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Who really said it

There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don't care who gets the credit

Not Ronald Reagan’s words — a much older saying, in altered form Attributed to “Father Strickland,” an English Jesuit (earliest documented, 1863) 19th-century English Jesuit priest · earliest recorded 1863
Disputed Rights unconfirmed

The idea long predates Reagan. According to Quote Investigator, the earliest documented version appears in a diary entry dated 21 September 1863 (published 1897), which credits “Father Strickland”: “a man may do an immense deal of good, if he does not care who gets the credit for it.” Reagan did keep a plaque of the saying on his desk, but the Reagan Library records its wording as “There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit” — not the viral “amount of good…don’t care” phrasing.

Last verified 16 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

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Disputed — copy with the correction

“There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don't care who gets the credit” Not Reagan's words. The saying is documented to an 1863 diary crediting an English Jesuit ("a man may do an immense deal of good, if he does not care who gets the credit for it"); Reagan's desk plaque read "…what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit." The popular wording is a modern paraphrase. — Quotle.info

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 "Father Strickland" (earliest documented) — earliest recorded 1863. Theme: "There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don't care who gets 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 is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don't care who gets 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 source
S. E. Grant Duff, Notes from a Diary (entry dated 21 Sept 1863; published 1897)
Credited to
“Father Strickland,” an English Jesuit priest
Reagan’s desk plaque
“There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit”
Popular wording
A later, altered paraphrase of unknown authorship

a man may do an immense deal of good, if he does not care who gets the credit for it.

The earliest documented form of the saying — a diary entry of 21 September 1863, crediting an English Jesuit. The modern “There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit” is a much later mutation.

Quote Investigator: tracing the saying to 1863

How we verified this

  • Long before Reagan. Quote Investigator traces the saying to an 1863 diary entry (published 1897) crediting “Father Strickland,” and through Benjamin Jowett, C. E. Montague and others — decades before Reagan was born.
  • Reagan used different words. The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library gives his desk plaque as “There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit” — not the “amount of good…don’t care” version pinned on him online.
  • Even Goodreads flags it. The popular Reagan wording is tagged “misattributed” in its own quote database.

The exact viral wording — “There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit” — is an anonymous modern paraphrase with no identifiable first source, so no copyright status can be responsibly asserted. The underlying saying is far older: its earliest documented form dates to an 1863 diary entry published in 1897 (public domain), and Reagan’s own desk-plaque wording differs again.

Fact-check

How Reagan got the credit

This is a classic “magnet name” case: an old, ownerless proverb about not seeking credit gets pinned on a famous modern figure — and the wording drifts in the process.

Ronald Reagan misattributed + reworded

The line is universally credited to Reagan online, but he did not originate it and did not use this exact phrasing. The Reagan Library records his desk plaque as “There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.” The viral “amount of good…don’t care” version is a later mutation. Goodreads even tags the Reagan attribution “misattributed.”

Harry S. Truman, Benjamin Jowett unsupported

Quote Investigator notes a 1988 attribution to Truman for which it found no solid support, and an early attribution to Oxford’s Benjamin Jowett that was itself reassigned to “a Jesuit Father” by 1909.

The saying is documented back to 1863 — before Reagan was born — and the earliest source credits an English Jesuit, not any president, per Quote Investigator.

Context

Why it mattered

The sentiment is genuinely old and genuinely ownerless. By the late 19th century, “never mind who gets the credit” was already circulating as a proverb, attached at various points to a Jesuit priest, to Oxford’s Benjamin Jowett, and to the American clergyman Edward Everett Hale. No single author can claim it.

Reagan’s role was to popularize it, not to write it. He kept a plaque bearing a version of the saying on his desk as Governor of California and as President — but with the words “what a man can do or where he can go.” The internet later smoothed that into “the amount of good you can do,” and dropped the older phrasing entirely, leaving a quote that is neither Reagan’s wording nor Reagan’s invention.

Documented in 1863 — and even Reagan’s own plaque used different words.

Explore

Filed under

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

Kindness Humility Leadership

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 Investigator: “A Man May Do an Immense Deal of Good…”quoteinvestigator.com

The authoritative investigation: traces the saying to an 1863 diary entry and through its many later attributions.
Reagan Library: the Oval Office desk signreaganlibrary.gov

Official record of the exact wording Reagan actually kept on his desk.
Reagan Foundation: “There Is No Limit” desk plaquereaganfoundation.org

The foundation’s reproduction of the plaque, confirming the “what a man can do” wording.
Goodreads: the quote, tagged “misattributed”goodreads.com

Shows how the viral Reagan version circulates — and that the database itself flags it as misattributed.
Wikiquote: Ronald Reaganen.wikiquote.org

Reagan’s sourced, attributed and misattributed quotations for cross-checking.

The author

About “Father Strickland” (earliest documented)

“Father Strickland” (earliest documented)

19th-century English Jesuit priest · earliest recorded 1863

Per Quote Investigator, the earliest documented form of this saying appears in Sir M. E. Grant Duff’s Notes from a Diary, in an entry dated 21 September 1863 that credits a Jesuit “Father Strickland” with the remark. The thought was already a proverbial commonplace by the late 1800s and was later echoed by Benjamin Jowett, Edward Everett Hale, C. E. Montague and others — long before Ronald Reagan adopted a version of it for his desk plaque.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Quote Investigator

Garson O’Toole, “A Man May Do an Immense Deal of Good, If He Does Not Care Who Gets the Credit,” Quote Investigator, 21 December 2010, quoting Sir M. E. Grant Duff, Notes from a Diary (entry dated 21 Sept 1863; London: John Murray, 1897).

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don't care who gets the credit’?” Last verified 16 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/there-is-no-limit-to-the-amount-of-good-you-can-do-if-you

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