Inspirational quotes on social media can be fairly annoying, and wrongly-attributed quotes are even worse.
It’s not just your high school friends who are guilty of this, however: Some big celebrities have misquoted other famous people for some social media likes too.
Reese Witherspoon is the most recent celebrity to commit the crime, posting a picture with the quote, ‘The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away,’ attributed to William Shakespeare.
If you don’t think it sounds very Shakespearian, you’re right.
A quick Google search shows that it’s much more likely to have come from the famous painter, Pablo Picasso.
The quote post has since been taken down, while another text post with a correctly attributed Coco Chanel quote remains on her Instagram account.
However it’s easy to misquote the Elizabethan writer; a search of the Shakespeare hashtag on Tumblr quickly reveals the extent of falsely attributed quotes.
One example, “When I saw you I fell in love, and you smiled because you knew” is not at all from the great poet and playwright.
Marylin Monroe is another celebrity to be regularly misquoted, despite the fact she had plenty of interesting things to say.
She did not say “Well behaved women seldom make history,” and neither did Elenor Roosevelt (whom the quote is also attributed to).
In fact it was written by Harvard University history professor Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, who wrote it in a paper.
After the line gained popularity (attributed to her or others) she decided to write a book with the quote as the title, which explores the way women have shaped history.
Seeing as quoting famous people can be a fraught undertaking, many celebrities are a little more cautious (or studious) about who they quote.
Lara Bingle appears to keep her regular text posts properly attributed - although deeper Google-ing could prove otherwise.
She's posted quotes from Jennifer Lawrence to Frank Tyger, and they all seem to be correct - one up on Witherspoon, it seems.
Some celebrities choose to go down the road of posting quotes without the name of the person that originally came up with said phrase.
Jennifer Hawkins and Heidi Klum both post unattributed quotes, which is a handy way of avoiding scrutiny for misquoting someone but annoying if you want to know who said it.
A number of Hawkins' quotes come from anonymous sources, and one or two appear to be original - "The booty" is hardly a literary nod.
Maybe Witherspoon can take a leaf out of the virtual books of these ladies, and either research a la Bingle or make up her own quotable quotes.
