Maya Angelou said: "People will forget what you said... but people will never forget how you made them feel"
Misquoted Confidence: high
Primary source found, but the way it is quoted changes the subject, metric, population or precision.
- Commonly cited as
- "People will never forget how you made them feel" — Maya Angelou
- True origin
- Quote Investigator — They May Forget What You Said, But They Will Never Forget How You Made Them Feel (Apr. 6, 2014; updated Jan. 24, 2025)
- Type
- Stat check: A widely repeated statistic traced back to its origin.
- Year
- 1971 (earliest known)
- Data as of
- Research updated Jan. 24, 2025
- Last checked
- What the source says
In conclusion, based on current evidence QI suggests that Carl W. Buehner can be credited with this adage. Many people have used the saying without ascription in the years after 1971. The attribution to Maya Angelou is unsupported at this time.
- Method & sample
- Quotation research: earliest instance is in Richard Evans' Quote Book (1971), credited to Carl W. Buehner.
- Drift between quote and source
- Attribution: reassigned to Angelou in a chain message by 2003
- Interest
- Quote Investigator is an independent quotation-research site run by Garson O'Toole; no commercial interest in the quote.
Safe rephrasing
The 'never forget how you made them feel' line is often credited to Maya Angelou, but the earliest known source (1971) credits Carl W. Buehner; say 'often attributed to Maya Angelou'.
Sources we opened
Machine-readable: /api/claims/maya-angelou-people-will-never-forget-how-you-made-them-feel.json · Last checked 2026-10-16