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Who really said it

Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the wrong. Sometime in life you will have been all of these

Not Gautama Buddha — actually Lloyd Shearer Lloyd Shearer 1916–2001 · American celebrity columnist, “Walter Scott’s Personality Parade”
Disputed In copyright

The exact wording was crafted by columnist Lloyd Shearer, writing under his pen name “Walter Scott,” and first published as a set of New Year’s resolutions on the front of Parade magazine on 30 December 1973. Quote Investigator found no Buddhist source for the line, which only began circulating under Buddha’s name around 2013.

Last verified 14 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the wrong. Sometime in life you will have been all of these” Actually Lloyd Shearer ("Walter Scott"), Parade magazine, 30 December 1973 — not Buddha

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

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by Estate of Lloyd Shearer / Parade Publications). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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

In context

Evoking the world of Lloyd Shearer — American journalist & celebrity columnist. Theme: "Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the wrong. Sometime in life you will have been all of these". 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 "Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the wrong. Sometime in life you will have been all of these". 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 documented source

Author
Lloyd Shearer (as “Walter Scott”)
First published
Parade magazine, 30 December 1973
Form
A numbered list of New Year’s resolutions on the cover
Misattributed to
Gautama Buddha (from c. 2013), George Washington Carver, Ann Landers, and others

Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the wrong. Sometime in life you will have been all of these.

The wording published by Quote Investigator from the 1973 Parade printing. Numerous later variants swap “of the weak and the wrong” for “with the weak and wrong” or open with “How far you go in life depends on…”

Quote Investigator: full investigation and 1973 citation

How we verified this

  • Quote Investigator dates the complete expression to Parade magazine, 30 December 1973, and concludes Lloyd Shearer “assembled the resolutions and should be credited with crafting the full expression.”
  • The 1973 printing carried a copyright notice in the name “Walter Scott,” Shearer’s established pen name for “Walter Scott’s Personality Parade”.
  • Fake Buddha Quotes confirms nothing in the Buddhist canon resembles this line, though it is printed as Buddha’s in at least two books.
  • Competing later ascriptions — George Washington Carver (a 1982 advertisement) and Ann Landers (1986) — all post-date the 1973 Parade printing, per Quote Investigator.
In copyright

The exact wording was first published in Parade magazine in 1973 under a “Walter Scott” copyright notice, so in the United States it remains in copyright; the ancient idea of compassion is public, but this specific 20th-century formulation is not.

Fact-check

How Buddha got the credit

This is a 20th-century American magazine line, not an ancient teaching. It has been pinned on several famous names, all after its true 1973 debut.

Gautama Buddha No canonical source

The line began circulating under Buddha’s name only around 2013 and appears in at least two books, but nothing in the Buddhist canon resembles this wording.

George Washington Carver Post-dates the original

Widely credited to Carver (often as “How far you go in life depends on…”), but the earliest Carver ascription is a 1982 advertisement — nearly a decade after Shearer’s 1973 printing.

Ann Landers Reprinted, not authored

Ann Landers ran the resolutions in 1986 as a reader submission without attribution, which helped spread the saying without crediting Shearer.

The complete expression was crafted by Lloyd Shearer (“Walter Scott”) and first published in Parade on 30 December 1973, per Quote Investigator.

Context

Why it spread

The saying has the cadence of scripture — balanced clauses, a turn at the end — which makes it easy to imagine on the lips of a sage. But it was written to fit the front of a Sunday newspaper supplement as one of a set of New Year’s resolutions.

Once the wording detached from Parade, it drifted onto whichever famous name a poster preferred: a scientist, an advice columnist, and eventually the Buddha — the internet’s favorite anonymous-wisdom magnet.

A 1973 newspaper resolution, not an ancient sermon.

Explore

Filed under

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

Kindness Wisdom

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 Origin: Resolve To Be Tender with the Youngquoteinvestigator.com

The definitive investigation tracing the line to Lloyd Shearer and Parade, 1973.
Fake Buddha Quotes: this sayingfakebuddhaquotes.com

Explains why the line is not in the Buddhist canon despite being printed as Buddha’s.
Lloyd Shearer (Wikipedia)en.wikipedia.org

Biography of the columnist behind the “Walter Scott” pen name.
Walter Scott’s Personality Parade (Wikipedia)en.wikipedia.org

Background on the Parade column and the “Walter Scott” pseudonym.

The real author

Lloyd Shearer

Lloyd Shearer

1916–2001 · American journalist & celebrity columnist

Lloyd “Skip” Shearer (1916–2001) was an American celebrity journalist who, under the pen name Walter Scott, wrote the syndicated Q&A feature Walter Scott’s Personality Parade in Parade magazine from 1958 to 1991. It was in that role, in a 1973 New Year’s cover feature, that he composed the list of resolutions now widely misattributed to the Buddha.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The primary source (Chicago)

Walter Scott [Lloyd Shearer], New Year’s resolutions, Parade magazine (30 December 1973); traced in Garson O’Toole, “Resolve To Be Tender with the Young and Compassionate with the Aged,” Quote Investigator (22 December 2014).

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the wrong. Sometime in life you will have been all of these’?” Last verified 14 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/resolve-to-be-tender-with-the-young-compassionate-with-the

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