Vol. 06 · Misquoted ·Book ·18 of 348
"All happy families are alike."
They never said that.
What people say
"All happy families are alike."
What was actually said
"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Narrator — Anna Karenina (1878)
Why it stuck
The first clause alone has become an aphorism, and half of it is wrong without the second. Tolstoy's point is asymmetry — happy family monoculture vs. endless unhappy variety.
Jared Diamond repurposed this as the "Anna Karenina principle" for ecology and economics.
Know another line by heart?
Play the duel and see how many you can spot. Or browse the whole shelf.