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Who really said it

There Are Two Kinds of People, Those Who Do the Work and Those Who Take the Credit

Attributed to Dwight Morrow 1873–1931 · American businessman, diplomat and US senator
Attributed In copyright

Quote Investigator concludes that, on current evidence, Dwight Morrow should receive credit ↗. The earliest known appearance is Harold Nicolson’s 1935 biography of Morrow, which quotes a letter Morrow wrote to his son: “The world is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the first class. There’s far less competition.” That is not this wording. The sentence people search for — “two kinds of people… those who do the work and those who take the credit” — is Indira Gandhi’s, spoken in 1959 and again in 1968, and on both occasions she credited her grandfather Motilal Nehru, not Morrow. So the thought is Morrow’s as far as the record goes; the phrasing is not.

Last verified 2 Oct 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Unconfirmed quote & credit

“There Are Two Kinds of People, Those Who Do the Work and Those Who Take the Credit” Dwight Morrow (attributed) — “The world is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the first class. There's far less competition.” Letter to his son, quoted in Harold Nicolson, Dwight Morrow (1935), pp. 51-52. The familiar wording is Indira Gandhi's. Via quotle.info

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by The estate of Harold Nicolson and the original publisher, Harcourt, Brace and Company). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Dwight Morrow — American businessman, diplomat and US senator. Theme: "There Are Two Kinds of People, Those Who Do the Work and Those Who Take the Credit". 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 "There Are Two Kinds of People, Those Who Do the Work and Those Who Take the Credit". 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

Earliest documented
Dwight Morrow, by Harold Nicolson
Published
1935 (Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York) — four years after Morrow’s death
Locator
Quote pages 51–52, per Quote Investigator’s note on the 1975 Arno Press reprint
Form
A letter from Morrow to his son, quoted by his biographer — the letter itself is undated in the sources consulted
Familiar wording
Indira Gandhi, 1959 and 1968, crediting Motilal Nehru — see the fact-check below

“The world,” he once wrote to his son, “is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the first class. There’s far less competition.”

This is Nicolson’s 1935 text, as transcribed by Quote Investigator ↗ from the reprint it verified on paper. Read it beside the headline wording and the difference is the whole point of this page: Morrow has do things and get the credit, not do the work and take the credit, and he writes “class” where the familiar version has “group”.

Quote Investigator: There Are Two Kinds of People, Those Who Do the Work and Those Who Take the Credit

How we verified this

  • Quote Investigator’s investigation ↗ names the earliest known evidence as Dwight Morrow by Harold Nicolson, copyright 1935, quote pages 51–52 — verified on paper from the 1975 Arno Press reprint of the Harcourt, Brace and Company edition. The Internet Archive holds the 1935 biography ↗.
  • The same article tracks the wording in circulation to Indira Gandhi: The Times of India, 8 February 1959, page 6, and the New York Times of 16 October 1968, page 42, in Enid Nemy’s interview. In both she presents it as her grandfather’s advice, not her own coinage.
  • Wikiquote’s Indira Gandhi page ↗ now carries the 1968 sentence with that same New York Times citation — Nemy, 16 October 1968, page 42 — which independently confirms the locator QI gives. (QI’s 2013 correspondent found it filed there as unsourced; that is no longer the case.)
  • QI records an intermediate step that shows the saying already loose from its author: the Kerrville Mountain Sun of Kerrville, Texas, 18 December 1947, in which Father Kemper credited the advice to “some philosopher” while urging his parishioners to vote in a club election.
In copyright

Every documented form of this saying is in copyright in the United States. Morrow’s wording reaches us only through Nicolson’s biography, copyright 1935 — after the 1931 public-domain cutoff. The familiar wording is later still, first seen in newspapers of 1959 and 1968. Morrow himself died in 1931, but an unpublished letter is not made public domain by its writer’s death, and the only text we have of it is his biographer’s. Quoted here briefly for comment and criticism.

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

Often misattributed

Nobody is being falsely accused here — this is a saying with three plausible names attached to it and a wording that belongs to none of the people it is usually credited to. Quote Investigator untangles the chain ↗.

Indira Gandhi Popularizer, not author

The exact sentence in circulation is hers. QI documents it in The Times of India (8 February 1959, page 6) and in the New York Times (16 October 1968, page 42), and the Times ran it again four days later in a “Quotations” column. She never claimed it: each time she introduced it as something she had been told.

