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Who really said it

Everything that can be invented has been invented

Not Charles Duell — a joke from Punch, not a patent commissioner Anonymous humorist in Punch’s Almanack for 1899 Punch, or the London Charivari · London humour magazine
Disputed Free to reuse

Charles H. Duell never said this. Quote Investigator finds the whole “patent office is closing, everything is invented” anecdote apocryphal, and the exact sentence is documented as a gag line spoken by a boy in a comic dialogue, “The Coming Century,” in Punch’s Almanack for 1899. Duell, Commissioner of Patents 1898–1901, went on record saying the opposite.

Last verified 22 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Everything that can be invented has been invented” not Charles Duell. Earliest documented appearance of the exact sentence: a comic dialogue, "The Coming Century," in Punch's Almanack for 1899. Quote Investigator finds the patent-office anecdote apocryphal; Duell said the opposite in December 1901. Via Quotle.info

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

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In context

Evoking the themes of creativity, change and doubt. Theme: "Everything that can be invented has been invented". 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 "Everything that can be invented has been invented". 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 sentence actually appears

Work
Punch’s Almanack for 1899, “The Coming Century”
Publication
Punch, or the London Charivari, section: December
Form
Comic dialogue — a Genius and a Boy at a future patent office
Attributed instead to
Charles H. Duell — unsupported

Genius. “Isn’t there a clerk who can examine patents.”
Boy. “Quite unnecessary, Sir. Everything that can be invented has been invented.”
Genius. “Well, I want to leave a novel, a picture, and an idea.”
Boy. “You must be rather old-fashioned, Sir. All sorts of work is done, nowadays, by mental photography.”

Transcription as given by Quote Investigator ↗ from Punch’s Almanack for 1899. It is a joke about the future, not a report of anything a commissioner said.

Quote Investigator: the full chronology of attestations

The paper trail

  • December 1883 — Quote Investigator ↗ gives its earliest strong match in The Electrician, vol. 2, no. 12, p. 374: a principal examiner who decided “the inventive power of the human mind had reached its limit.” No commissioner, no Duell.
  • 1899 — the exact modern wording appears as a punchline in Punch’s Almanack for 1899; Wikiquote ↗ lists that almanack as the source and flags the Duell attribution as a misattribution.
  • December 28, 1901 — Duell, quoted in the Dayton Daily News Saturday Magazine Supplement, predicts that earlier advances “will appear totally insignificant” next to the coming century’s, per Quote Investigator ↗.
  • July 1940 and 1989 — Eber Jeffery in the Journal of the Patent Office Society found no Patent Office official ever resigned believing nothing was left to invent, a finding recounted in Samuel Sass’s “A Patently False Patent Myth” ↗.
Public domain

The earliest documented appearance of this exact sentence is in Punch’s Almanack for 1899, published well before 1931, so that text is in the public domain in the United States. Nothing here is being credited to a living author or estate; no copyrighted source for the wording has been identified.

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.

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Fact-check

Who gets the blame, and why it’s wrong

This is one of the most durable fake quotes in business writing — a stock illustration of institutional myopia. It has been hung on at least two named commissioners and several anonymous clerks, and none of the versions survives contact with the record.

Charles H. Duell, U.S. Commissioner of Patents, 1898–1901 No evidence

Quote Investigator finds no support for the attribution and notes Duell’s own view was the reverse: in the Dayton Daily News Saturday Magazine Supplement of December 28, 1901, he said “all previous advances…will appear totally insignificant when compared with those which the present century will witness” (Quote Investigator ↗).

Henry L. Ellsworth, first Commissioner of Patents Out of context

A single rhetorical sentence from his annual report — that the advance of the arts “seems to presage the arrival of that period when human improvement must end” — is read as a literal forecast. Samuel Sass argues it was emphasis on rapid growth, and that Ellsworth’s 1845 resignation cited “pressure of private affairs” (Skeptical Inquirer, 1989 ↗).

An unnamed patent clerk or examiner who “resigned” Apocryphal

Told about a principal examiner in The Electrician (December 1883) and about a “chief clerk” in 1848 in a 1938 Esquire piece by Frank Lane Brunton; Eber Jeffery’s July 1940 investigation for the Journal of the Patent Office Society found no such resignation ever occurred (Quote Investigator ↗).

