Straight from today’s Quotle — here’s who really said it, and the story behind it. Play again

Who really said it

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us

Not Henry David Thoreau — actually Henry Stanley Haskins Henry Stanley Haskins 1875–1957 · Wall Street trader and anonymous aphorist
Disputed In copyright

The line comes from Meditations in Wall Street (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1940), page 131 — a book of aphorisms published anonymously with an introduction by Albert Jay Nock. Quote Investigator ↗ gives that 1940 printing as the earliest appearance it located and credits the Wall Street trader Henry Stanley Haskins, whom The New York Times named as the anonymous author in 1947.

Last verified 4 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us” Henry Stanley Haskins, Meditations in Wall Street (New York: William Morrow & Company, 1940), p. 131. Published anonymously; commonly misattributed to Henry David Thoreau and to Ralph Waldo Emerson.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Henry David Thoreau. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by William Morrow & Company (original publisher, now an imprint of HarperCollins) and/or the estate of Henry Stanley Haskins). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the world of Henry Stanley Haskins — American stockbroker and anonymous aphorist. Theme: "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us". 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 "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us". 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

Where the line actually appears

Work
Meditations in Wall Street
Published
New York: William Morrow & Company, 1940 — anonymously, with an introduction by Albert Jay Nock
Location
p. 131
Author identified
The New York Times named Henry S. Haskins as the anonymous author in 1947

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 131

Three wordings circulate. Quote Investigator transcribes page 131 of the 1940 book with “what lies before us”; the widely repeated popular form, printed by both the Walden Woods Project and Wikiquote when they correct the attribution, reads “what lies ahead of us.” The Thoreau credit rides a third, extended variant — “small matters” plus a closing line about miracles happening — which Quote Investigator traces to 1990s self-help titles and which Wikiquote prints in the Disputed section of its Thoreau page, citing Dan Millman’s The Life You Were Born to Live (1995), p. xi.

Quote Investigator: the 1940 Haskins original and the full attribution chronology

How we verified this

In copyright

Meditations in Wall Street was first published in 1940. United States copyright in a work of that era survives only if the term was renewed in its 28th year, and we have not confirmed the renewal record either way, so treat the book as in copyright. Quote the single sentence as a short attributed excerpt; do not reproduce the book’s aphorisms at length.

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

Four wrong names

This sentence has been credited to at least four names that did not write it — three authors and a publishing house. Quote Investigator’s dated chronology runs William Morrow (1974), Ralph Waldo Emerson (1980), Oliver Wendell Holmes (1989) and finally Henry David Thoreau (1990s); the rows below lead with the credit this page exists to correct.

Henry David Thoreau Misattributed

Quote Investigator places Thoreau-credited versions in spiritual-guidance books of the 1990s — the latest of the false credits, and the furthest from the source. The Walden Woods Project ↗ lists it on its Thoreau Mis-Quotation Page and corrects it to Haskins, Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 131.

Ralph Waldo Emerson Misattributed

By 1980 a university president was crediting the line to Emerson, per Quote Investigator ↗, which notes the quotation expert Ralph Keyes found no evidence Emerson said or wrote these words. Wikiquote lists it under Misattributed ↗ on Emerson’s page.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Misattributed

Quote Investigator records the 1989 bestseller The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People crediting the line to Oliver Wendell Holmes — one more name with no supporting text ↗.

William Morrow Confusion

Because the book carried no author’s name, the imprint got read as one: Quote Investigator cites a Forbes item of 15 February 1974 crediting William Morrow, the publishing house ↗.

The sentence belongs to Henry Stanley Haskins, on page 131 of Meditations in Wall Street (William Morrow & Company, 1940) — a book he published anonymously, which is exactly why four better-known names ended up wearing his line. See the full chronology ↗.

