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Who really said it

If We Are Here to Help Others, I Often Wonder What the Others Are Here For

Not W. H. Auden — ascribed to Lord Dewar Thomas Robert Dewar, 1st Baron Dewar 1864–1930 · Scottish whisky distiller, MP and peer
Disputed — the popular credit to W. H. Auden is wrong, and even the Dewar ascription is an attribution rather than a proven coinage. Free to reuse

This exact wording is an epigram ascribed to Lord Dewar in 1926 newspaper printings — the fullest being “A Peer’s Epigrams” in the Malayan Saturday Post of 12 June 1926. Auden never wrote this sentence; the line he did use was a different one, and he was knowingly quoting a music-hall comedian. Quote Investigator adds the honest caveat that Dewar “may have used it, but he did not originate it” — the joke was already in print in 1897.

Last verified 7 Sep 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“If We Are Here to Help Others, I Often Wonder What the Others Are Here For” an epigram ascribed to Lord Dewar (Thomas Robert Dewar, 1864–1930), "A Peer's Epigrams," Malayan Saturday Post (Singapore), 12 June 1926. NOT W. H. Auden: Auden used a different wording, quoting comedian John Foster Hall's 1923 record, and never claimed it. The joke was already in print in 1897. Via quotle.info

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In context

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Provenance

Where this wording actually comes from

Ascribed to
Lord Dewar (Thomas Robert Dewar), in a printed set of his epigrams
Earliest printing of this exact wording
“A Peer’s Epigrams,” Malayan Saturday Post (Singapore), 12 June 1926, p. 19, col. 2
Earlier Dewar ascription
Bradford Daily Telegraph, 15 March 1926, p. 6 — a looser variant, “If we are to help others, I wonder what the others are here for”
Joke first in print
Year Book of the Brookline Education Society (1897), p. 16 — told by Harvard professor George Herbert Palmer

Life is full of trials, with an occasional conviction.
We want less artillery rattle and more baby rattles.
If we are here to help others, I often wonder what the others are here for.
—Lord Dewar “A Peer’s Epigrams,” 12 June 1926

Transcribed by Quote Investigator from the 12 June 1926 Malayan Saturday Post, p. 19, col. 2, via Singapore’s NewspaperSG database. The epigrams around it are the giveaway: this is a dinner-speech wit’s repertoire, not a poet’s line.

Digitised book — Google Books full view
Year Book of the Brookline Education Society (1897), p. 16 — the 1897 original of the joke
Quote Investigator’s full chronology, 1897 to 1954

The paper trail

  • 1897 — Harvard professor George Herbert Palmer tells a Brookline audience about two children debating the point of living; the boy’s reply is the punchline. Printed in the society’s Year Book, p. 16 ↗, followed by Palmer’s verdict: “This is the weakness of altruism.”
  • 1923 — the comedian John Foster Hall, as “The Revd. Vivian Foster, the Vicar of Mirth,” delivers the adult version on the record The Parson Addresses His Flock: “We are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for, I don’t know” — documented by Edward Mendelson ↗.
  • 1926 — the joke appears ascribed to Lord Dewar, first in a looser form in a speech report of 15 March — “If we are to help others, I wonder what the others are here for” — and then in this exact wording in “A Peer’s Epigrams” of 12 June, both cited by Quote Investigator ↗.
  • 1942 and 1948 — Auden borrows Foster Hall’s wording, first in “The Fabian Figaro” (Commonweal, 23 October 1942) and again in “Squares and Oblongs.” He never claims it; the Auden Society lists it among things Auden never wrote ↗.
Public domain

This wording is documented only in 1926 newspaper printings — the Bradford Daily Telegraph of 15 March 1926 (in a looser variant) and the Malayan Saturday Post of 12 June 1926 — and the underlying joke was in print in the United States from 1897. Everything in that chain was published well before 1931, so the sentence itself is in the public domain in the US, and Lord Dewar died in 1930. Note that Auden’s different wording, as published in Commonweal in 1942 and reprinted since, is a 20th-century text still under copyright — but that is not the sentence quoted here.

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

Three names on one joke

This quip is one of the most heavily re-credited lines in circulation, and the two famous names attached to it are both later borrowers. Quote Investigator’s own framing of the question notes it “has been attributed to the prominent poet W. H. Auden and the Scottish whisky distiller Thomas Dewar.”

W. H. Auden Misattributed

Auden never wrote this exact sentence. What he wrote — in the essay “The Fabian Figaro” in Commonweal, 23 October 1942, and again in “Squares and Oblongs” in 1948 — was a different wording: “we are all here on earth to help others: what on earth the others are here for, I don’t know.” Wikiquote files a variant of that line — “We are all on earth to help others. What on earth the others are here for, I can’t imagine” — under “Misattributed,” crediting Foster Hall ↗. Quote sites nonetheless run it under his name with no source at all — Goodreads credits it to W. H. Auden with no book given ↗.

John Foster Hall — “The Revd. Vivian Foster, the Vicar of Mirth” The real source of Auden’s line

Edward Mendelson of the W. H. Auden Society identifies the sentence Auden used as one spoken by the English music-hall and radio comedian John Foster Hall (1867–1945) on his 1923 recording The Parson Addresses His Flock. Mendelson writes that Auden “never claimed credit for it” and that the real authorship stayed unknown to Auden scholars until 2002 — read the Auden Society note ↗.