Motilal Nehru Documented but unverified

Gandhi’s grandfather, who died in February 1931. QI reports her crediting him by name in the 1959 account and as “my grandfather” in 1968, but finds nothing written by Nehru containing the line — and notes that in the 1959 page image the name “Motilal” is not fully legible. So he is a credited source, not a documented author.

“those who do the work and those who take the credit” Wording drift

Morrow’s documented sentence reads “people who do things and people who get the credit… belong to the first class”. The version everyone quotes has do the work, take the credit and first group. Attaching the familiar phrasing to Morrow credits him with words the only source for him does not contain.

“Some philosopher” Early user

By December 1947 a Texas priest was deploying the advice from the pulpit with no author at all, crediting it to “some philosopher” — QI’s citation is the Kerrville Mountain Sun of 18 December 1947. Seven months earlier The Rotarian had still printed it correctly under Morrow’s name.

QI’s conclusion ↗: Indira Gandhi spoke a version of this and helped popularise it, but was relaying her grandfather’s advice; on current evidence Dwight Morrow should receive credit — in his own, different words.

Context

Why it mattered

Morrow was writing private advice to a son, and the advice is shrewd rather than noble: the credit-takers are not condemned, they are simply described as a crowded field. He had standing to say it. He spent the 1920s as a Morgan partner and then as the US ambassador who defused a religious war in Mexico, work that mostly consisted of getting things settled without needing to be seen settling them.

What happened next is the more useful lesson. The thought was too good to stay attached to a dead banker, so it travelled — into a Rotary editorial, into a Texas pulpit as “some philosopher”, and finally into the mouth of an Indian prime minister quoting her grandfather. Each retelling sharpened the phrasing and loosened the provenance.

The world is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit.

Read the full story

The chain QI assembles runs: Nicolson’s biography in 1935; The Rotarian in May 1947, still crediting Morrow; the Kerrville Mountain Sun in December 1947, crediting nobody; The Times of India in February 1959, where Indira Gandhi credits Motilal Nehru; a 1966 biography of Gandhi repeating it; and the New York Times in October 1968, in the compact form that became standard.

Two honest gaps remain, and this page does not paper over either. Morrow’s letter is undated in the sources consulted, so no date is asserted for the quotation itself — only 1935 for its publication. And QI’s own footnote records that “Motilal” is not fully legible in the 1959 newspaper image, which is why Nehru appears here as a credited source rather than a confirmed one.

Explore

Filed under

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

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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: There Are Two Kinds of People…quoteinvestigator.com

The full chain from Morrow 1935 through Gandhi 1968, with page-level citations.
Dwight Morrow, by Harold Nicolson (1935)archive.org

The biography that is the earliest known source for Morrow’s wording.
Indira Gandhi — sourced quotationsen.wikiquote.org

Carries the 1968 wording with its New York Times citation.
Dwight Morrowen.wikipedia.org

Biography of the man credited: Morgan partner, ambassador to Mexico, senator.
Motilal Nehruen.wikipedia.org

The grandfather Gandhi credited; died February 1931.
Harold Nicolsonen.wikipedia.org

The British diplomat and writer who wrote the 1935 biography.

The author

About Dwight Morrow

Dwight Morrow

1873–1931 · American businessman, diplomat and US senator

Dwight Whitney Morrow (11 January 1873 – 5 October 1931) was an American lawyer and banker who became a partner at J. P. Morgan & Co. and then, from 1927 to 1930, United States ambassador to Mexico, where he helped mediate an end to the Cristero War and eased a long dispute over oil. He was elected to the US Senate from New Jersey in 1930 and died the following year. His daughter Anne married Charles Lindbergh.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The earliest documented appearance (Chicago)

Harold Nicolson, Dwight Morrow (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1935), 51–52, quoting a letter from Morrow to his son. Cited in Quote Investigator, “Quote Origin: There Are Two Kinds of People, Those Who Do the Work and Those Who Take the Credit,” 20 November 2013. For the familiar wording see Enid Nemy, “India’s ‘Tough’ Prime Minister,” New York Times, 16 October 1968, 42.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘There Are Two Kinds of People, Those Who Do the Work and Those Who Take the Credit’?” Last verified 2 Oct 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/there-are-two-kinds-of-people-those-who-do-the-work-and/

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