The Voltaire credit is unsupported — no such line appears anywhere in his works. The closest documented ancestor is an anonymous French National Convention decree of 8 May 1793, and the familiar English wording was popularized by a caption in Marvel’s ‘Amazing Fantasy’ #15 (1962): “with great power there must also come—great responsibility!”
“With great power comes great responsibility” Not Voltaire. No such line appears in Voltaire's works. The earliest documented match is an anonymous French National Convention decree of 8 May 1793, and the modern wording was popularized by Marvel's Amazing Fantasy #15 (1962). — Quotle.info
⚠ The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Voltaire. Use the credit shown above instead.
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 Stan Lee & Steve Ditko — Marvel Comics creators of Spider-Man. Theme: "With great power comes great responsibility". 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 "With great power comes great responsibility". 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
Popularly credited to
Voltaire (1694–1778) — unsupported
Earliest documented
French National Convention decree, 8 May 1793
Modern wording
Amazing Fantasy #15
Date
August 1962 (cover date)
And a lean, silent figure slowly fades in the gathering darkness, aware at last that in this world, with great power there must also come — great responsibility!
Amazing Fantasy #15, 1962
The 1962 Spider-Man caption — an omniscient narrator’s line, not spoken by Uncle Ben or Peter Parker. The tighter modern proverb crystallized later.
Not in Voltaire.Quote Investigator ↗ reports researchers have been “unable to locate this statement in the oeuvre of Voltaire,” and calls the linkage unsupported.
Earliest documented match, 1793. A French National Convention decree of 8 May 1793 reads “une grande responsabilité est la suite inséparable d’un grand pouvoir” — great responsibility inseparably follows great power (Wikipedia ↗).
The modern wording is Spider-Man’s.Amazing Fantasy #15 (1962) closed with a caption crediting the hero’s new resolve — the line Stan Lee and Steve Ditko sent into pop culture (Quote Investigator ↗).
The exact modern proverb is an anonymous crystallization with no single identifiable source work, so no public-domain claim can be made. Its closest documented ancestor — the 1793 French decree — is public domain, but that is different wording; and the popularizing 1962 Amazing Fantasy #15 caption is in copyright to Marvel. Because the exact line’s origin cannot be tied to one work, rights are uncertain.
Fact-check
Often misattributed
A feel-good, quotable line pinned on a famous Enlightenment name — the classic misattribution pattern. The credit does not survive contact with Voltaire’s actual writings.
✕
The whole lineVoltaire unsupported
No such statement has been found anywhere in Voltaire’s works. Quote Investigator ↗ and Wikipedia ↗ both describe the Voltaire credit as a misattribution.
✕
Who really phrased itAn anonymous 1793 French legislator earliest match
The oldest documented version is a French National Convention decree of 8 May 1793; Quote Investigator ascribes the saying to its unknown writer, noting the exact identity is unrecorded (QI ↗).
✓The exact modern wording comes from Marvel’s Amazing Fantasy #15 (1962), and the earliest documented ancestor is an anonymous 1793 French decree — not Voltaire (Wikipedia ↗).
Context
Why the credit is wrong
The thought is old and widely shared — echoes appear in Luke 12:48 (“to whom much is given, much will be required”) and in a string of 19th-century statesmen. But the specific attribution to Voltaire has no textual basis at all.
What makes the line ubiquitous today is Spider-Man. The 1962 caption in Amazing Fantasy #15 fixed the pairing of power and responsibility in the popular mind, and the 2002 film’s Uncle Ben delivered the tightened proverb we now quote.
Not in Voltaire — the earliest documented match is an anonymous 1793 French decree.
Other statesmen who said something similar
In 1817 the British MP William Lamb (later Lord Melbourne) argued that “the possession of great power necessarily implies great responsibility” during a habeas corpus debate.
Later figures including Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt used related formulations — evidence the sentiment was a common one, not a single author’s coinage.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
Amazing Fantasy #15, 1962 · Marvel Comics creators of Spider-Man
Writer Stan Lee (1922–2018) and artist Steve Ditko (1927–2018) created Spider-Man for Marvel’s Amazing Fantasy #15 in 1962. The story’s closing narrative caption — not a line of dialogue — carried the moral that hardened over the following decades into the proverb “with great power comes great responsibility.” Quote Investigator names the pair as “important vectors for the popularization of the saying,” though the underlying idea long predates them.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Sources
“Décret de la Convention nationale” (8 May 1793), Collection générale des décrets rendus par la Convention nationale; earliest documented ancestor per Quote Investigator, “With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility” (23 July 2015). Modern wording popularized in Stan Lee & Steve Ditko, Amazing Fantasy #15 (New York: Marvel Comics, Aug. 1962).
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘With great power comes great responsibility’?” Last verified 14 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/with-great-power-comes-great-responsibility