Fake Churchill ‘quote’ DeSantis used might be from Budweiser ad, reports say

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TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — When Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that he was suspending his presidential campaign on X, he used a quote that was supposedly said by former British prime minister Winston Churchill.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

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The thing is, Churchill never said that. In fact, it’s not really known who made the phrase popular in the first place and how it got associated with the former political leader.

The International Churchill Society, founded in 1968 after the prime minister’s death, said the quote is nowhere to be found in Churchill’s “canon.”

According to them, the quote is also misattributed to the late Republican President Abraham Lincoln, whose archives also lack any mention of the “success” quote.

Newsweek and the Atlantic reported that the quote appears to be from a 1939 Budweiser ad from Life Magazine. This would be a coincidence for DeSantis, who criticized the brand’s parent company Anheuser-Busch for Bud Light’s work with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

Churchill’s legacy appears to be a popular target for misattribution, with so many quotes being wrongfully sourced to the late prime minister that the International Churchill Society has a dedicated webpage for these fake quotes.

Other popular misquotes are:

  • “You have enemies? Good. It means that you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.” — a quote that is actually by Victor Hugo

  • “What is obviously true is not relevant, and what is relevant is not obviously true.” — A quote that is actually by Arthur J. Balfour, Britain’s prime minister from 1902 to 1905

The mishap draws a parallel between the way DeSantis began his campaign: by announcing it on a Twitter Space that crashed and didn’t even feature DeSantis until 20 minutes after the livestream started.

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