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Who really said it

Pride goeth before a fall

Not a Bible verse — a truncation of Proverbs 16:18 The Book of Proverbs (King James Version) Proverbs 16:18 · King James Version, first published 1611
Disputed Free to reuse

The thought is genuinely biblical and the verb is genuinely King James — but the sentence is not scripture. Proverbs 16:18 in the KJV reads in full: “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” The familiar one-liner keeps ‘Pride goeth’ from the first clause and ‘a fall’ from the second, dropping ‘destruction’ and the ‘haughty spirit’ that connects them. No major English translation prints the short form as a verse: it appears in none of the versions Bible Hub lists.

Last verified 27 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Pride goeth before a fall” Proverbs 16:18, King James Version (1611): "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall." The popular short form "Pride goeth before a fall" appears in none of the English translations Bible Hub lists — it is a truncation of that verse.

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In context

Evoking the world of The Book of Proverbs — wisdom literature traditionally ascribed to King Solomon. Theme: "Pride goeth before a fall". 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 "Pride goeth before a fall". 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 verse behind the half-quote

Nearest verse
Proverbs 16:18
Translation
King James Version, first published 1611
Actual KJV wording
“Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”
Popular form
A truncation — ‘Pride goeth’ from the first clause, ‘a fall’ from the second. Printed in none of the English translations Bible Hub lists.

The highway of the upright is to depart from evil: he that keepeth his way preserveth his soul. Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud. Proverbs 16:17–19, King James Version

Verse 18 is a two-part parallelism, and the surrounding verses frame it as a lesson in humility. The popular one-liner takes the subject and verb of the first half and the object of the second, discarding ‘destruction’ and the ‘haughty spirit’ that link them.

Proverbs 16 in the King James Version (Wikisource)

How we verified this

  • Read the verse in full. The King James text of Proverbs 16 gives verse 18 as “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall” — the archaic verb is real, but it precedes ‘destruction,’ not ‘a fall.’
  • Checked whether any translation shortens it. The parallel-translation table at Bible Hub lists the KJV, ESV and NIV all retaining both clauses; none reads simply “Pride goeth before a fall.”
  • Checked the proverb’s etymology. Wiktionary’s entry for this exact form defines it only as an alternative form of ‘pride comes before a fall,’ whose main entry gives the etymology “Probably a truncation of Proverbs 16:18” and quotes the 1611 printing as “Pride goeth before destruction: and an hautie spirit before a fall.”
  • Checked the phrase historians. Phrase Finder states that “neither version is exactly as the proverb was originally written,” tracing the line to Proverbs 16:18 and quoting Wycliffe’s Bible of 1382 and the Coverdale Bible of 1535. Quote Investigator has no article on this phrase, and Wikiquote carries no sourced or misattributed entry for it.
Public domain

The source text is Proverbs 16:18 in the King James Version, first published in 1611 and long in the public domain in the United States. The shortened proverb is an anonymous folk form with no identifiable author, and the wordings it descends from — Wycliffe 1382, Coverdale 1535, the 1611 KJV — all pre-date 1931 by centuries, so nothing here carries a live copyright in the United States. One curiosity of provenance: the KJV translation is not free everywhere — Wikipedia records its copyright status as perpetually copyrighted in the United Kingdom, where it is published under royal letters patent, and de facto public domain elsewhere.

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

It sounds like a verse because it borrows the Bible’s verb

People quote “Pride goeth before a fall” as chapter and verse, often with the archaic ‘goeth’ offered as proof. The idea is scriptural; the sentence is not.

The Bible not a verse

None of the standard English translations prints it. The King James text of Proverbs 16:18 reads “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall,” and the parallel-translation table at Bible Hub shows the KJV, ESV and NIV all keeping both clauses — and no listed version reading simply “Pride goeth before a fall.” (Some modern paraphrases do condense the verse: the Contemporary English Version reduces it to “Too much pride will destroy you.”)

The King James Version borrowed

‘Goeth’ is authentic KJV vocabulary, which is why this variant feels the most scriptural of the three. But in the verse it governs ‘destruction’ — pride goeth before destruction. ‘A fall’ belongs to the second clause, where the subject is the haughty spirit (KJV, Proverbs 16).