Lord Dewar (Thomas Robert Dewar) Ascribed, not proven

Dewar is where this phrasing enters print, in two 1926 newspaper items — a speech reported in the Bradford Daily Telegraph on 15 March 1926 in the variant form “If we are to help others, I wonder what the others are here for,” and the tighter version in “A Peer’s Epigrams” on 12 June 1926. But Quote Investigator is careful: “he may have used it, but he did not originate it” ↗.

The joke outdates all three men. Its earliest known printing is the 1897 Year Book of the Brookline Education Society ↗, where Harvard professor George Herbert Palmer reports two children arguing about the point of living — and the punchline belongs to a small boy.

Context

Why this one travels so well

The joke is a logic trap dressed as a platitude. Tell someone their purpose is to serve others, and the obvious question is what job that leaves for the others — altruism eating its own tail. That is exactly how it first appears in print: not as an aphorism at all, but as a child’s objection.

In January 1897 the Harvard philosopher George Herbert Palmer (1842–1933) told a Brookline, Massachusetts audience about two children overheard talking at bedtime. The girl said she was here “to help others”; the boy asked, “Well, what are the others here for?” Palmer’s own gloss follows immediately: “This is the weakness of altruism” ↗. For the next thirty years the gag circulated in newspapers as a nursery exchange — Johnny and Little Sister, Willie and Pa, a clergyman and his son.

It started as a child’s objection, became a comedian’s catchphrase, and only then acquired famous authors.

How a nursery gag became a poet’s epigram

The polishing happened in two steps. Around 1923 the English music-hall and radio comedian John Foster Hall (1867–1945), performing as “The Revd. Vivian Foster, the Vicar of Mirth,” put it in an adult’s mouth on the record The Parson Addresses His Flock: “We are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for, I don’t know.” The children are gone; the pulpit does the work.

Three years later a second polish produced the version on this page. Lord Dewar, by then a professional dinner-table wit, was reported delivering it as one epigram among several — “Hope is the undergarment of optimism,” “Life is full of trials, with an occasional conviction.” The tighter, first-person “I often wonder” construction is the one that stuck on quote sites.

Auden comes last, and he comes as a reader. He dropped Foster Hall’s wording into his 1942 essay on Bernard Shaw as a parenthetical aside, and used it again in 1948 in “Squares and Oblongs.” Edward Mendelson notes that Auden never claimed credit for it — but a famous name attached to a good line is hard to detach, and the real source stayed unknown to Auden scholars until a 2002 letter in The Spectator identified it.

Explore

Filed under

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

Purpose Kindness 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: the full chronology, 1897–1954quoteinvestigator.com

The anchor investigation: every dated citation from Palmer’s 1897 lecture through Dewar, Auden and a 1954 newspaper column, with archive references.
Edward Mendelson, “We are all here on earth to help others…”audensociety.org

The W. H. Auden Society traces Auden’s wording to John Foster Hall’s 1923 recording and states Auden never claimed credit.
A Few Things Auden Never Wroteaudensociety.org

Mendelson’s standing list of lines wrongly pinned on Auden — this one included.
Wikiquote: W. H. Auden (Misattributed)en.wikiquote.org

Files the line under Misattributed and credits John Foster Hall (1867–1945), “The Reverend Vivian Foster, Vicar of Mirth.”
Year Book of the Brookline Education Society (1897), p. 16books.google.com

Google Books full view of the earliest printing: Palmer’s two children, and his verdict “This is the weakness of altruism.”
Thomas Dewar, 1st Baron Dewaren.wikipedia.org

Biography of the man the epigram is ascribed to: 6 January 1864 – 11 April 1930, whisky distiller, MP 1900–1906, ennobled 1919.

The man the epigram actually belongs to

Who was Lord Dewar?

Thomas Robert Dewar, 1st Baron Dewar

1864–1930 · Scottish whisky distiller, MP and peer · called in 1927 the “King of Epigrammatists”

Tommy Dewar (6 January 1864 – 11 April 1930) was the salesman half of the Scottish whisky family that built Dewar’s into an international brand, travelling the world to open new markets while his brother John ran the home office. He sat as an MP from 1900 to 1906, was knighted in 1902, made a baronet in 1917, and created Baron Dewar in 1919. He was also a professional wit: by November 1927 Pearson’s Magazine was collecting “The Witty Sayings of Lord Dewar, King of Epigrammatists” — and this line sat among them.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Best available citation

“A Peer’s Epigrams,” Malayan Saturday Post (Singapore), 12 June 1926, p. 19, col. 2, ascribed to Lord Dewar; documented in “Quote Origin: If We Are Here to Help Others, I Often Wonder What the Others Are Here For,” Quote Investigator, 23 April 2014. An earlier variant ascribed to Dewar appeared in the Bradford Daily Telegraph, 15 March 1926, p. 6.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘If We Are Here to Help Others, I Often Wonder What the Others Are Here For’?” Last verified 7 Sep 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/if-we-are-here-to-help-others-i-often-wonder-what-the/

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