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Who really said it

You may climb the ladder of success only to find it is leaning against the wrong wall

Not Covey’s wording — in print since 1915 Allen Raine 1836–1908 · Welsh novelist · credited only tentatively, by Quote Investigator
Disputed In copyright

Quote Investigator traces the saying to a boxed filler item in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle of 30 December 1915, signed “Allen Raine” — and credits her only tentatively ↗, noting that “Allen Raine” was the pen name of the Welsh novelist Anne Adalisa Evans but that it cannot be certain the newspaper meant her. Stephen Covey was using the metaphor by 1986 and made it famous in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, yet his own sentence runs “work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it’s leaning against the wrong wall” — the smooth “You may climb…” version circulating today is closest to a Los Angeles Times reporter’s 1986 rendering of his spoken talk, not to anything printed on his page.

Last verified 30 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“You may climb the ladder of success only to find it is leaning against the wrong wall” Not Stephen Covey's wording. The saying was already in print in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle of 30 December 1915 as “You may get to the very top of the ladder, and then find it has not been leaning against the right wall.—Allen Raine.” Quote Investigator tentatively credits Allen Raine, the pen name of Welsh novelist Anne Adalisa Evans (1836–1908), while noting the credit cannot be confirmed. Stephen Covey popularized the saying from 1986 and in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (1989), but his own sentence differs from the version usually quoted.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Stephen Covey. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by Estate of Stephen R. Covey and Free Press (his book); Los Angeles Times (the 1986 wording)). 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 Allen Raine — Welsh novelist · pen name of Anne Adalisa Beynon Puddicombe, née Evans. Theme: "You may climb the ladder of success only to find it is leaning against the wrong wall". 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 "You may climb the ladder of success only to find it is leaning against the wrong wall". 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 earliest form anyone has found

Earliest documented
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 30 December 1915 — boxed filler, p. 4, col. 6, signed “Allen Raine”
Covey’s own book
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
First published
1989 · Free Press, New York
Closest to the popular wording
Los Angeles Times, 1986 — a report on Covey’s lectures, not his own prose

You may get to the very top of the ladder, and then find it has not been leaning against the right wall.—Allen Raine. Earliest known form, 1915

Note what is missing from the 1915 form: no “success,” no “wrong wall.” Quote Investigator’s chronology shows the wording drifting for decades — “wrong wall” is in print by 1954, and “the ladder of success” arrives with Covey in the 1980s. One bibliographic caution, offered for transparency: QI’s footnote cites Covey’s book as 1988 at quote page 98, while Wikipedia ↗ and Open Library both give first publication as 1989. That is an edition or printing difference and does not touch the origin story.

Quote Investigator: the full ladder chronology, 1915 to 1990

How we verified this

  • The earliest evidence is not a book but newspaper filler: Quote Investigator’s footnote ↗ gives The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 30 December 1915, Picture and Sporting section, quote page 4, column 6 — a boxed item reading “You may get to the very top of the ladder, and then find it has not been leaning against the right wall.—Allen Raine.”
  • The saying then drifts for two generations, its credit fading. QI logs printings ↗ in which a Marysville, Ohio paper still signs it “—A. Raine.” in 1950, but the Danville, Virginia and Boston Daily Globe printings of 1954 and Evan Esar’s 20,000 Quips and Quotes in 1968 carry no attribution at all, and by 1972 the Chicago Tribune credits a “Mae Maloo” — a name we have not been able to trace, and one QI prints without comment.
  • Covey enters late. QI documents the Los Angeles Times reporting in 1986 ↗ that he used the metaphor in his business lectures, and then his own sentence in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People — which is where the “ladder of success” phrasing attaches for good.
  • The line Covey is actually on record for is a different, sharper one. Wikiquote’s sourced entry ↗ gives, from The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People (1989) at page 101, his contrast between management as efficiency in climbing the ladder and leadership as determining whether the ladder leans against the right wall.
In copyright

The wording people actually circulate descends from Covey: his sentence in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, first published in 1989 by Free Press ↗, and the 1986 Los Angeles Times report of his talks. Both are well after 1930, so both remain in copyright in the United States. The 1915 Brooklyn Daily Eagle sentence quoted above is a different and much older wording, and it is long in the public domain — if you need an unencumbered version of the thought, quote that one.

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

What the credit gets wrong

The warning itself is genuine and Covey genuinely used it. Almost every credit attached to it is still wrong in some way — about the words, about the idea, or about the person.

Stephen Covey paraphrase

Covey used the metaphor, but not in these words. QI quotes his book sentence ↗ as beginning “work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success…” and the 1986 Los Angeles Times rendering as “they may climb the ladder of success only to find it’s leaning against the wrong wall.” The familiar “You may climb…” is a smoothing of the reporter’s sentence.

Stephen Covey not original

It was in print in December 1915, seventeen years before Covey was born in 1932, and QI tracks it through 1950, 1954, 1968 and 1972 printings ↗ before he ever used it. Covey popularized the saying; he did not coin it.

