Vol. 06 · Misquoted ·Book ·233 of 348
"Pride cometh before a fall."
They never said that.
What people say
"Pride cometh before a fall."
What was actually said
"Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall." Proverbs 16:18 (KJV, 1611)
Why it stuck
A two-clause Hebrew parallelism collapsed into one clause. The popular form takes the second clause's "fall" and pairs it with the first clause's subject ("pride"), creating a hybrid neither original sentence makes.
Know another line by heart?
Play the duel and see how many you can spot. Or browse the whole shelf.