MISATTRIBUTED
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist
Misattributed
Widely shared under this name, but not theirs.
This quote is commonly circulated under the author's name, but it does not appear in their known works. The true origin is unconfirmed — likely a later paraphrase.
Source
Charles Baudelaire, "Le Joueur généreux" ("The Generous Gambler"), in Le Spleen de Paris / Petits poèmes en prose; first published in Le Figaro, 7 February 1864; collected posthumously 1869 (Michel Lévy Frères)
Editorial Note
The sentiment is genuinely Baudelaire's, but this exact sentence is not. In his 1864 prose poem "Le Joueur généreux" ("The Generous Gambler"), first published in Le Figaro on 7 February 1864 and collected in Le Spleen de Paris, Baudelaire has a preacher warn that "la plus belle des ruses du diable est de vous persuader qu'il n'existe pas" — "the devil's finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist." The polished English line as circulated — "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist" — is a modern paraphrase written by Christopher McQuarrie and spoken by Kevin Spacey's Verbal Kint in the 1995 film The Usual Suspects, not a translation of Baudelaire's words. Because the wording credited here to Baudelaire is demonstrably the screenwriter's, we file it as misattributed for the exact sentence, while noting that the idea itself descends honestly from Baudelaire (and echoes even older warnings). Readers who want to quote Baudelaire directly should use the "finest ruse of the devil" phrasing and cite "Le Joueur généreux."
