The joke is real, the comedian is not. Wikipedia’s article on Sir Ernest Benn ↗ carries the sentence in the form “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it wrongly and applying unsuitable remedies”, citing Henry Powell Spring’s What is Truth? (Orange Press, 1944), p. 31, and the Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations (4th edition, 2010), p. 27. The same article notes that a paraphrase of Benn’s line has been attributed to Groucho. Wikiquote ↗ files the Groucho version under Misattributed and reaches the same place from the other direction.
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies” Sir Ernest Benn, not Groucho Marx. The wording above is the popular paraphrase; Benn's own is documented in Henry Powell Spring, What is Truth? (1944), p. 31. Via quotle.info · Verbatim: “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it wrongly and applying unsuitable remedies.”
⚠ The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Groucho Marx. Use the credit shown above instead.
Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool
In context
Evoking the world of Sir Ernest Benn — British publisher, writer and political publicist. Theme: "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies". 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 "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies". 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
Popular credit
Groucho Marx — listed under Misattributed on Wikiquote
Actual author
Sir Ernest Benn (1875–1954), British publisher and political publicist
Documented in
Henry Powell Spring, What is Truth? (Orange Press, 1944), p. 31
Also collected in
Lend Me Your Ears: Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations, ed. Anthony Jay, 4th edition (Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 27
Earliest Groucho credit found
Bennett Cerf’s syndicated column “Try and Stop Me”, 9 November 1964 — per Wikiquote
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it wrongly and applying unsuitable remedies.
This is the wording the reference works carry, and it differs from the version in circulation: Benn has wrongly and unsuitable remedies where the popular Groucho form has incorrectly and the wrong remedies. The shape of the joke — four escalating failures in one sentence — is identical, which is why the two are plainly the same line rather than two people arriving at it independently.
Wikipedia’s Ernest Benn article ↗ quotes the sentence in its Quotes section and footnotes it to two sources: the original in Henry Powell Spring, What is Truth? (Orange Press, 1944), p. 31, and its reprinting in Anthony Jay’s Lend Me Your Ears: Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations, 4th edition (Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 27. The same article adds, unprompted, that “a paraphrased variation of Benn’s quote has been attributed to Groucho Marx”.
Wikiquote’s Groucho Marx page ↗ places the line in its Misattributed section and records the same Benn attribution for the variant wording, citing Spring’s 1944 book at the same page. Two independent Wikimedia articles, written for different subjects, therefore point at one 1944 volume.
Wikiquote also traces where the Groucho credit came from: Bennett Cerf attributed the line to Marx in his syndicated column “Try and Stop Me” on 9 November 1964. Cerf was a compulsive anecdote collector, and Wikiquote notes the attribution appears in neither his 1944 book of the same name ↗ nor Bennett Cerf’s Bumper Crop (1958) ↗ — so it surfaced in the column, not in the books that preceded it.
The line has kept travelling under the wrong name. Wikiquote records Rand Paul crediting it to Marx in Taking a Stand (Center Street, 2015), p. 5, and Wikipedia cites David Brown’s The World According to Groucho Marx (Michael O’Mara, 2002), p. 131 for a further reworded Groucho version.
Benn died in 1954, and the earliest publication of the wording that either reference work actually names is Henry Powell Spring’s What is Truth? of 1944 — comfortably inside the modern copyright term in the United States, where anything first published from 1931 onward is treated as protected. Wikiquote mentions a report of an earlier appearance in the Springfield Republican of 27 July 1930, which would change the picture, but flags it as needing a citation and gives none; we have not been able to see it, so it is not relied on 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
Often misattributed
A tidy four-beat joke about politics, wearing the wrong name for sixty years.
✕
Credited as the authorGroucho Marx Wrong person
Wikiquote ↗ lists the line under Misattributed for Marx. Wikipedia ↗ states from the other side that the Groucho version is “a paraphrased variation of Benn’s quote”. No source places the sentence in anything Marx wrote, said on air, or performed.
✓
Who actually wrote itSir Ernest Benn The real author
Documented in Henry Powell Spring’s What is Truth? (1944), p. 31 and carried in the Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations, 4th edition (2010), p. 27. Benn was a publisher and political pamphleteer, and the line reads as one of his — an argument compressed into a joke.
~
How the name got swappedBennett Cerf, in 1964 Popularizer, not author
Wikiquote dates the earliest Groucho attribution to Cerf’s syndicated column “Try and Stop Me” on 9 November 1964, and records that it appears in neither Cerf’s 1944 book of that title ↗ nor his 1958 Bumper Crop ↗. A widely syndicated humour column is exactly the machine that moves a line from an unfamous author to a famous one.
✓The sentence belongs to Sir Ernest Benn ↗, a British publisher who died in 1954, and it was in print under his name in 1944 — two decades before anyone put it in Groucho’s mouth.
Context
Why it mattered
The joke works because it is a diagnosis, not a grumble. Each clause is a separate professional failure — the seeking, the finding, the misreading, the mistreatment — and stacking them turns generic cynicism into something that sounds like a clinical note. That structure is why it survives being reworded: you can swap “wrongly” for “incorrectly” and it still lands.
It is also why it drifted. Benn was a publisher known to people who read political pamphlets; Groucho was known to everyone. A line this quotable does not stay attached to the less famous of two plausible names, and the 1964 column that made the swap was read by far more people than the 1944 book that recorded the truth.
Four failures in one sentence — which is why it survives being reworded.
Read the full story
There is a loose end worth stating plainly. Wikiquote mentions a report that the line first appeared in the Springfield Republican on 27 July 1930 — fourteen years before the book that documents it — but tags the claim as needing a citation and supplies none. If that citation is ever produced it would push the line earlier without changing whose it is; until then it is a lead, not a fact, and we have left it out of the record above.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1875–1954 · British publisher, writer and political publicist
Sir Ernest John Pickstone Benn, 2nd Baronet, built the publishing house Benn Brothers out of his father’s trade journals and spent his later life as a combative pamphleteer for individualism and against state economic control. He came from one of Britain’s most political families — brother of the Labour politician William Wedgwood Benn and uncle of Tony Benn — and argued the opposite case to most of them, in books such as Confessions of a Capitalist (1925). The epigram that keeps escaping to Groucho is very much his register: a professional controversialist’s dry summary of the trade he spent decades attacking.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
The primary source (Chicago)
Sir Ernest Benn, quoted in Henry Powell Spring, What is Truth? (Winter Park, Fla.: Orange Press, 1944), 31; reprinted in Anthony Jay, ed., Lend Me Your Ears: Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations, 4th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 27. Attribution to Groucho Marx traced by Wikiquote no earlier than Bennett Cerf’s syndicated column “Try and Stop Me”, 9 November 1964.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies’?” Last verified 12 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/politics-is-the-art-of-looking-for-trouble-finding-it/