Who really said it

God helps those who help themselves

Not the Bible — first penned by Algernon Sidney Algernon Sidney 1623–1683 · English politician & political theorist

Disputed Free to reuse

This is the single most famous line people believe is in the Bible — and it is not scripture at all. The exact modern wording first appears in Algernon Sidney’s Discourses Concerning Government (published 1698, ch. 2 §23), and Benjamin Franklin fixed it in American memory in Poor Richard’s Almanack (1736), where he printed the variant “God helps them that help themselves.” The sentiment itself is an ancient Greek proverb, older than either man.

Last verified 16 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“God helps those who help themselves” not from the Bible; the exact wording first appears in Algernon Sidney, Discourses Concerning Government (1698), and was popularized by Benjamin Franklin in Poor Richard's Almanack (1736).

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In context

Evoking the world of Algernon Sidney — English politician & political theorist; author of Discourses Concerning Government. Theme: "God helps those who help themselves". 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

Where the words actually come from

Phrase: “God helps those who help themselves”
First exact wording: Algernon Sidney, Discourses Concerning Government (1698), ch. 2 §23
Made famous by: Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack (1736)
In the Bible?: No — it appears in no book of scripture

God helps those who help themselves.

The wording is the tail end of a long lineage. Euripides had “Try first thyself, and after call in God”; Aesop’s wagoner is told “the gods help them that help themselves”; George Herbert’s Jacula Prudentum (1651) gives “Help thyself, and God will help thee.” Sidney supplied the exact phrasing we quote today.

Wikipedia: origins and attestations of the phrase

How we verified this

An ancient Greek proverb underlies it — Aesop’s Hercules and the Wagoner ends “the gods help them that help themselves,” and Euripides and Sophocles voice the same idea centuries before Christ.
The exact modern wording first appears in Algernon Sidney’s Discourses Concerning Government, quoted at Wikiquote as “God helps those who help themselves” (ch. 2 §23).
Benjamin Franklin printed the near-identical “God helps them that help themselves” in Poor Richard’s Almanack (1736), cementing it in American speech — but he did not coin it.
It is not in the Bible, yet polls have found roughly three in four Americans believe it is scripture.

Public domain

The exact wording is drawn from works long in the public domain: Algernon Sidney’s Discourses Concerning Government (first published 1698) and Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack (1736), both well before the 1931 U.S. copyright cutoff. The underlying proverb is ancient.

Fact-check

Why everyone thinks it's in the Bible

This is the textbook case of a secular proverb mistaken for scripture. It is quotable, moralizing, and God-mentioning — so it gets filed under “the Bible” by default.

The Bible Not scripture

The line appears in no book of the Bible in any translation. Surveys have repeatedly found a large majority of Americans — in some polls around 75–82% — believe it is a Bible verse, and it has even topped lists of “best-known Bible verses.” Many theologians note it actually runs counter to scripture’s emphasis on grace and dependence on God.

Benjamin Franklin Popularizer, not author

Franklin printed “God helps them that help themselves” in Poor Richard’s Almanack (1736) and made it an American byword, but he was collecting proverbs, not coining them — the exact modern wording already existed in Sidney’s 1698 Discourses.

The exact wording first appears in Algernon Sidney’s Discourses Concerning Government (1698); the sentiment is an ancient Greek proverb — and it is not in the Bible.

Context

Why the line matters

Few sayings reveal the gap between folk belief and text like this one. It has become a small article of secular faith — a self-reliance creed dressed in religious language — which is exactly why so many assume a chapter and verse must exist for it.

Its real history is a chain of borrowing: an ancient Greek proverb voiced by Euripides and Aesop, condensed by George Herbert, given its exact English shape by a 17th-century republican on trial for his life, and finally broadcast to a nation by a printer selling almanacs.

The most-quoted “Bible verse” that is not in the Bible.

Explore

Filed under

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

Work Purpose

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.

God helps those who help themselvesen.wikipedia.org

Full sourced chronology: Greek proverb, Aesop, Herbert, Sidney's exact wording, Franklin, and the poll data on biblical misattribution.

Algernon Sidney (Wikiquote)en.wikiquote.org

Sourced quotations from Sidney, including “God helps those who help themselves” cited to Discourses Concerning Government, ch. 2 §23.

Is it in the Bible?gotquestions.org

Explains that the phrase is the most-quoted line wrongly believed to be scripture, and traces it to Sidney (1698) and Franklin.

God helps them that help themselvesquotecounterquote.com

Traces the saying's variants back through Franklin, Sidney, Herbert and Aesop's Hercules and the Wagoner.

Poor Richard, 1736 (Founders Online)founders.archives.gov

Primary text of Franklin's 1736 almanac from The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, source of the “them that” variant.

Is it Biblical? (Christianity.com)christianity.com

Discusses why the maxim is widely presumed biblical and how it contrasts with actual scriptural teaching.

The true source of the wording

Who really wrote it

Algernon Sidney

1623–1683 · English politician & political theorist; author of Discourses Concerning Government

Algernon Sidney was an English republican politician and political theorist whose Discourses Concerning Government argued against absolute monarchy and the divine right of kings. Written in reply to Robert Filmer, the manuscript was used as evidence to convict Sidney of treason, and he was executed in 1683; the work was published posthumously in 1698 and later influenced the American revolutionaries. It is in that book that the exact wording “God helps those who help themselves” first appears in English.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

Algernon Sidney, Discourses Concerning Government (London, 1698), ch. 2, sect. 23; popularized as “God helps them that help themselves” in Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack (Philadelphia, 1736). The sentiment derives from an ancient Greek proverb (cf. Aesop, Hercules and the Wagoner; Euripides). The phrase does not appear in the Bible.

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Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘God helps those who help themselves’?” Last verified 16 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/god-helps-those-who-help-themselves