There is no Hemingway source for this sentence. Wikiquote files it under “Disputed” ↗, noting that it is claimed to come from Men Without Women but does not appear in that work, and may have originated in a 2011 blogpost by Marc Chernoff. That post, “30 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself” ↗, does carry the sentence word-for-word as item 4 — unquoted, uncredited, and in the author’s own voice.
“The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too” not Ernest Hemingway. Wikiquote lists it as disputed: it is claimed to come from Men Without Women (1927) but does not appear in that work, and may have originated in Marc Chernoff's blog post "30 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself" (Marc & Angel Hack Life, 11 December 2011), where it appears verbatim as item 4. Verified at quotle.info.
⚠ The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Ernest Hemingway. 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 Marc Chernoff — co-creator of Marc & Angel Hack Life. Theme: "The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too". 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 "The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too". 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 source, as best it can be traced
Traced to
30 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself
Published
Marc & Angel Hack Life (blog); permalink dated 11 December 2011
Position
Item 4 of 30, under the heading “Stop putting your own needs on the back burner”
Claimed source
Men Without Women (1927) — the line does not appear in it
4. Stop putting your own needs on the back burner. — The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too. Yes, help others; but help yourself too.
… (item continues)
A fetch of the live post confirms the sentence appears exactly as circulated. It carries no quotation marks, no attribution and no mention of Hemingway — it reads as the blogger’s own copy.
Wikiquote’s Ernest Hemingway page ↗ lists the sentence under “Disputed”: claimed to be from Men Without Women, but it does not appear in that work; it may have originated in a 2011 blogpost by Marc Chernoff.
Fetching that post ↗ confirms the sentence verbatim as item 4, immediately after the heading “Stop putting your own needs on the back burner.”
On Goodreads, a reader who bought the Men Without Women ebook asked where the passage was ↗; the reply was that it is not in the book, with a pointer to marcandangel.com.
This is modern text, not a pre-1931 literary work, so nothing here is public domain. If the line is Marc Chernoff’s — the origin Wikiquote points to, and the earliest appearance we could confirm by fetching — copyright rests with him as the author of the 2011 blog post. Because Wikiquote hedges (“may have originated”), treat the rights holder as probable rather than settled; either way the sentence is 21st-century writing and in copyright.
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
How it got pinned on Hemingway
The line circulates almost everywhere with a book attached, which is what makes it convincing — and the book is the part that falls apart first.
✕
The authorErnest Hemingway Wikiquote: Disputed
Wikiquote’s Ernest Hemingway page ↗ places the sentence in its “Disputed” section and records that it may have originated in a 2011 blogpost by Marc Chernoff. No Hemingway novel, story, letter or interview containing the wording has been produced.
✕
The sourceMen Without Women (1927) Not in the book
✓The best-supported account is the simplest one: it is the fourth item on a self-help list, where it reads “Stop putting your own needs on the back burner” ↗ — and the sentence follows as the writer’s own.
Context
Why this one stuck to Hemingway
Hemingway (1899–1961) is one of the internet’s most reliable magnets for sentences he never wrote — the Hemingway Society keeps a page ↗ about the problem, and found that of a batch of twenty-two circulating “Hemingway” quotations, only about half could actually be attributed to him. His name confers gravity on anything short and wounded-sounding.
This line, though, is not built like Hemingway. It is a compound sentence of abstractions — the most painful thing, losing yourself, you are special too — where his published prose leans on concrete nouns and flat declaratives. The tell is the last clause: “you are special too” is the vocabulary of twenty-first-century self-esteem writing, and that is precisely where a fetch of the source lands it.
“Stop putting your own needs on the back burner” is a blog subhead, not a line from a 1927 short-story collection.
A reader who went looking did the obvious thing: bought the ebook and searched it ↗, asking on Goodreads for the passage and chapter. The answer came back that the line is not in the book, with a pointer to marcandangel.com.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
Florida-based self-help writer · co-creator of Marc & Angel Hack Life
Marc Chernoff writes the personal-development blog Marc & Angel Hack Life with his wife, Angel Chernoff. Penguin Random House ↗ describes the pair as New York Times-bestselling authors of Getting Back to Happy and creators of the blog, “which was recognized by Forbes as ‘one of the most popular personal development blogs.’” Their stock-in-trade is exactly the register this sentence is written in: short, second-person, list-shaped encouragement.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Best available source
Traced by Wikiquote to Marc Chernoff, “30 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself,” Marc & Angel Hack Life (blog), December 11, 2011, https://www.marcandangel.com/2011/12/11/30-things-to-stop-doing-to-yourself/. Not found in Ernest Hemingway, Men Without Women (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1927).
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too’?” Last verified 4 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-most-painful-thing-is-losing-yourself-in-the-process-of/