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Who really said it

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day

Not original to Paulo Coelho — an old English proverb Joseph Addison 1672–1719 · English essayist, poet & co-founder of The Spectator (earliest documented user)
Disputed Free to reuse

Coelho really does use this line in his 1990 novel “Brida” — but it is a centuries-old English proverb, not his own coinage. Quote Investigator traces the earliest documented instance to Joseph Addison’s essay in “The Spectator” (1711) and finds that Ebner-Eschenbach, Lewis Carroll, Washington Irving and Coelho all used the saying without originating it.

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

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Even a stopped clock is right twice a day” Traditional English proverb (not original to Paulo Coelho); earliest documented in Joseph Addison's The Spectator, 1711.

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

Can you use it?

Free to use, including in commercial and paid presentations — no permission or licence needed.

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In context

Evoking the world of Joseph Addison — English essayist & co-founder of The Spectator. Theme: "Even a stopped clock is right twice a day". 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 proverb and its documented trail

Type
Traditional English proverb (not original to Coelho)
Earliest documented
Joseph Addison, The Spectator, no. 129 (1711)
Quoted by Coelho in
Brida
Translation
English by Margaret Jull Costa (HarperCollins, 2008; orig. Portuguese 1990)

“Nothing in the world is ever completely wrong,” said her father, looking at the clock. “Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.”

The line as it appears in Coelho’s “Brida” (English translation, 2008) — a quotation of an existing proverb, not an original creation. Addison’s 1711 phrasing was different: “a clock that stands still is sure to point right once in twelve hours.”

Quote Investigator: full origin analysis

How we verified this

  • Quote Investigator locates the earliest instance in Joseph Addison’s “The Spectator” (1711) and lists later users — Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, Lewis Carroll, Washington Irving and Paulo Coelho — concluding none of them coined it.
  • The word-history study at WordHistories.net independently dates the earliest occurrence to Addison’s Spectator essay of 28 July 1711.
  • The exact modern wording is genuinely in Coelho’s book: Goodreads records it from “Brida” — but as a line spoken by a character, quoting the proverb.
Public domain

The saying is a traditional English proverb documented since the early 18th century — Joseph Addison’s “The Spectator” (1711), and again in 19th-century sources — so the proverb itself is firmly in the public domain and long predates Coelho. Only the surrounding text of Coelho’s novel “Brida” (Portuguese 1990; English translation 2008) is under copyright; the one-line proverb he quotes is not his to own.

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 it’s wrongly credited to

Feel-good social posts routinely stamp this proverb with Paulo Coelho’s name because he quotes it in “Brida.” He is far from the only famous name attached to it, and none of them originated the saying.

Paulo Coelho quoted it, didn’t coin it

Coelho really does write “Even a stopped clock is right twice a day” in “Brida” (1990), which is why quote sites tag it to him — but Quote Investigator shows the proverb predates him by nearly three centuries.

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach & Lewis Carroll also just users

The Austrian writer Ebner-Eschenbach was credited in mid-20th-century sources, and Lewis Carroll made a stopped-vs-slow-clock comparison in a teenage manuscript — but QI finds neither originated it.

It is an anonymous English proverb whose earliest documented appearance is in Joseph Addison’s “The Spectator” (1711) — Coelho merely repeated it.

Context

Why the mix-up happens

Paulo Coelho is one of the internet’s biggest magnets for recycled wisdom: his novels are studded with aphorisms and old sayings that quote-sites then re-caption as his own inventions. “Brida” puts this proverb in the mouth of Brida’s father, and from there it migrated onto quote cards under Coelho’s name alone.

The saying itself is far older and essentially anonymous. It expresses a small logical paradox — a clock that has stopped still displays the correct time for two instants each day — and has been used since the 1700s to argue that even something broken, or someone usually wrong, is occasionally right by accident.

He quoted the proverb; he didn’t coin it.

Explore

Filed under

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

Truth Doubt

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: Even a Stopped Clock Is Right Twice a Dayquoteinvestigator.com

Definitive origin analysis: earliest use in Addison’s Spectator (1711); traces later users including Coelho.
‘even a stopped clock is right twice a day’wordhistories.net

Independent word-history study dating the earliest occurrence to Addison’s 1711 Spectator essay.
a stopped clock is right twice a dayen.wiktionary.org

Dictionary entry treating the phrase as a proverb, with usage and meaning.
Brida quotes by Paulo Coelhogoodreads.com

Confirms the exact wording appears in Coelho’s novel “Brida.”
Brida (full text)archive.org

Scanned copy of the English “Brida” (trans. Margaret Jull Costa) for checking the line in context.
The Spectator (Addison & Steele)en.wikipedia.org

Background on the 1711 periodical where the earliest documented version appears.

Earliest documented source

The essayist who first put it in print

Joseph Addison

1672–1719 · English essayist & co-founder of The Spectator

Joseph Addison was an English essayist, poet and politician who, with Richard Steele, founded The Spectator in 1711 — one of the most influential periodicals in English literary history. The earliest documented version of this saying appears in his 1711 essay, though he phrased it as “a clock that stands still is sure to point right once in twelve hours.” The line functions as an anonymous English proverb: many later writers — including Paulo Coelho — quoted it, but none, Addison included, can be shown to have invented the exact modern wording.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Earliest documented source

Earliest documented in Joseph Addison, The Spectator, no. 129 (1711); later quoted by Paulo Coelho, Brida, trans. Margaret Jull Costa (London: HarperCollins, 2008; orig. Portuguese, 1990).

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Even a stopped clock is right twice a day’?” Last verified 10 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/even-a-stopped-clock-is-right-twice-a-day/

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