English folk usage truncation

Wiktionary lists ‘pride goeth before a fall’ as an alternative form of the proverb whose etymology it gives as “Probably a truncation of Proverbs 16:18” (Wiktionary). Phrase Finder puts it plainly: “neither version is exactly as the proverb was originally written” (Phrase Finder).

The genuine text is Proverbs 16:18 in the King James Version — “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall” — as printed in the KJV text of Proverbs.

Context

Why this version fools people most

Of the several folk forms of this proverb — ‘goes before a fall,’ ‘comes before a fall,’ ‘goeth before a fall’ — the ‘goeth’ version is the one that sounds unanswerably scriptural, because ‘goeth’ really is the King James verb. The trick is that in the actual verse it governs the wrong noun: pride goeth before destruction. ‘A fall’ is what the second half of the couplet gives to the haughty spirit.

Proverbs is built from tight two-part parallelisms, and repetition wears them down to their most vivid halves. Here the memorable pairing is ‘pride’ and ‘a fall,’ so the connective terms fell away and the archaic verb stayed behind — leaving a sentence that carries the cadence and authority of the King James Bible without appearing in it.

Half of one clause, half of the next, and an archaic verb doing the work of a citation.

Read the full story

The wording has been in motion for a long time. Phrase Finder quotes Wycliffe’s Bible of 1382 rendering the verse “Pride goth befor contricioun, & befor falling the spirit shall ben enhauncid,” and the Coverdale Bible of 1535 at Proverbs 29:23 reading “After pryde commeth a fall, but a lowly sprete bryngeth greate worshipe” — a separate verse that nonetheless supplied the ‘pride…a fall’ pairing in plain English.

For the modern short form, Phrase Finder’s Gary Martin reports the earliest citation he could find of “pride comes before a fall” in John Gill’s An Exposition of the Old Testament, 1810, and adds that the expression was probably current before then. That is his finding for the ‘comes’ variant specifically; no comparable first-print date is documented for the ‘goeth before a fall’ form, and none is claimed here.

Grammarist describes the same drift — the King James ‘goeth’ wording morphing into ‘pride goes before a fall’ and then ‘pride comes before a fall’ — and notes all three are in current use.

Explore

Filed under

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

Humility Failure Character

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.

Proverbs 16 (King James Version)en.wikisource.org

The full KJV chapter text. Verse 18 reads “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”
Proverbs 16:18 — parallel translationsbiblehub.com

KJV, ESV and NIV renderings side by side with the Hebrew. No listed translation reads simply “Pride goeth before a fall.”
Pride comes before a fall — Phrase Finderwww.phrases.org.uk

Gary Martin on the proverb’s origin: neither popular version matches the verse, with Wycliffe 1382 and Coverdale 1535 renderings and an 1810 citation for the ‘comes’ form.
Wiktionary: pride comes before a fallen.wiktionary.org

Etymology — “Probably a truncation of Proverbs 16:18” — plus the 1611 printing and a list of alternative forms including ‘pride goeth before a fall.’
Grammarist: pride comes / goeth before a fallgrammarist.com

Traces the drift from the King James ‘goeth’ wording to ‘goes before a fall’ and then ‘comes before a fall.’
Book of Proverbs (Wikipedia)en.wikipedia.org

Background on the wisdom book containing the verse: traditional ascription to Solomon, its status as a “collection of collections,” and its couplet form.

The source behind the saying

Where the idea actually comes from

The Book of Proverbs

Book of the Hebrew Bible · wisdom literature traditionally ascribed to King Solomon

The Book of Proverbs is a collection of Hebrew wisdom sayings in the Old Testament. Wikipedia describes it as traditionally ascribed to King Solomon and his students, while noting that it is in scholarly terms a “collection of collections” assembled over a long period, with its superscriptions serving to categorise content rather than to attribute authorship. Its characteristic form is the two-part couplet — a statement answered by a parallel statement — and Proverbs 16:18 is exactly that: pride → destruction, answered by haughty spirit → a fall. That structure is precisely what everyday speech tends to collapse, which is how the half-verse everyone quotes came to exist.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

The Holy Bible, King James Version (London, 1611), Proverbs 16:18: “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” The short form “Pride goeth before a fall” appears in none of the English translations Bible Hub lists; Wiktionary describes the proverb as probably a truncation of this verse.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Pride goeth before a fall’?” Last verified 27 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/pride-goeth-before-a-fall/

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