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Who really said it

Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times

Verified — and much newer than people think G. Michael Hopf b. 1971 · American novelist and former US Marine
Verified In copyright

It is from Those Who Remain (2016), the seventh book in G. Michael Hopf’s post-apocalyptic New World series. Hopf has confirmed the line himself and says he wrote it in 2015, inspired by Strauss–Howe generational theory. It is not ancient, not Arabic, and not a proverb — and because Hopf is alive and writing, it is under copyright worldwide.

Last verified 20 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Verified quote & credit

“Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times” —G. Michael Hopf, Those Who Remain (2016). In copyright: quote briefly with attribution, not as free stock content.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright. A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of G. Michael Hopf — American novelist and former US Marine. Theme: "Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times". 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 "Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times". 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

Work
Those Who Remain (The New World, book 7)
Published
30 December 2016
Author
G. Michael Hopf, b. 1971
Confirmed by
The author, on his own site

Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times. Those Who Remain, 2016

The published wording, quoted here for identification and commentary. This is a novel by a living writer — unusually for this site, the correct answer is not a public-domain text you may freely reuse.

G. Michael Hopf on writing the line

How we traced it

  • Hopf has published his own account of writing the line while working on book seven of the series, and names Strauss–Howe generational theory as the inspiration. He notes the underlying idea has older roots in Ibn Khaldun and Plato — but does not claim either man wrote the sentence the author’s account ↗.
  • Note the punctuation in the published text: four separate sentences, with a comma in ‘And, weak men.’ The meme version runs it together as one comma-spliced sentence — the commonest wording variant.
  • The Ibn Khaldun attribution fails at the source: the sentence does not appear in the Muqaddimah (1377) in any standard translation how the meme spread ↗.
In copyright

In copyright — treat with care. G. Michael Hopf is a living author and Those Who Remain (2016) is protected worldwide for his lifetime plus seventy years. A short quotation with full attribution — author, title, year — is normal quotation practice, but this line is not free stock content: do not put it on merchandise, in advertising, or on a print for sale without permission, and do not describe it as an ancient proverb to sidestep the question. The Ibn Khaldun myth is convenient precisely because it makes a copyrighted sentence look public domain. This is not legal advice.

Fact-check

The attribution problem

The authorship is settled — the author is alive and has confirmed it. What keeps this quote in dispute is a persistent effort to age it by six hundred years.

Not Ibn Khaldun false quotation

The sentence appears nowhere in the Muqaddimah (1377) in any standard translation. Historians of the text have said so directly; the citation is always given without a page number, because there is none.

A genuinely parallel idea concept real, quotation false

The Muqaddimah describes a four-generation decay of asabiyyah — group feeling: desert hardiness produces conquest, conquest produces luxury, luxury dissolves solidarity, and the dynasty falls. That really is a cycle of hardness and softness. It is not this sentence, and the difference matters.

'An ancient Arab proverb' unsourced

Also offered as Sallust, Gibbon, or Plato’s Republic Book VIII. None is sourced. Hopf’s own stated inspiration was Strauss–Howe generational theory, a 1990s American framework.

Four sentences, not one altered punctuation

The published text is four full sentences, with a comma in ‘And, weak men create hard times.’ The circulating version compresses it into a single comma-spliced line.

Genuinely G. Michael Hopf, Those Who Remain (2016) — a novel published within the last decade, by an author who is alive to confirm it his account ↗.

Context

Why it resonates

It offers a complete theory of history in four clauses, and it flatters whoever is quoting it: hard times are coming, and you are the strong one. Its neat circularity is also what makes it feel ancient — proverbs sound like this.

That is exactly why the attribution drifted. A line this tidy invites a distinguished author, and a 14th-century Arab historian lends it the authority of a law of nature rather than a plot beat in an EMP thriller.

The myth is convenient: a 14th-century author would make a copyrighted sentence free.

Why the Ibn Khaldun credit is so sticky

There is a real cyclical theory in the Muqaddimah — so the claim survives a casual check.

Ibn Khaldun died in 1406, which would make the line public domain and free to sell on posters. Hopf’s copyright makes it neither.

Hopf himself acknowledges the older intellectual lineage, and that gracious remark gets quoted back as though he were conceding authorship.

The saying spikes on social media in hard times, when nobody stops to check a citation that flatters them.

Explore

Filed under

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

Resilience Change

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.

'Hard Times Create Strong Men' — the author's own accountgmichaelhopf.com

Hopf explains when he wrote it, what inspired it, and how it escaped into the world without his name.
Those Who Remain — edition recordgoodreads.com

Publication date and edition details for the novel the line appears in.
Hard times create strong men, weak men…edwest.co.uk

Traces the meme’s spread and its relationship to Ibn Khaldun’s genuine cyclical theory.

The true author

About G. Michael Hopf

G. Michael Hopf

b. 1971 · American novelist and former US Marine

G. Michael Hopf is a bestselling American author of post-apocalyptic and western fiction, and a former US Marine and executive protection agent. His New World series imagines the collapse of society after an electromagnetic pulse. He is the rare living writer to have produced a line so widely repeated that people assume it must be centuries old — and he has spent years politely explaining that he wrote it.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Hopf, G. Michael. Those Who Remain (The New World, book 7). 2016.

MLA (9th ed.)

Hopf, G. Michael. Those Who Remain. 2016.

APA (7th ed.)

Hopf, G. M. (2016). Those who remain.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Hard times create strong men’?” Last verified 20 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/hard-times-create-strong-men-strong-men-create-good-times

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