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Who really said it

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility is being superior to your former self

Not Ernest Hemingway — a posthumous misattribution Walter L. Sheldon 1858–1907 · American Ethical Culture lecturer & philosopher
Disputed Free to reuse

The earliest documented version of this saying appears in Sheldon’s 1897 essay “What to Believe: An Ethical Creed,” published two years before Hemingway was born. The “Hemingway” version traces only to a 1963 Playboy piece that Hemingway scholars doubt he actually wrote.

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

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Disputed — copy with the correction

“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility is being superior to your former self” Walter L. Sheldon, 1897 (often misattributed to Ernest Hemingway)

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Provenance

The source

Work
“What to Believe: An Ethical Creed”
Published in
Ethical Addresses, April 1897
Popular wording
“fellow man” / “former self” — not found in any citation before the saying went viral online

There is nothing noble in being superior to some other man. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self.

Sheldon’s original 1897 wording — “some other man” and “previous self,” not the “fellow man”/“former self” phrasing popularly quoted today.

Quote Investigator: origin research on the “superior to your former self” saying

How we verified this

  • An 1898 printing in The Clinical Reporter repeated the line almost verbatim but credited it only to an anonymous “Hindu Proverb” — Quote Investigator ↗.
  • The Hemingway attribution stems from “A Man’s Credo,” a piece published in Playboy in January 1963, more than a year after Hemingway’s death; Hemingway scholar Peter L. Hays has argued Hemingway did not actually write it — Quote Investigator ↗.
  • The line still circulates today credited to Hemingway on sites like Goodreads and PassItOn, decades after researchers traced it to Sheldon — Goodreads ↗.
Public domain

Sheldon’s 1897 essay “What to Believe: An Ethical Creed” is in the public domain in the United States, having been published well before 1931. Ernest Hemingway did not write this line; the attribution to him rests on a disputed 1963 Playboy article published after his death.

Fact-check

Misattribution history

This line is one of the internet’s most persistent fake Hemingway quotes — it was already decades old when he was born.

Ernest Hemingway Posthumous fabrication

The Hemingway byline traces to “A Man’s Credo,” published in Playboy in January 1963, over a year after Hemingway’s death. Hemingway scholar Peter L. Hays has argued the piece’s vocabulary and opinions are inconsistent with Hemingway’s authenticated writing — Quote Investigator ↗.

an anonymous “Hindu Proverb”

An 1898 printing in The Clinical Reporter used nearly identical wording but credited no author, labeling it a “Hindu Proverb” instead — Quote Investigator ↗.

Seneca

A 1973 speaker’s anthology assigned the saying to the Roman Stoic Seneca, roughly 1,900 years before its actual first appearance in print — Quote Investigator ↗.

The earliest confirmed appearance is Walter L. Sheldon’s 1897 essay “What to Believe: An Ethical Creed,” published in Ethical Addresses two years before Hemingway was even born — Quote Investigator ↗.

Context

How a St. Louis lecturer became Hemingway

This tidy maxim about self-improvement circulates constantly on inspirational-quote sites, always with Hemingway’s name attached and often paired with his photograph. But the paper trail runs the opposite direction: the saying was already in print, crediting an obscure St. Louis ethics lecturer, before Hemingway had learned to read.

The Hemingway version didn’t appear until 1963, in a Playboy feature published more than a year after his death by suicide. Even Hemingway specialists are skeptical he wrote it.

The saying was already in print — crediting someone else entirely — before Hemingway had learned to read.

How the exact wording drifted over a century

1897 (Sheldon): “…being superior to some other man. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self.”

1898 (uncredited, labeled a “Hindu Proverb”): swaps in “former self.”

1963 (“Hemingway,” via Playboy): still reads “previous self,” not “former self.”

Today’s popular version, pairing “fellow man” with “former self,” doesn’t match any citation researchers found before the saying spread online.

Explore

Filed under

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

Humility Growth Character

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: full origin researchquoteinvestigator.com

Traces the saying to an 1897 essay and debunks the Hemingway/Playboy attribution
Goodreads quote page crediting Hemingwaygoodreads.com

Example of the widespread (incorrect) Hemingway attribution
PassItOn inspirational quote cardpassiton.com

Another popular quote card crediting the line to Hemingway, novelist and Nobel Prize winner
The Ethical Society of St. Louisen.wikipedia.org

Background on Walter L. Sheldon's founding and leadership of the society

About the real originator

Walter L. Sheldon

Walter L. Sheldon

1858–1907 · American Ethical Culture lecturer & philosopher

Sheldon studied philosophy at Princeton and trained under Felix Adler, founder of the Ethical Culture movement, before founding the Ethical Society of St. Louis in 1886. He served as its lecturer until his death in 1907, publishing ethical essays and addresses aimed at building a non-creedal, non-sectarian code of conduct.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

Sheldon, Walter L. “What to Believe: An Ethical Creed.” Ethical Addresses, April 1897. Popularly but wrongly attributed to Ernest Hemingway via “A Man’s Credo,” Playboy, January 1963.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility is being superior to your former self’?” Last verified 8 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/there-is-nothing-noble-in-being-superior-to-your-fellow-man

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