Vol. 06 · Misquoted ·Book ·164 of 348
"Laugh, and the world laughs with you; cry, and you cry alone."
They never said that.
What people say
"Laugh, and the world laughs with you; cry, and you cry alone."
What was actually said
"Laugh, and the world laughs with you; / Weep, and you weep alone." Ella Wheeler Wilcox — "Solitude" (1883)
Why it stuck
"Weep" is archaic; "cry" is modern. The swap flattens the vowel music of the original couplet.
Wilcox claimed she wrote the poem after seeing a grieving stranger on a train to Wisconsin.
Know another line by heart?
Play the duel and see how many you can spot. Or browse the whole shelf.