Did Mark Twain say that no amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot, or was it Daffy Duck?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 2016 a book by Arthur Austen Douglas titled 2412 Mark Twain Quotes appeared. On page 75 it said that:

 

“No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot.”

 

That same quote also appeared on web sites like AZ Quotes, QuoteFancy, QuoteMaster, and QuoteTab. These references all are missing two important details – where and when did Twain allegedly said that? Was it in a book, a newspaper or magazine article, a letter, or a speech?

 

An article by Bruce VanWyngaden in the Memphis Flyer on July 4, 2019 titled Lies and Damned Lies described a Facebook version:

 

“There was a popular meme flying around Facebook this week. It was a picture of Mark twain, accompanied by this sentence: ‘No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot.’

 

That’s a provocative quote, and it sounds like something Mark Twain might have said. It’s appealing to everyone, because everybody thinks the facts are on their side and only an idiot would disagree. But Twain didn’t say it. Nor did he say most of the things you see attributed to him on social media. In fact there are websites entirely devoted to debunking or verifying Mark Twain quotes.”

 

Wikipedia says that Twain (Samuel Clemens) died back on April 21, 1910. It is very suspicious that the Facebook version did not appear until over a century later. An AAP Factcheck page by the Australian Associated Press on August 16, 2019 is titled Mark Twain “evidence” quote is false. And an article by Jordan Liles at Snopes on November 14, 2023 titled Did Mark Twain say ‘No Amount of Evidence Will Ever Persuade an Idiot’? says the answer in NO.

 

On March 19, 2023 I blogged about How to avoid using a fake quotation. I linked to a Research Guide web page at the Library of Congress on Quotations. It has an Online Resources page with a link to the Mark Twain Project Online that includes search of Twain’s letters – which also don’t include that quote.  

 

In my post title I made the quote source a false dilemma.

 

Images of a Mark Twain portrait and a Daffy Duck statue came from Wikimedia Commons.