Voltaire is one of the many\u00a0historical figures that is often misattributed.<\/p>\n
A May 20 Facebook post claims the 18th-century philosopher\u00a0said, “If you want to know who controls you, look at who you are not allowed to criticize.” The post has accumulated more than 2,300 interactions.<\/p>\n
USA TODAY reached out to the user for comment.<\/p>\n
Fact check: <\/strong>No, Albert Einstein did not say famous quote about fish climbing trees<\/span><\/p>\n Voltaire was a critic and public activist, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, but the quote came more than two centuries after his death.<\/p>\n The original quote is worded slightly differently, according to\u00a0etymologist\u00a0Barry Popik, and it’s from a 1993 radio broadcast by\u00a0Kevin Alfred Strom.\u00a0Strom is\u00a0an American white nationalist and Holocaust denier, according to the Associated Press.<\/p>\n “To determine the true rulers of any society, all you must do is ask yourself this question: Who is it that I am not permitted to criticize?” said\u00a0Strom in “All America Must Know the Terror That Is Upon Us.”\u00a0<\/p>\n USA TODAY\u00a0searched Voltaire’s correspondence from 1742-1777 in the University of Southern California’s digital library but did not find any evidence to support the claim.<\/p>\n Strom, one of the founders of the National Vanguard organization, confirmed in 2017 that the quote is indeed his.<\/p>\n “So it\u2019s pretty clear, even to my critics, that I came up with the idea and the quote \u2014 and Voltaire never did,” said Strom in the\u00a0online post.<\/p>\n Strom said it was “kind of flattering” that his words would be paired\u00a0with\u00a0“the name of the man who said such witty things.”<\/p>\n The quote is “not un-Voltarian” said Paul Gibbard, a professor at the University of Western Australia and\u00a0a\u00a0researcher at the Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford in England, in an interview with The Guardian.<\/p>\n Fact check: <\/strong>Quote attributed to Virginia Woolf was in a movie, not her primary work<\/span><\/p>\n Gibbard said Voltaire’s resistance to authority makes\u00a0the public think it is plausible that he would have said\u00a0the quote.<\/p>\n USA TODAY reached out to Gibbard for comment.<\/p>\n The claim that Voltaire said, “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize,” is FALSE, based on our research. The quote is from\u00a0American white nationalist Kevin Alfred Strom. In 2017,\u00a0Strom confirmed the quote\u00a0is his, with a slight change in the wording.<\/p>\nQuote is from reported neo-Nazi, white nationalist figure<\/h2>\n
Our rating: False<\/h2>\n
Our fact-checking sources:<\/h2>\n
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