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

Who really said it

Whoever is happy will make others happy too

Written by Anne Frank 12 June 1929 – February/March 1945 · German-born diarist & Holocaust victim
Verified In copyright

These are Anne Frank’s own words, written in her diary on Tuesday, 7 March 1944 and printed in the 1952 English translation of ‘The Diary of a Young Girl’ by B. M. Mooyaart-Doubleday. The famous short line is a genuine excerpt of that translation; later English editions word the same Dutch sentence a little differently.

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

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Verified quote & credit

“Whoever is happy will make others happy too” Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl (1952 translation), entry of 7 March 1944

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by Anne Frank Fonds, Basel (the diary); the 1952 English translation by B. M. Mooyaart-Doubleday, published by Doubleday (now Penguin Random House)). 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 Anne Frank — German-born diarist & Holocaust victim. Theme: "Whoever is happy will make others happy too". 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 "Whoever is happy will make others happy too". 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

Work
The Diary of a Young Girl (Het Achterhuis)
Entry
Tuesday, 7 March 1944
Translation
English, B. M. Mooyaart-Doubleday (1952)
First published
Dutch 1947 · English 1952

I don’t think then of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains… Whoever is happy will make others happy too. He who has courage and faith will never perish in misery!

As rendered in the 1952 Mooyaart-Doubleday translation of the 7 March 1944 entry.

The Diary of a Young Girl (1952 translation excerpt)

How we know

  • The 1952 English translation prints the line verbatim — “Whoever is happy will make others happy too. He who has courage and faith will never perish in misery!” — attributed to The Diary of a Young Girl (1952) ↗.
  • The passage sits in the diary entry headed Tuesday, 7 March 1944 ↗, where Anne contrasts her mother’s outlook with her own faith in the beauty that remains.
  • Wikiquote’s sourced section ↗ carries the same diary line in a later translation: “A person who’s happy will make others happy; a person who has courage and faith will never die in misery!”
In copyright

The diary was first published in Dutch in 1947 and in this English translation in 1952 — both well after 1931 — so the text remains under copyright in the United States. Copyright in the diary is held by the Anne Frank Fonds in Basel; the 1952 English wording is a copyrighted translation.

Fact-check

The catch

Anne Frank really did write this — but two things trip people up.

It varies by translation mis-worded

The familiar ‘Whoever is happy will make others happy too’ is the 1952 Mooyaart-Doubleday translation. The 1995 Definitive Edition (translated by Susan Massotty) renders the same Dutch sentence as ‘A person who’s happy will make others happy’ (Wikiquote) ↗, so a reader checking a modern paperback may not find the exact popular phrasing.

Genuinely Anne Frank authentic

Anne Frank is one of the internet’s biggest magnets for fabricated feel-good quotes, so skepticism is healthy. Unlike many circulating lines, this one is traceable to a real diary entry — the 7 March 1944 passage ↗.

Authentic Anne Frank — her diary entry of 7 March 1944, quoted here from the 1952 English translation ↗.

Context

Why it mattered

Anne wrote the line during her second year in hiding, in an entry that pushes back against her mother’s counsel to cope with misery by contemplating the suffering of others. Anne’s answer was the opposite: go outside, look at the sun and nature, and ‘think of all the beauty in yourself and in everything around you and be happy.’

The sentence about happiness spreading to others is the hinge of that argument — happiness, for Anne, is not private but contagious, and the source of resilience even ‘in misfortune.’

Whoever is happy will make others happy too.

Explore

Filed under

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

Happiness Kindness

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.

Anne Frank — sourced quoteswikiquote.org

Wikiquote's sourced section, carrying the same diary line in the later Definitive-Edition translation.
The Diary of a Young Girlwikipedia.org

Background on the diary's Dutch (1947) and English (1952) publication and its translations.
Anne's Book of Beautiful Sentencesannefrank.org

The Anne Frank House on Anne's own habit of collecting favourite lines from her reading and writing.
Diary quote (1952 translation)libquotes.com

The full sentence as printed in the 1952 English translation of the diary.
Diary entry, 7 March 1944goodreads.com

The dated entry showing the passage in its surrounding context.

The true author

About Anne Frank

Anne Frank

1929–1945 · German-born diarist & Holocaust victim

Annelies Marie ‘Anne’ Frank (1929–1945) was a German-born Jewish girl whose diary, kept while hiding from the Nazis in an Amsterdam annex from 1942 to 1944, became one of the most widely read books in the world. She died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in early 1945; her father Otto, the family’s only survivor, had the diary published in Dutch in 1947. The 7 March 1944 entry is among her most quoted, written as she reflected on finding beauty and happiness despite her circumstances.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl, trans. B. M. Mooyaart-Doubleday (New York: Doubleday, 1952), entry of Tuesday, 7 March 1944.

MLA (9th ed.)

Frank, Anne. The Diary of a Young Girl. Translated by B. M. Mooyaart-Doubleday, Doubleday, 1952.

APA (7th ed.)

Frank, A. (1952). The diary of a young girl (B. M. Mooyaart-Doubleday, Trans.). Doubleday. (Original work published 1947)

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Whoever is happy will make others happy too’?” Last verified 8 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/whoever-is-happy-will-make-others-happy-too

Copied