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| - If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health, suicide or substance use crisis or emotional distress, reach out 24/7 to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (formerly known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline) by dialing or texting 988 or using chat services at suicidepreventionlifeline.org to connect to a trained crisis counselor.
For years, internet users have shared a quote commonly attributed to Robin Williams, the U.S. comedian and actor who died by suicide in 2014. The quote reads:
I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy. Because they know what it feels like to feel absolutely worthless and they don't want anyone else to feel like that.
The quote has circulated on X (archived), Reddit (archived), Facebook (archived), and elsewhere (archived) on the internet (archived) since at least 2013. It has also appeared in quote anthologies and self-help books.
(X user @ThatEricAlper)
However, questions about the authenticity of the quote have popped up for years. For example, editors on Wikiquote, the collaboratively maintained quote database, have labeled the quote as "unsourced." Similarly, in 2015, a Reddit user posted (archived) the quote to the r/quotes subreddit and asked:
Although this quote seems to be attributed to Robin Williams, does anyone know if he actually said it and, if so, when? Also was it one of his characters who uttered these words or was it he himself?
None of the 29 responses to the post included any evidence of the quote's origin.
Before Williams' death in August 2014, in fact, versions of the quote circulated (archived) on Facebook (archived) without any attribution, as can be seen in the below screenshot of Facebook search results for the quote limited to 2013, the year before Williams died.
(Facebook)
Multiple unattributed instances of the quote also appeared (archived) on Tumblr (archived) in 2013.
One 2012 Facebook post (archived), which featured a photo of actors Al Pacino and Diane Keaton on the set of the 1972 film "The Godfather," did include an attribution to Williams at the time of this writing. A look at the post's edit history, however, showed that the user edited the post to add both the quote and the attribution in June 2019 — nearly five years after Williams' death. The original 2012 version of the post included neither the quote nor the attribution.
(Facebook)
In other words, internet users appeared to attribute the quote to Williams only after the actor's 2014 death — a major red flag that suggests Williams did not originate the quote.
Another red flag was that we were unable to track down any primary source for the quote — for example, a video or published interview transcript proving Williams said it. None of the social media posts or books we examined included a date or citation for the quote, and a Google search for the term returned only similarly unsourced instances of the claim, with no indication of when or in what context Williams allegedly said the quote.
For this reason, we've rated the claim that Williams said the quote as unfounded, meaning we found no demonstrable evidence to back it up. If such evidence emerges, we will update this story.
Previously, we investigated the claim that Williams once said: "Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always."
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