Who really said it

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt

Q: Did Abraham Lincoln say "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt"?

No. There is no evidence Lincoln ever said or wrote this. The earliest known version appears in Maurice Switzer's 1906–1907 humor book "Mrs. Goose, Her Book" — worded "It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it." The tidy modern wording is a later polish, and the Lincoln credit did not appear until 1931.

Not Abraham Lincoln — earliest traced to Maurice Switzer (1906) Maurice Switzer b. 1870 · American humorist & advertising writer

Disputed Rights unconfirmed

There is no evidence Lincoln ever said or wrote this. The earliest known version appears in Maurice Switzer’s 1906–1907 humor book “Mrs. Goose, Her Book” — worded “It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it.” The tidy modern wording is a later polish, and the Lincoln credit did not appear until 1931.

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

For presentations

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt” Misattributed to Abraham Lincoln. No evidence he said it; the earliest known version is Maurice Switzer's 1906 book "Mrs. Goose, Her Book." Source: Quote Investigator.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Abraham Lincoln. 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.

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In context

Evoking the world of Maurice Switzer — American humorist & advertising writer. Theme: "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt". 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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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt". 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 source

Popularly credited to: Abraham Lincoln (also Mark Twain, Confucius)
Earliest known source: Mrs. Goose, Her Book
Author / date: Maurice Switzer, copyright 1906 (pub. 1907)
Verdict: Misattributed — not Lincoln

It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it.

The wording in Switzer’s 1906 book — the earliest known appearance. The familiar “…be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt” is a later, smoother paraphrase whose exact source is unknown.

Quote Investigator: full investigation

How we verified this

Quote Investigator traces the earliest known version to Maurice Switzer’s 1906–1907 book “Mrs. Goose, Her Book” and finds “no substantive evidence that either Abraham Lincoln or Mark Twain employed this maxim” (quoteinvestigator.com ↗).
The earliest Lincoln attribution QI found appeared in Golden Book Magazine in November 1931 — 66 years after Lincoln’s death (quoteinvestigator.com ↗).
Switzer’s book survives in full — the copyright-1906 original is digitized at the Internet Archive ↗, catalogued under “Switzer, Maurice, b. 1870.”
The idea echoes an ancient proverb — Proverbs 17:28: “Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise” — but the modern epigram is not a Bible quotation.

Switzer’s 1906–1907 book “Mrs. Goose, Her Book” is itself in the public domain in the U.S. (published before 1931), but its wording differs from the line shown here. The exact popular phrasing is an unattributed modern paraphrase with no identifiable first publication, so its rights status cannot be asserted.

Fact-check

How Lincoln got the credit

This is one of the internet’s classic “wise old figure” misattributions — pinned on Lincoln and Twain because both are magnets for pithy wisdom. Neither has any documented connection to it.

Abraham Lincoln No evidence

Lincoln died in 1865; the earliest attribution to him that Quote Investigator located is from Golden Book Magazine, November 1931 — 66 years later, with no source (quoteinvestigator.com ↗).

Mark Twain No evidence

Twain connections surfaced even later (around 1953). Ken Burns’s 2001 Twain documentary companion book listed this line under “What Twain Didn’t Say” (quoteinvestigator.com ↗).

Confucius & the Bible Distant echo

Often tagged “Confucius” or quoted as scripture. The nearest real ancestor is Proverbs 17:28, but the modern epigram is not a quotation from either.

The earliest known version is Maurice Switzer’s, in his 1906 book Mrs. Goose, Her Book — and even he worded it differently from the line we quote today (quoteinvestigator.com ↗).

Context

Why the misattribution sticks

The saying rewards its speaker with an air of shrewd modesty, so it drifts naturally toward the era’s most quotable sages. Lincoln and Twain are the default hosts for any homespun American wit whose real author has been forgotten — a phenomenon Twain scholars and Lincoln archivists both wearily document.

The line also has a genuinely old pedigree in idea, if not in wording: Proverbs 17:28 makes the same point millennia earlier. That deep familiarity makes the modern epigram feel ancient and authorless, which is exactly the vacuum a big name rushes to fill.

Not Lincoln, not Twain — earliest traced to a 1906 humor book.

Explore

Filed under

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

Wisdom 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 — Remain Silentquoteinvestigator.com

Full origin investigation; names Switzer (1906) as leading candidate and dates the Lincoln credit to 1931.

Mrs. Goose, Her Book (1906)archive.org

Digitized scan of Maurice Switzer's book, the earliest known source of the maxim.

Abraham Lincoln — Misattributeden.wikiquote.org

Wikiquote's sourced list of lines wrongly pinned on Lincoln.

Quotes Uncovered: Honest Abefreakonomics.com

Freakonomics discussion of quotes falsely credited to Lincoln and Twain.

Proverbs 17:28biblegateway.com

The ancient proverb the epigram distantly echoes.

The author

About Maurice Switzer

Maurice Switzer

b. 1870 · American humorist & advertising writer

Maurice Switzer (born 1870) was an American humorist and advertising man whose 1906 collection Mrs. Goose, Her Book mixed nonsense verse with satirical quips for adults. It contains the earliest known version of this maxim, though Switzer himself was riffing on a much older proverbial idea. He is the leading candidate for the saying’s origin — not its certain author, and certainly not the smoother modern wording.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Mrs. Goose, Her Book (1906)

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt’?” Last verified 8 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/better-to-remain-silent-and-be-thought-a-fool-than-to-speak