1980s reference books and corporate advertising Modern amplification

Patently-O reports Sass traced the printed attribution to the 1981 book The Book of Facts and Fallacies, and the Conversable Economist points to 1985 TRW advertisements that put the sentence in Duell’s mouth and dated it 1899 (Conversable Economist ↗).

The exact sentence is documented not in a government report but in a comic dialogue, “The Coming Century,” in Punch’s Almanack for 1899, where a boy uses it to brush off a visiting genius (Wikiquote ↗).

Context

Why this fake quote refuses to die

It is the perfect anecdote: a government official so blinkered that he wanted to shut the patent office because human ingenuity had run out. It has been told about at least two real men — Henry L. Ellsworth, the first Commissioner of Patents, and Charles H. Duell — and about an assortment of unnamed clerks and examiners, with the date floating anywhere from the 1830s to 1899. Quote Investigator ↗ traces version after version and finds no substantive documentation behind any of them.

The irony is that the Patent Office was, at exactly this moment, arguing the reverse. Samuel Sass noted that Duell’s own annual report pointed to patent grants rising from 435 in 1837 to 25,527 in 1899 and asked Congress for more resources, as documented in “A Patently False Patent Myth” ↗.

The man quoted as saying invention was finished spent his term telling Congress it was just getting started.

Read the full story

The story was already circulating without Duell’s name attached. Quote Investigator’s earliest strong match is an item in The Electrician (December 1883, vol. 2, no. 12, p. 374) about a principal examiner who around 1843 “came to the mature decision that the work of the patent department must soon come to an end, because the inventive power of the human mind had reached its limit.”

A 1938 Esquire article by Frank Lane Brunton retold it with a “chief clerk” and set it in 1848. Dr. Eber Jeffery investigated the claim in the July 1940 Journal of the Patent Office Society and found no Patent Office official had ever resigned for such a reason, per Sass’s account of Jeffery’s work.

The Duell version in particular got a large modern push from advertising: the Conversable Economist notes 1985 TRW Corporation ads that quoted Duell saying the line “in 1899,” and Patently-O reports that Sass traced the printed attribution back to the 1981 book The Book of Facts and Fallacies by Chris Morgan and David Langford.

Explore

Filed under

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

Creativity Change 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 Investigator: “Everything That Can Be Invented Has Been Invented”quoteinvestigator.com

The anchor investigation: every documented version of the anecdote, the 1883 Electrician item, the 1899 Punch dialogue, and Duell’s own December 1901 statement.
Wikiquote: Inventionen.wikiquote.org

Lists the sentence under Punch’s Almanack for 1899 and notes the common misattribution to Duell.
Samuel Sass, “A Patently False Patent Myth”ipmall.law.unh.edu

The 1989 Skeptical Inquirer debunking, including Eber Jeffery’s July 1940 Journal of the Patent Office Society findings.
Charles Holland Duellen.wikipedia.org

Life dates, his 1898–1901 term as Commissioner of Patents, and a note that the quote is apocryphal.
Exonerating Henry Ellsworth and Charles Duellconversableeconomist.com

Traces the modern Duell attribution to 1985 TRW advertisements and reviews what Ellsworth’s 1843 report actually said.
Patently-O: Tracing the Quotepatentlyo.com

Patent-law blog on the quote’s spurious status and Sass’s trail back to a 1981 book of facts and fallacies.

The man who is quoted for the opposite of what he believed

Charles Duell, wrongly cast as the patent office pessimist

Charles Holland Duell

1850–1920 · U.S. Commissioner of Patents, 1898–1901 · later a federal appeals judge

Charles Holland Duell (April 13, 1850 – January 29, 1920) was a New York patent lawyer who served as U.S. Commissioner of Patents from 1898 to 1901 and later sat as an Associate Justice of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. His name became shorthand for short-sightedness because of a sentence he is not documented as ever having spoken. What he actually said, in a December 1901 newspaper feature, was that the advances of the past would “appear totally insignificant” beside what the new century would bring — an almost exact inversion of the line pinned on him.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Cite this page

“The Coming Century.” Punch’s Almanack for 1899 (Punch, or the London Charivari), section: December. Quoted and dated in Garson O’Toole (Quote Investigator), “Anecdote Origin: Everything That Can Be Invented Has Been Invented,” June 23, 2023. No documented source attributes the sentence to Charles H. Duell.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Everything that can be invented has been invented’?” Last verified 22 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/everything-that-can-be-invented-has-been-invented/

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