If you seek revenge, you should dig two graves, one for yourself
Not Jeff Bezos — he was quoting a proverbAnonymous — a Japanese proverbEarliest known English printing 1876, in a proverb list recorded by William Elliot Griffis (1843–1928)
Bezos really did say a near-identical sentence out loud — on stage at the Code Conference on 31 May 2016, asked about Peter Thiel’s funding of the Hulk Hogan suit against Gawker — but he introduced it as a borrowed line and openly doubted the Confucius credit attached to it. The earliest documented ancestor Quote Investigator can find is a Japanese proverb about curses, not revenge, printed in William Elliot Griffis’s The Mikado’s Empire (1876); the revenge wording is a later English rewording whose author is unknown.
“If you seek revenge, you should dig two graves, one for yourself” Not Jeff Bezos. "If you seek revenge, you should dig two graves, one for yourself" is a reworded proverb with no known author. Its earliest known English form — "If you call down a curse on any one, look out for two graves" — appears as a Japanese proverb in William Elliot Griffis, The Mikado's Empire (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1876), 511. Bezos quoted the modern version at the Code Conference on 31 May 2016 and said himself he doubted the Confucius credit. — Quotle.info
⚠ The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Jeff Bezos. Use the credit shown above instead.
Can you use it?
? We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.
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In context
Evoking the themes of wisdom, justice and kindness. Theme: "If you seek revenge, you should dig two graves, one for yourself". 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 oldest version anyone can point to
Earliest known printing
The Mikado’s Empire
Recorded by
William Elliot Griffis, Harper & Brothers, New York, 1876
Where
Book II, chapter 14, “Japanese Proverbs” — quote page 511, per Quote Investigator
What Bezos did
Quoted the modern revenge wording at the Code Conference, 31 May 2016
Adapt the preaching to the hearer.
If you call down a curse on any one, look out for two graves. (“Curses, like young chickens, always come home to roost.”)
Japanese proverb, 1876
As it stands in Griffis’s list of Japanese proverbs, with his English gloss in parentheses and the neighbouring entry for context. Note what is missing: the word revenge.
How a curse became a revenge quote — and then a CEO’s
1876 — Griffis prints it as a Japanese proverb about curses, not revenge, in his chapter of Japanese sayings: “If you call down a curse on any one, look out for two graves” (1876 first edition, Internet Archive ↗).
1915 — the revenge form surfaces in Peloubet’s Select Notes, still credited to Griffis and still called Japanese: “If you would revenge yourself, dig two graves” (transcribed by Quote Investigator ↗).
Mid-twentieth century — the proverb is relabelled Chinese, and eventually Confucian; Wikiquote now lists the revenge wording under its “Not Chinese” misattribution heading (Wikiquote ↗).
31 May 2016 — Bezos quotes it at the Code Conference when asked about Peter Thiel and Gawker, hedging the Confucius credit as he goes (Fortune, 1 June 2016 ↗).
Two different things here. Griffis’s 1876 Mikado’s Empire was published long before 1931 and is public domain — you can quote its curse wording freely. But the modern revenge wording on this page has no identified author or first publication: the closest documented utterance is Bezos speaking it aloud in 2016 while crediting it to someone else, so we assert no copyright status for this exact sentence rather than guess at one.
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 separate things went wrong here
This sentence has been re-credited at almost every step: the wrong speaker, the wrong philosopher, and the wrong country.
✕
The speakerJeff Bezos quoting, not coining
He did say it — at the Code Conference on 31 May 2016, asked about Peter Thiel funding the Hulk Hogan suit against Gawker — but as a borrowed line. Quote Investigator transcribes him as saying “It’s attributed to Confucius. Who knows if it’s really Confucius or not” before delivering it (Quote Investigator ↗).
✕
The philosopherConfucius not in his works
Quote Investigator reports that researchers have been unable to find the statement in the writings of Confucius, and Wikiquote files the revenge form under its “Not Chinese” misattribution heading (Wikiquote ↗).
✕
The country“Ancient Chinese proverb” actually Japanese
English sources from 1876 through 1915 present it as Japanese; Quote Investigator’s chronology shows it being printed as Chinese from a 1951 newspaper column onward (Quote Investigator ↗).
✓The oldest form anyone has documented is not about revenge at all: “If you call down a curse on any one, look out for two graves” — a Japanese proverb in Griffis’s The Mikado’s Empire, 1876 ↗. Who first swapped the curse for revenge is unknown.
Context
Why this one keeps changing hands
A proverb with no owner is free to drift, and this one drifted twice. It began in English as a caution about cursing a neighbour — Griffis glossed it with the homely English equivalent about curses coming home to roost — and only later hardened into a line about revenge. Then its passport changed: sources from the 1870s to the 1910s call it Japanese; by the mid-twentieth century it is being printed as Chinese, and from there the leap to Confucius is short.
Bezos did not start any of that. Asked on stage in 2016 what he made of one billionaire quietly bankrolling a lawsuit to destroy a publisher, he reached for the proverb precisely because it was old and ownerless — and said in the same breath that he had no idea whether Confucius really said it. The internet kept the sentence and dropped the caveat, which is how a borrowed line becomes a “Jeff Bezos quote.”
He quoted it, hedged it, and still ended up owning it.
What Bezos actually said, word for word
Quote Investigator transcribes the moment from Recode’s video of the session as: “It’s attributed to Confucius. Who knows if it’s really Confucius or not, but: ‘Seek revenge and you should dig two graves, one for yourself’.”
Contemporary write-ups rendered the borrowed sentence slightly differently — Fortune printed “Seek revenge and you should dig two graves—one for yourself”, while the Business Insider report syndicated by Yahoo has “Seek revenge and you will dig two graves — one for yourself”. The popular “If you seek revenge…” form circulating today is another step away again.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1843–1928 · American orientalist, minister & author · in Japan 1870–1874
Griffis went to Japan in September 1870, served as Superintendent of Education in Echizen and taught chemistry and physics at the school that became Tokyo Imperial University, leaving in 1874. His 1876 book The Mikado’s Empire devoted a chapter to Japanese proverbs, and it is there that the oldest known English form of the two-graves saying appears — as a warning about calling down a curse. He is the recorder, not the author: he presented the line as a proverb already in circulation, and the modern “revenge” phrasing is not his.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Earliest documented source
William Elliot Griffis, The Mikado’s Empire, Book II, chap. 14, “Japanese Proverbs” (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1876), 511 — earliest known English form, per Quote Investigator, “Quote Origin: If You Seek Revenge You Should Dig Two Graves” (7 July 2019). Modern wording of unknown authorship; quoted by Jeff Bezos at the Code Conference, 31 May 2016.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘If you seek revenge, you should dig two graves, one for yourself’?” Last verified 30 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/if-you-seek-revenge-you-should-dig-two-graves-one-for/