Derby, where the town’s ascending and descending careers ate lunch at adjacent tables. The earliest printed version is not a general maxim at all — it is specific career advice, given by a “sage of Hollywood” to “a young and coming motion picture star.”

He did not live to watch it become a cliché. Mizner died on 3 April 1933, months before Broadway to Hollywood reached theatres that September with Durante delivering his own version of it to a swell-headed movie star — the scene that would eventually get Durante the credit.

Be kind to everyone on the way up; you’ll meet the same people on the way down.

How the wording drifted, 1932 to 1958

5 July 1932, San Francisco Chronicle: “Be kind to everyone on the way up; you’ll meet the same people on the way down.” Credited to “Wilson Miznor.”

9 July 1932, Walter Winchell’s column: “Always be pleasant to the people you meet on the way going up—for they are the same people you meet on the way down!” Explicitly called “Wilson Mizner’s classic advice.”

June 1933, Reader’s Digest: “It pays to be nice to the people you meet on the way up, for they are the same people you meet on the way down.” Credited to Winchell, not Mizner — the version that spread furthest fastest.

10 October 1942, The New Yorker: “Be nice to people on your way up because you’ll meet ’em on your way down.” The earliest known appearance of the wording modern quote sites recycle, and it is back under Mizner’s name.

1952 and 1958, quotation anthologies: “Be awful nice to ’em goin’ up, because you’re gonna meet ’em all comin’ down” — printed in Durante’s stage dialect and credited to him, in Franklin Pierce Adams’s FPA Book of Quotations and Herbert V. Prochnow’s The New Speaker’s Treasury of Wit and Wisdom. This is where the Durante attribution hardens.

Explore

Filed under

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

Kindness Character Humility

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.

Quote Investigator: the full 1932–1952 citation trailquoteinvestigator.com

The anchor investigation. Reproduces every dated citation from the 5 July 1932 San Francisco Chronicle onward and concludes Mizner was probably the originator.
Barry Popik: “Be nice to people on your way up…”barrypopik.com

The researcher who supplied the 1932 antedating. His entry credits Mizner and notes that Winchell, who got early credit, always pointed back to Mizner.
Wikiquote: Jimmy Durante — Misattributeden.wikiquote.org

Lists four variants of the saying under the Misattributed heading with the note “Originally by Wilson Mizner.”
Wikiquote: Wilson Mizner — Epigramsen.wikiquote.org

Carries the line in Mizner’s sourced Epigrams section, referenced to Stuart B. McIver, Dreamers, Schemers and Scalawags (Pineapple Press, 1994).
Wikipedia: Wilson Mizneren.wikipedia.org

Biography of the true author: dates, the Brown Derby and Warner Bros. years, and the bons mots he is remembered for, this one included.
Internet Archive: The Legendary Miznersarchive.org

Borrowable scan of Alva Johnston’s joint biography of Addison and Wilson Mizner, grown out of the New Yorker profiles. Access-restricted lending copy.

The man who actually said it

Wilson Mizner, the wit everybody quoted and nobody credited

Wilson Mizner

1876–1933 · American playwright, raconteur and Hollywood screenwriter

Wilson Mizner (19 May 1876 – 3 April 1933) was an American playwright, raconteur and entrepreneur who is remembered far less for anything he wrote than for what he said. After stints as a Klondike gold-rush chancer and a Broadway playwright, he landed in Hollywood writing screenplays for early talkies — his best-known credit is 20,000 Years in Sing Sing — and helping run the Brown Derby restaurants with backing from Jack L. Warner and Gloria Swanson. He called those Hollywood years a trip through a sewer in a glass-bottomed boat, and his one-liners circulated so widely under other people’s names that his brother Addison complained he was being robbed of credit — a complaint this quote proves was at least half right.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Cite this

Alva Johnston, “Profiles: Legend of a Sport—Part I,” The New Yorker, October 10, 1942, 21. Earliest known citation of the saying: “Directs Traveler On Road to Fame,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 5, 1932, 9, where it is credited to “Wilson Miznor” (Wilson Mizner); see Quote Investigator, “Quote Origin: Be Nice to People on Your Way Up. You’ll Meet Them On Your Way Down,” rev. December 21, 2014, last updated September 30, 2024.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Be Nice to People on Your Way Up. You'll Meet Them On Your Way Down’?” Last verified 8 Sep 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/be-nice-to-people-on-your-way-up-youll-meet-them-on-your/

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