Robin Williams Mentioned, 'The Saddest Individuals At all times Strive Their Hardest to Make Individuals Completely happy'?

For years, web customers have shared a quote generally attributed to Robin Williams, the U.S. comic and actor who died by suicide in 2014. The quote reads:

I feel the saddest folks at all times strive their hardest to make folks pleased. As a result of they know what it feels prefer to really feel completely nugatory they usually don’t desire anybody else to really feel like that.

The quote has circulated on X (archived), Reddit (archived), Facebook (archived), and elsewhere (archived) on the internet (archived) since at the least 2013. It has additionally appeared in quote anthologies and self-help books.

(X consumer @ThatEricAlper)

Nevertheless, questions concerning the authenticity of the quote have popped up for years. For instance, editors on Wikiquote, the collaboratively maintained quote database, have labeled the quote as “unsourced.” Equally, in 2015, a Reddit consumer posted (archived) the quote to the r/quotes subreddit and requested:

Though this quote appears to be attributed to Robin Williams, does anybody know if he really stated it and, in that case, when? Additionally was it one in every of his characters who uttered these phrases or was it he himself?

Not one of the 29 responses to the publish included any proof of the quote’s origin.

Earlier than Williams’ loss of life in August 2014, in reality, variations of the quote circulated (archived) on Facebook (archived) with none attribution, as will be seen within the under screenshot of Fb search outcomes for the quote restricted to 2013, the 12 months earlier than Williams died.

(Fb)

A number of unattributed cases of the quote additionally appeared (archived) on Tumblr (archived) in 2013.

One 2012 Fb post (archived), which featured a photograph of actors Al Pacino and Diane Keaton on the set of the 1972 movie “The Godfather,” did embrace an attribution to Williams on the time of this writing. A take a look at the publish’s edit historical past, nonetheless, confirmed that the consumer edited the publish so as to add each the quote and the attribution in June 2019 — practically 5 years after Williams’ loss of life. The unique 2012 model of the publish included neither the quote nor the attribution.

(Fb)

In different phrases, web customers appeared to attribute the quote to Williams solely after the actor’s 2014 loss of life — a serious crimson flag that means Williams didn’t originate the quote.

One other crimson flag was that we had been unable to trace down any major supply for the quote — for instance, a video or revealed interview transcript proving Williams stated it. Not one of the social media posts or books we examined included a date or quotation for the quote, and a Google seek for the time period returned solely equally unsourced cases of the declare, with no indication of when or in what context Williams allegedly stated the quote.

For that reason, we have rated the declare that Williams stated the quote as unfounded, that means we discovered no demonstrable proof to again it up. If such proof emerges, we are going to replace this story.

Beforehand, we investigated the declare that Williams as soon as said: “Everybody you meet is combating a battle you understand nothing about. Be sort. At all times.”

Sources