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Who really said it

People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day

Not A. A. Milne — an anonymous joke Anonymous (traditional joke) Earliest known printing 1906
Disputed Free to reuse

This is a wandering anonymous quip, not a line from A. A. Milne. Quote Investigator ↗ traced it to a 1906 humor almanac — two decades before the first Winnie-the-Pooh book (1926) — and found no substantive evidence Milne ever used the expression. The wording drifted over the years before being pinned on Pooh in the internet era.

Last verified 10 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day” Anonymous joke, earliest known printing 1906 — not A. A. Milne (per Quote Investigator)

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

Can you use it?

Free to use, including in commercial and paid presentations — no permission or licence needed.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the world of A. A. Milne — English author, creator of Winnie-the-Pooh. Theme: "People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day". 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 "People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day". 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 it actually comes from

Earliest source
The Foolish Almanak For Anuthur Year
Published
1906, John W. Luce & Co., Boston (as by “Theodor Rosyfelt”)
Original wording
“It is said that nothing is impossible; but there are lots of people doing nothing every day.”
Attributed on the web to
A. A. Milne / Winnie-the-Pooh (unsupported)

It is said that nothing is impossible; but there are lots of people doing nothing every day.

The 1906 form of the joke, per Quote Investigator ↗. The modern “People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day” is a later, tightened paraphrase.

Quote Investigator: full investigation

How we verified this

  • 1906: The quip appears in a humor almanac as “It is said that nothing is impossible; but there are lots of people doing nothing every day,” per Quote Investigator ↗.
  • 1968: Evan Esar reprinted a version, still unattributed, in 20,000 Quips and Quotes — documented by Quote Investigator ↗.
  • Modern era: Quote sites such as Goodreads ↗ pin it on “A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh,” a book that does not contain the line.
Public domain

The earliest documented form was printed in 1906 (The Foolish Almanak For Anuthur Year), well before 1931, so that text is in the public domain in the United States. The exact modern wording is an anonymous paraphrase with no identifiable rights holder.

Fact-check

How it got pinned on Pooh

A. A. Milne is one of the internet’s biggest magnets for feel-good misquotes, and this clever one-liner is a textbook case: an old anonymous joke retrofitted onto Winnie-the-Pooh long after the fact.

A. A. Milne / Winnie-the-Pooh Not in the book

The line does not appear in The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh, and the joke predates the 1926 Pooh stories by twenty years. Quote Investigator ↗ found no substantive evidence Milne used the expression.

Alfred E. Neuman (Mad magazine) Also unsupported

A 1997 Associated Press piece linked a form of the gag to Mad’s Alfred E. Neuman, but that too postdates the 1906 printing, per Quote Investigator ↗.

The real origin is an anonymous joke printed in a 1906 humor almanac; it was pinned on Milne only in the internet era, per Quote Investigator ↗.

Context

Why this one sticks to Pooh

Winnie-the-Pooh has become shorthand for gentle, paradoxical wisdom, so a witty line about the virtue (or vice) of “doing nothing” feels like something Pooh would say — which is exactly why it drifts to Milne. The pull is thematic, not textual.

In reality the joke is a pun on two senses of “nothing”: the motivational cliché that nothing is impossible, undercut by the deadpan admission that plenty of people accomplish nothing daily. That structure is a stock gag, printed and reprinted anonymously for over a century.

An old anonymous pun, dressed up in a Pooh costume.

Explore

Filed under

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

Humility 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: full investigationquoteinvestigator.com

Traces the quip to a 1906 almanac and debunks the Milne and Alfred E. Neuman attributions.
A. A. Milne investigationsquoteinvestigator.com

QI’s collected research on quotes wrongly pinned on Milne.
Goodreads (shows the misattribution)goodreads.com

Example of the quote credited to “A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh.”
A. A. Milne (biography)en.wikipedia.org

Background on the real Milne and his actual body of work.
Winnie-the-Pooh (the book)en.wikipedia.org

The 1926 book the quote is falsely sourced to.

Wrongly credited

The name it’s pinned on

A. A. Milne

1882–1956 · English author, creator of Winnie-the-Pooh

Alan Alexander Milne was an English playwright, novelist and poet best known for the Winnie-the-Pooh stories (1926–1928), written for his son Christopher Robin. His gentle, whimsical reputation makes him a frequent target for feel-good misquotes — this joke among them — that appear nowhere in his actual writing.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Earliest source

Earliest documented in The Foolish Almanak For Anuthur Year (Boston: John W. Luce & Co., 1906); origin traced by Garson O’Toole, “People Say Nothing Is Impossible, But I Do Nothing Every Day,” Quote Investigator, March 8, 2013.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day’?” Last verified 10 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/people-say-nothing-is-impossible-but-i-do-nothing-every-day

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