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Who really said it

Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears

Not John Lennon — a 1920s birthday-card verse Dixie Willson (the leading candidate) 1890–1974 · American writer · authorship of the verse is not settled
Ruled out for Lennon; the real author is narrowed but not proven. Free to reuse

John Lennon did not write this. The lines are a condensed pair taken from a longer birthday-card poem that was already in print by 27 January 1927 — thirteen years before Lennon was born — when the Richfield Mercury of Richfield Springs, New York printed it from a card given to a woman on her ninetieth birthday. Quote Investigator’s chronology ↗ finds authorship genuinely unsettled: writer Dixie Willson, who sold verses to the Chicago greeting-card publisher P. F. Volland, is “currently the leading candidate,” while Bing Crosby’s wife Dixie Lee was credited in a 1935 New Yorker item. The earliest Lennon credit QI could find is a tweet from February 2010.

Last verified 6 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears” Not John Lennon. "Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears" is a condensed pair of lines from a longer birthday-card verse already in print on 27 January 1927 in the Richfield Mercury (Richfield Springs, NY) — thirteen years before Lennon was born. Quote Investigator finds authorship unsettled, naming writer Dixie Willson (1890–1974), who sold verses to the P. F. Volland Company, as the leading candidate, with Bing Crosby's wife Dixie Lee credited in a 1935 New Yorker item. The earliest documented Lennon credit is a tweet from 6 February 2010. — Quotle.info

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

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In context

Evoking the world of Dixie Willson — American children's author, screenwriter & P. F. Volland verse writer. Theme: "Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears". 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 "Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears". 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

Where the lines really come from

Work
Untitled birthday-card verse — publisher unrecorded (both claimant accounts name the P. F. Volland Company)
Earliest citation
Richfield Mercury (Richfield Springs, New York), 27 January 1927
Author
Unsettled — Dixie Willson is the leading candidate; Dixie Lee Crosby also claimed
Original wording
“Count your life with smiles—not tears … count your age by friends—not years!”

Count your garden by the flowers, never by the leaves that fall; Count your days by golden hours don’t remember clouds at all! Count the night by stars, not shadows Count your life with smiles—not tears And with joy on today’s birthday, count your age by friends—not years! Birthday card, printed 27 January 1927

The circulating two-line version is a rearrangement of this text: it puts the “age by friends” line first, drops “And with joy on today’s birthday,” and changes “count your life with smiles” to “count your life by smiles.” Text as transcribed by Quote Investigator from the 1927 newspaper printing.

Quote Investigator: full origin trace, 1927 to 2010

How we checked this

  • The earliest citation is the Richfield Mercury of Richfield Springs, New York, 27 January 1927, printing the full poem from a birthday card given to a woman celebrating her ninetieth year, per Quote Investigator ↗. A Roswell, New Mexico paper reprinted it in 1931 under the title “Count Your Blessings” with no author named.
  • The Anniston Star of 28 February 1933 credited Dixie Willson, describing how she pitched verses to a greeting-card editor, was paid $5, and spent it taking the editor to dinner; the Saturday Review of Literature credited her again in 1948 — both per Quote Investigator ↗. Independently, Wikipedia’s page on the P. F. Volland Company ↗ — a Chicago publisher of greeting cards and children’s books, 1908–1959 — lists Willson among its authors.
  • The rival claim is Dixie Lee, Bing Crosby’s wife. Quote Investigator ↗ reproduces E. B. White’s New Yorker item of 20 April 1935: “Miss Lee, about six years ago, sold to the P. F. Volland Company the following poem … The firm paid her five bucks, and she blew most of it taking one of the editors to lunch.” QI notes that “about six years” before 1935 would place the sale later than the 1927 printing.
  • Nothing ties the lines to John Lennon. They appear in no section of Wikiquote’s John Lennon page ↗ — not in the sourced quotes, the lyrics, the disputed list or the misattributed list — and the earliest Lennon credit Quote Investigator ↗ located is a tweet of 6 February 2010.
Public domain

The verse was published in the United States on a greeting card and in the Richfield Mercury by 27 January 1927. Works first published in the United States before 1931 have entered the public domain, so this text is free to quote regardless of which of the two candidate authors wrote it. The rights status says nothing about the attribution — the authorship remains unsettled.

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

The attribution history

This couplet has been handed to at least three different names in a century, and the John Lennon credit is both the newest and the weakest of them.

John Lennon No evidence

The verse was already in American newspapers by 27 January 1927, thirteen years before Lennon was born in 1940. The earliest Lennon attribution Quote Investigator ↗ could document is a tweet of 6 February 2010, decades after his death; QI’s verdict is that “evidence connecting him to the two lines of the work is weak.” The lines also appear nowhere on Wikiquote’s John Lennon page ↗.

