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Who really said it

The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources

Not Coco Chanel — the idea traces to C. E. M. Joad C. E. M. Joad 1891–1953 · English philosopher & BBC broadcaster
Disputed Rights unconfirmed

Coco Chanel is one of several famous names this line has been pinned on, but there is no evidence she said it. Per Quote Investigator, the earliest ancestor is a 1926 remark by philosopher C. E. M. Joad — “the height of originality is skill in concealing origins” — reworded over decades. This exact modern wording only appears in 1989, attributed to Einstein; the Chanel credit surfaced later still. So the idea is Joad’s, but the exact sentence is an anonymous 20th-century paraphrase no famous figure is documented to have spoken.

Last verified 8 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources” Misattributed to Coco Chanel. The idea traces to philosopher C. E. M. Joad (1926); the exact modern wording is a 1989 paraphrase first pinned on Einstein. — Quotle.info

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

Can you use it?

We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

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In context

Evoking the world of C. E. M. Joad — English philosopher & BBC broadcaster. Theme: "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources". 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 "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources". 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

Popularly credited to
Coco Chanel (also Einstein, Tom Ford)
Earliest ancestor
C. E. M. Joad, The Babbitt Warren (1926)
Exact wording first seen
1989 Usenet post, attributed to Einstein
Verdict
Misattributed — an evolved paraphrase

Whereas in Europe the height of originality is genius, in America the height of originality is skill in concealing origins.

C. E. M. Joad’s 1926 formulation — the earliest documented ancestor — as quoted in a New Republic review (9 March 1927). The familiar “secret to creativity…hide your sources” wording is a much later paraphrase.

Quote Investigator: full chronology

How the line evolved

  • 1926: Philosopher C. E. M. Joad writes that in America “the height of originality is skill in concealing origins,” per Quote Investigator — the root of the saying.
  • 1985–89: The line drifts toward “creativity is the art of concealing your sources” (Nolan Bushnell, 1985) and finally the exact modern wording, attributed to Einstein in a 1989 Usenet post — 34 years after Einstein’s death.
  • 2012: Designer Tom Ford tells the New York Times, “Coco Chanel said that creativity is the art of concealing your sources,” adding the Chanel credit, as documented by QI.
  • Chanel’s own Wikiquote page does not list this line at all, consistent with an attribution she never earned.

The exact wording — “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources” — first appears in an anonymous 1989 Usenet post with no identifiable author, so no copyright status can be responsibly asserted for it. Its 1926 ancestor by C. E. M. Joad is a distinct, earlier text; this modern paraphrase is not Chanel’s and is not tied to any datable published work of hers.

Fact-check

Often misattributed

This is a textbook “wandering quotation”: a real idea from an obscure philosopher, reworded across decades and repeatedly re-credited to whoever sounds most quotable.

Coco Chanel Not documented

The Chanel credit appears to stem from designer Tom Ford, who told the New York Times in 2012, “Coco Chanel said that creativity is the art of concealing your sources,” per Quote Investigator. No primary source ties the line to Chanel, and it is absent from her Wikiquote page.

Albert Einstein Misattributed

The exact modern wording was first attributed to Einstein in a 1989 Usenet post — 34 years after his death — and it does not appear in The Ultimate Quotable Einstein.

The genuine origin is philosopher C. E. M. Joad’s 1926 observation that “the height of originality is skill in concealing origins,” which evolved into the familiar line, as traced by Quote Investigator.

Context

A quote that proves its own point

The delicious irony, noted by more than one commentator, is that a maxim about hiding your sources has itself become unmoored from its source. The thought belongs to a now-obscure philosopher, C. E. M. Joad, yet it circulates under the names of the era’s most quotable celebrities — Einstein, and then Coco Chanel.

A quote about concealing sources that successfully concealed its own.

Explore

Filed under

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

Creativity

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.

The Secret to Creativity… (full investigation)quoteinvestigator.com

Garson O’Toole’s detailed chronology tracing the line to C. E. M. Joad (1926) and through its Einstein and Chanel misattributions.
Coco Chanelen.wikiquote.org

Wikiquote’s sourced Chanel page — which does not list this line, consistent with a misattribution.
C. E. M. Joaden.wikipedia.org

Biography of the philosopher and broadcaster whose 1926 remark is the earliest ancestor of the saying.
C. E. M. Joad (biography)britannica.com

Encyclopaedia Britannica profile confirming Joad’s dates, philosophy career, and Brains Trust fame.
Coco Chanel categoryquoteinvestigator.com

Quote Investigator’s index of Chanel-attributed sayings it has examined.

The true source

About C. E. M. Joad

C. E. M. Joad

1891–1953 · English philosopher & BBC broadcaster

Cyril Edwin Mitchinson Joad (1891–1953) was an English philosopher and popular author who became a household name as a panelist on the BBC wartime radio programme The Brains Trust, famous for the catchphrase “It all depends what you mean by…” His 1926 book The Babbitt Warren, a critique of American culture, contained the observation about “skill in concealing origins” that is the earliest documented ancestor of this quotation.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Quote Investigator

Garson O’Toole, “The Secret to Creativity Is Knowing How to Hide Your Sources,” Quote Investigator, 1 June 2014; tracing C. E. M. Joad, The Babbitt Warren (London: Kegan Paul, 1926), as quoted in The New Republic, 9 March 1927.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources’?” Last verified 8 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-secret-to-creativity-is-knowing-how-to-hide-your-sources

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