Thomas Merton ruled out

QI eliminates him ↗: Merton was born in 1915, the same year as the earliest citation, and QI reports finding no substantive evidence linking the notion to him.

H. Jackson Brown Jr. his mother’s

“As you climb the ladder of success, be sure it’s leaning against the right building” appears in Brown’s P.S. I Love You (1990), which Wikipedia describes as a collection of his mother’s sayings and observations ↗ rather than his own; QI’s conclusion names Sarah Frances Brown as a popularizer of the saying.

The earliest version anyone has located is a boxed filler item in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle of 30 December 1915, signed “Allen Raine” — and Quote Investigator credits her only tentatively ↗, because it cannot confirm the paper meant the Welsh novelist who wrote under that name. Our own note: she died in 1908 ↗, seven years before the filler ran.

Context

Why this one stuck to Covey

The line survives because it does a job no single word does: it separates being effective from being right. Covey built a real distinction on exactly that — in The Seven Habits at page 101 ↗ he casts management as efficiency in climbing the ladder and leadership as deciding which wall it leans against. The book had sold more than twenty million copies by the time he died in 2012 ↗, and the metaphor belongs to him in the popular mind whether or not he wrote the sentence being quoted.

But the joke is older than the management theory, and for decades it had no owner at all. It moved as newspaper filler, reshaped at every retelling: a Danville, Virginia paper in 1954 had someone reach the top and discover the ladder was against the wrong wall, and in 1972 the Chicago Tribune ran a version credited to a “Mae Maloo” who is, as far as we can tell, otherwise untraceable — Quote Investigator prints the item without comment ↗.

Every retelling kept the ladder and moved the wall.

How the wording drifted, 1915 to 1990

1915 — the ladder, no success, no wrong wall. “You may get to the very top of the ladder, and then find it has not been leaning against the right wall.” The failure is framed positively: the wall was simply not the right one.

1954 — “wrong wall” arrives. QI’s Danville, Virginia citation flips the phrasing to reaching the top and discovering the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall, which is the shape the saying keeps from then on.

1980s — “of success” is added. Covey’s versions attach the ladder to success explicitly, in the 1986 Los Angeles Times report of his lectures and then in The 7 Habits. That addition is what makes the modern line quotable — and what makes it sound like his.

Explore

Filed under

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

Success Purpose Wisdom

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: the full ladder chronologyquoteinvestigator.com

The anchor investigation. Dated citations from the 1915 Brooklyn Daily Eagle filler through Covey and H. Jackson Brown Jr., with the tentative credit to Allen Raine and Thomas Merton ruled out.
Wikiquote: Stephen Coveyen.wikiquote.org

The sourced section gives the ladder line Covey is actually on record for, cited to The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People (1989), page 101.
Allen Raineen.wikipedia.org

Biography of the Welsh novelist behind the pen name: Anne Adalisa Beynon Puddicombe, née Evans, 1836 to 1908, and the two million copies her novels had sold by 1912.
Allen Raine's novels, free to readgutenberg.org

Public-domain texts of Garthowen, By Berwen Banks and Torn Sails, if you want to judge the voice against the 1915 filler yourself.
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (1990 Fireside printing)archive.org

A borrowable scan of Covey's book, so you can check his actual sentence rather than the paraphrase. Note this is a later printing, not the 1989 first edition.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Peopleen.wikipedia.org

Confirms first publication in 1989 by Free Press, the fact that fixes the book's copyright status.

The tentative originator

Who was Allen Raine?

Allen Raine

1836–1908 · Welsh novelist · pen name of Anne Adalisa Beynon Puddicombe, née Evans

“Allen Raine” was the pen name of a Welsh novelist born at Newcastle Emlyn in 1836, whose stories of coastal Cardiganshire were enormous sellers — more than two million copies by 1912 ↗. She took the National Eisteddfod prize in 1894, and novels including Torn Sails and By Berwen Banks were adapted for early film. The credit here is tentative, and one detail should keep it that way: she died in 1908, so the 1915 newspaper filler signed with her pen name appeared seven years after her death. That is our own observation, not Quote Investigator’s — its stated doubt is narrower: it simply cannot confirm the paper meant this Allen Raine. (We follow Wikipedia in spelling her middle name Adalisa; Quote Investigator spells it Adaliza.)

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Earliest documented printing

Earliest documented in a boxed filler item, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn, NY), December 30, 1915, Picture and Sporting section, quote page 4, column 6, signed “Allen Raine”; chronology per “Quote Origin: As You Climb the Ladder of Success, Be Sure It’s Leaning Against the Right Building,” Quote Investigator, August 17, 2017 (updated April 15, 2025). Covey’s own wording: Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (New York: Free Press, 1989).

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘You may climb the ladder of success only to find it is leaning against the wrong wall’?” Last verified 30 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/you-may-climb-the-ladder-of-success-only-to-find-it-is/

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