Dixie Willson Most likely

Credited by the Anniston Star in February 1933 and again by J. P. McEvoy in the Saturday Review of Literature in November 1948, per Quote Investigator ↗, which calls her “currently the leading candidate.” She was a working P. F. Volland author, as her Wikipedia entry ↗ and Volland’s own author list show — though neither mentions this verse.

Dixie Lee Crosby Possible

E. B. White’s New Yorker piece of 20 April 1935 said Bing Crosby’s wife had sold the poem to P. F. Volland “about six years ago” for five dollars, and the New York Times repeated the credit in 1936. Quote Investigator ↗ keeps her in play but notes the timing sits awkwardly against the 1927 printing.

Anonymous Common

A Roswell, New Mexico newspaper ran the poem on 6 January 1931 under the title “Count Your Blessings” with no attribution, and the New York Times “Queries and Answers” column printed it unattributed in 1935 while noting it circulated as a popular birthday card — both per Quote Investigator ↗.

The two lines are an excerpt from a longer birthday-card poem documented in print by 27 January 1927. Quote Investigator’s conclusion ↗ is that the authorship “is somewhat uncertain,” with Dixie Willson the leading candidate and Dixie Lee Crosby also possible — and that the poem “was created before John Lennon entered this world.”

Context

Why a greeting card lost its author

Greeting-card verse was written to be anonymous. A card carries a sentiment, not a byline, and the writer was typically paid a flat fee — five dollars, in both surviving accounts of this poem — with no royalty and no credit printed anywhere on the product. That is precisely how a verse can sell into the hundreds of thousands of copies while the person who wrote it becomes a matter of newspaper hearsay within six years.

By the time the poem was famous, the press had two competing stories about who wrote it, and both stories end with the same odd flourish: the author took a greeting-card editor out for a meal with the five dollars. The Anniston Star told it about Dixie Willson in 1933; E. B. White told it about Dixie Lee in the New Yorker in 1935. Two women named Dixie, one publisher, one five-dollar payment — a tangle Quote Investigator has documented but not resolved.

A card carries a sentiment, not a byline.

How John Lennon got attached to it

Lennon was born on 9 October 1940 and died on 8 December 1980. The verse was in newspapers in January 1927. There is no window in which he could have originated it, and no interview, lyric, letter or book of his has ever been produced containing the lines.

What happened instead is the ordinary mechanics of the quotation internet. A short, warm, aphoristic couplet circulates unattributed for decades; at some point a social account attaches a famous name to give it weight; the pairing is then copied faster than it can be checked. Quote Investigator’s earliest documented instance is a tweet from 6 February 2010 — three decades after Lennon’s death — reading “Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears. #quote John Lennon.”

Explore

Filed under

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

Friendship Happiness Time

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 — full origin tracequoteinvestigator.com

The definitive chronology: the 1927 birthday-card printing, the Willson and Dixie Lee claims, and the 2010 Lennon tweet.
Wikiquote — John Lennonen.wikiquote.org

Lennon's sourced, disputed and misattributed quotations — this couplet appears in none of them.
Wikipedia — Dixie Willsonen.wikipedia.org

Biography of the leading candidate (1890–1974): screenwriter, children's author, sister of Meredith Willson.
Wikipedia — P. F. Volland Companyen.wikipedia.org

The Chicago greeting-card and children's-book publisher (1908–1959) that bought the verse; lists Dixie Willson as one of its authors.
Wikipedia — John Lennonen.wikipedia.org

Confirms Lennon's dates — born 9 October 1940, died 8 December 1980 — both after the poem was already in print.
Open Library — books by Dixie Willsonopenlibrary.org

Catalogue of Willson's published work, 1922–1950, including the Volland-era picture books.

The likeliest author

Who Dixie Willson was

Dixie Willson

1890–1974 · American children’s author, screenwriter & P. F. Volland verse writer

Dixie Willson (30 July 1890 – 6 February 1974) was an American screenwriter and author of children’s books, novels and short stories, and the sister of The Music Man composer Meredith Willson. Her Volland picture books — Pinky-Pup (1922), The Empty Elephant (1923), Tuffy Good Luck (1927) — came from the Chicago house P. F. Volland Company, which also printed greeting cards, and Wikipedia lists her among Volland’s authors and illustrators. That working relationship is what makes the 1933 newspaper account of her walking into a Volland office and selling a birthday verse for five dollars plausible; her own Wikipedia entry, however, says nothing about the poem.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Source

Anonymous birthday-card verse, earliest citation located in the Richfield Mercury (Richfield Springs, NY), 27 January 1927. Chronology: Garson O’Toole, “Quote Origin: Count Your Age by Friends, Not Years. Count Your Life by Smiles, Not Tears,” Quote Investigator, 22 July 2013 (updated 28 January 2025), https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/07/22/smiles-not-tears/.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears’?” Last verified 6 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/count-your-age-by-friends-not-years-count-your-life-by/

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