Did Oscar Wilde say "Be yourself; everyone else is already taken"?

Q: Did Oscar Wilde say "Be yourself; everyone else is already taken"?

No. There is no evidence Oscar Wilde said or wrote this. Quote Investigator finds the earliest exact match in an anonymous December 1999 Usenet post, with no author named; the line does not appear in Wilde's works, and the Oscar Wilde Society calls it "definitely not Oscar."

Who really said it

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken

Not Oscar Wilde — an anonymous modern saying Unknown Wording first documented 1999 · author unidentified

Disputed Rights unconfirmed

There is no evidence Oscar Wilde said or wrote this. Quote Investigator ↗ finds the earliest exact match in an anonymous December 1999 Usenet post, with no author named; the line does not appear in Wilde’s works, and the Oscar Wilde Society calls it “definitely not Oscar.”

Last verified 10 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken” Be yourself; everyone else is already taken. —often attributed to Oscar Wilde, but there is no evidence he said it; the earliest documented use is an anonymous 1999 Usenet post (per Quote Investigator).

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Oscar Wilde. 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.

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

In context

Evoking the world of Oscar Wilde — Irish poet, playwright & wit. Theme: "Be yourself; everyone else is already taken". 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 yourself; everyone else is already taken". 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

Popular attribution: Oscar Wilde (unsupported)
Earliest exact wording: Anonymous Usenet post, Dec 1999
Thematic forerunner: Thomas Merton, “Day of a Stranger” (1967)
True author: Unknown

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.

Often printed as “Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.” No documented source ties this exact wording to Oscar Wilde or to any named author.

Quote Investigator: full origin trace

How we verified this

Quote Investigator ↗ finds “no substantive evidence” Wilde said it and dates the earliest exact match to an anonymous December 1999 Usenet post.
A thematically related line — “there is very little chance of my being anybody else” — appears in Thomas Merton’s 1967 essay Day of a Stranger, per Quote Investigator ↗, but its wording and tone differ from the popular saying.
Check Your Fact ↗ quotes Oscar Wilde Society chairman Donald Mead — “This is definitely not Oscar” — and reports the line is absent from Wilde’s complete works.

The exact wording has no identifiable author or first-publication work — the earliest trace is an anonymous 1999 Usenet post — so no copyright status can be responsibly asserted. It is not a Wilde text and cannot be called public domain on that basis.

Fact-check

How it went Wilde

This is one of the internet’s most confidently mis-credited lines. It is stamped on posters, mugs, and social feeds as Oscar Wilde — but the trail leads nowhere near him.

Oscar Wilde No source

The line appears in none of Wilde’s plays, essays, letters, or recorded conversation. Wilde Society chairman Donald Mead told Check Your Fact ↗: “This is definitely not Oscar. It is all over the internet with no source.”

“Gilbert Perreira” Circa 2000

Before Wilde’s name stuck, Quote Investigator ↗ notes the saying was credited around 2000 to an otherwise-unknown “Gilbert Perreira” — another unverifiable name.

The honest answer: the author is unknown. The earliest exact match is an anonymous December 1999 Usenet post, per Quote Investigator ↗ — the Wilde credit was added later with no evidence.

Context

Why it feels like Wilde

The saying works as a Wilde quote because it flatters both the reader and the supposed author: it’s brisk, affirming, and lightly paradoxical — the shape of a Wildean epigram. Wilde really did prize individualism, which makes the fake feel plausible enough that few people check.

Sounding Wildean is easy. Being Wilde is harder to prove — and here the proof is missing.

Explore

Filed under

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

Character Courage

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 Origin: Be Yourself. Everyone Else Is Already Takenquoteinvestigator.com

The definitive origin trace: no Wilde evidence, earliest exact match anonymous 1999.

Fact Check: Did Oscar Wilde Say This?checkyourfact.com

Rates it false; quotes the Oscar Wilde Society and Wilde scholar Sos Eltis.

Professor Buzzkill: Wilde — Be Yourselfprofessorbuzzkill.com

History podcast debunking the Wilde attribution.

Phrase Finder: meaning & originphrases.org.uk

Overview of the phrase and its uncertain origin.

Oscar Wilde — Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Background on the writer this line is wrongly pinned to.

Popularly (wrongly) credited

Why it lands on Wilde

Oscar Wilde

1854–1900 · Irish poet, playwright & wit

Oscar Wilde was an Irish writer whose plays and epigrams made him one of the most quotable figures in the English language — and, for that reason, one of the internet’s biggest magnets for invented quotations. His genuine celebrations of individualism make a feel-good line like this feel Wildean, which is exactly how fabrications get pinned to him. But feeling Wildean is not the same as being his.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Quote Investigator

Garson O’Toole (Quote Investigator), “Be Yourself. Everyone Else Is Already Taken,” QuoteInvestigator.com, Jan 20, 2014. Earliest documented exact wording: anonymous Usenet post, December 1999.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Be yourself; everyone else is already taken’?” Last verified 10 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/be-yourself-everyone-else-is-already-taken