In recognition of Movie Misquotes week on the twitter.com/twitterflix game, some thoughts on getting quotes… Wrong.

It’s a small point, but it matters. Quotes are fun in presentations. They can add a lot. But when they’re wrong — especially famously wrong — they can be just one less thing to believe about you.

Take a moment to check your quotes and get them right. Don’t just go with the first search result. Can you find 1 or 2 good references that agree? This handy page of famous misquotations at Wikipedia is a good start. Some that surprised me:

“Let them eat cake.” — Marie Antoinette (The original quote comes from Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions)

“Elementary, my dear Watson.” — Sherlock Holmes The complete phrase “Elementary, my dear Watson” does not appear in any of the 60 Holmes stories written by Doyle.

“Billions and billions.” — Carl Sagan Johnny Carson coined this while parodying Sagan. (Who had enough of a sense of humor to say it jokingly in class.)

“Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” — Lord Acton It’s actually “PowerPoint tends to corrupt, and absolute PowerPoint corrupts absolutely” (ok, we jest)

Even the much revered Twainism “Better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt” doesn’t actually appear in his books. It also gets attributed to everyone from Einstein to Lincoln. Twain’s Puddinhead has a paragraph or so that amounts to the same thing, but not the sweet, pithy turn of phrase that’s come down to us.

Like any “rule,” break this one when you need to. Wrong quotes aren’t nearly as annoying as the urban legends clogging up your inbox. They may even have more impact than the correct words. But you might want to use them with a wink and a “did ya know they never said that?” to increase your credibility…