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Who really said it

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places

Misquoted — the real line says ‘many,’ not ‘some’ Ernest Hemingway 1899–1961 · American novelist & short-story writer
Disputed Free to reuse

Hemingway did write this passage — in A Farewell to Arms (1929) — but the actual sentence reads “the world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places,” not “some.” The popular online version swaps that one word and is usually clipped before the darker sentence that follows it in the novel.

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

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Disputed — copy with the correction

“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places” Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms (1929) — the original wording is "many," not "some," are strong at the broken places.

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Provenance

The source

Work
A Farewell to Arms
Published
1929 · Charles Scribner's Sons, New York
Location
Book Four, Chapter XXXIV (34)
Genuine wording
“...afterward many are strong at the broken places.”

If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry. Book Four, Chapter XXXIV

This is Hemingway's actual wording, transcribed from the novel. The version beginning “some are strong” that circulates online is a later paraphrase, not the original text.

1929 first-edition-text scan
A Farewell to Arms on the Internet Archive
A Farewell to Arms, 1929 — Internet Archive scan

How we verified this

  • Frederic Henry's musing appears in Book Four, Chapter XXXIV of A Farewell to Arms (1929), shortly after he and Catherine reunite in Stresa.
  • Wikiquote's entry for Hemingway lists the passage among the novel's genuine quotes, giving the original wording “many are strong at the broken places” — see Wikiquote ↗.
  • A 2017 essay tracing the quote's drift documents how “many” became “some” online, and how the line was later spliced with a Leonard Cohen lyric; see whatwouldbaledo.com ↗.
  • Independent quote-reference transcriptions at Quotepark ↗ and Quotes.net ↗ both give “many,” not “some.”
Public domain

A Farewell to Arms was first published in 1929 by Charles Scribner's Sons. Under the U.S. 95-year rule, 1929 publications entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2025, so the novel itself is public domain — though the exact wording popularly shared online (“some” rather than “many”) is not Hemingway's original text.

Fact-check

Often misattributed

The idea and the passage are genuinely Hemingway's, but the wording that circulates online has drifted from what he actually wrote — and it is sometimes spliced with an unrelated quote entirely.

The ‘some’ variant Misquoted word

The widely shared version reads “...afterward some are strong at the broken places,” but Hemingway's actual text says “many are strong at the broken places” — confirmed by Wikiquote ↗ and independently catalogued by a 2017 quote-tracing essay ↗.

The Leonard Cohen mashup Fabricated hybrid

A related fabrication, “We are all broken — that's how the light gets in,” blends this Hemingway passage with Leonard Cohen's “Anthem” lyric (“There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in”) and presents the hybrid as a single Hemingway quote; see whatwouldbaledo.com ↗.

The stripped context Tone reversed

Motivational reposts almost always end at “strong at the broken places,” omitting Hemingway's very next sentence — “But those that will not break it kills” — which turns an uplifting-sounding line into a much grimmer statement about who survives; see the full passage transcribed at Quotes.net ↗.

Hemingway really wrote this passage in A Farewell to Arms (1929) — just with “many,” not “some,” and followed by a much bleaker sentence that inspirational reposts leave out.

Context

Why it mattered

Frederic Henry, Hemingway's wounded American narrator, thinks this to himself late in the novel while recovering with Catherine Barkley in Stresa, Italy — not long before their circumstances turn tragic. In its original form the line is less a triumphant motivational slogan than a piece of grim wartime philosophy: most people are broken by the world, some grow stronger at the break, and the ones who refuse to break at all get killed outright.

The single-sentence, inspirational-poster version — “some are strong at the broken places” — has outpaced the real text online, stripped of its bleaker second half and quietly swapped from “many” to “some.”

“But those that will not break it kills.”

Explore

Filed under

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

Resilience Failure

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.

Ernest Hemingway — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Lists the genuine passage from A Farewell to Arms with the original word “many.”
A Farewell to Arms (1929 text) — Internet Archivearchive.org

Scanned copy of the novel for borrowing/verification.
Stop Misquoting Hemingway & Leonard Cohen About Crackswhatwouldbaledo.com

Essay tracing the ‘many’-to-‘some’ drift and the Leonard Cohen mashup.
A Farewell to Arms — Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Background on the novel's 1929 publication and plot.
Ernest Hemingway quote pagequotepark.com

Independent transcription of the passage citing A Farewell to Arms, 1929, Chapter 34.
Full passage transcriptionquotes.net

Full four-sentence passage as it appears in the novel.

The author

About Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway

1899–1961 · American novelist, short-story writer & war correspondent

Hemingway won the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature and the 1953 Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea. A Farewell to Arms (1929), his semi-autobiographical novel of a wounded American ambulance officer and a British nurse during World War I, remains one of his most widely read books.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The primary source (Chicago)

Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1929, Book Four, ch. XXXIV.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places’?” Last verified 8 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-world-breaks-everyone-and-afterward-some-are-strong-at

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