Context

A stockbroker’s maxim in a transcendentalist’s coat

It is quoted constantly, and almost never with the right name attached. The line was written for a 1940 book of Wall Street aphorisms, not in a nineteenth-century cabin: Meditations in Wall Street, published by William Morrow & Company with an introduction by Albert Jay Nock and no author’s name on the title page. Quote Investigator ↗ found the sentence on page 131 of that book, and reports that The New York Times named the trader Henry Stanley Haskins as the anonymous author in 1947.

That anonymity is the whole story. A maxim with no author attached is a vacancy, and famous names rush in to fill it. Quote Investigator’s chronology shows the sentence drifting from an unnamed writer, to the publisher’s name in a 1974 Forbes item, to Ralph Waldo Emerson by 1980, to Oliver Wendell Holmes in a 1989 bestseller, and finally to Henry David Thoreau in spiritual-guidance books of the 1990s — each move making the line sound older and more authoritative than it is.

An anonymous maxim is a vacancy. Famous names rush in to fill it.

Why Thoreau, of all people?

Thoreau is the last stop on a chain of upgrades, not the first. Quote Investigator places the Emerson credit in 1980 and the Thoreau versions in the 1990s, by which point the sentence had already been floating unattributed for decades. Thoreau and Emerson were friends and fellow transcendentalists, and both wrote a great deal about inwardness, so a stray aphorism about “what lies within us” slots into either name without friction.

The Walden Woods Project’s Thoreau Mis-Quotation Page ↗ exists precisely for this pattern, and lists the sentence with the correction to Haskins, Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 131. Wikiquote’s Thoreau page ↗ files the sentence under Disputed rather than Sourced: its earliest Thoreau citation is Dan Millman’s The Life You Were Born to Live (1995), p. xi, and it records that no occurrence has been located before the 1990s. There is no Thoreau text for it to be a variant of.

Explore

Filed under

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

Character Resilience Hope

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: What Lies Behind Us and What Lies Before Us…quoteinvestigator.com

The anchor investigation: earliest located appearance in the 1940 Haskins book, plus the dated chain of misattributions to Morrow, Emerson, Holmes and Thoreau.
The Henry D. Thoreau Mis-Quotation Pagewalden.org

The Walden Woods Project lists this line among quotes wrongly given to Thoreau and cites Haskins (1875–1957), Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 131.
Ralph Waldo Emerson — Misattributeden.wikiquote.org

Files the sentence under Misattributed on Emerson’s page and points to Haskins’s 1940 book as the real source.
Henry David Thoreau on Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Wikiquote files the extended Thoreau version under Disputed — earliest citation Dan Millman’s The Life You Were Born to Live (1995), p. xi, with no occurrence located before the 1990s.
Albert Jay Nocken.wikipedia.org

Confirms the book’s imprint: “Meditations in Wall Street, with an introduction by Albert Jay Nock. W. Morrow & Company, 1940.”

The real author

The anonymous man behind the maxim

Henry Stanley Haskins

1875–1957 · American stockbroker and anonymous aphorist

Haskins was a Wall Street trader who published Meditations in Wall Street anonymously in 1940 — a slim collection of aphorisms that Albert Jay Nock introduced without naming its author. Quote Investigator describes him as a Wall Street trader with a checkered background, and reports that The New York Times identified him as the book’s author in 1947. The Walden Woods Project gives his life dates as 1875–1957. His best-known sentence has spent most of its life wearing other people’s names.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

[Henry Stanley Haskins]. Meditations in Wall Street. Introduction by Albert Jay Nock. New York: William Morrow & Company, 1940, p. 131. (Published anonymously; Haskins identified as author by The New York Times in 1947.)

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us’?” Last verified 4 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/what-lies-behind-us-and-what-lies-before-us-are-tiny/

Something wrong on this page?

Tell us what’s off. A link helps but isn’t required — “this is the wrong person” is a useful report on its own. Nothing here changes the page directly; it goes to our review queue and a human checks it.

Only used to tell you if we act on your report. We never sell or share it.

Copied