Byron’s Law
Truth is stranger than fiction.
This is the popular version of what George Noel Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824), actually wrote in Don Juan (Canto XIV 1823):
‘Tis strange - but true; for truth is always strange;
Stranger than fiction.
Byron probably latched onto a proverbial expression here. Almost a half century previously, Edmund Burke expressed the same thought in slightly different words: “When we speak of the commerce with our colonies, fiction lags after truth; invention is unfruitful and imagination cold and barren” (Second Speech on Conciliation with America, March 22nd 1775). Another traditional variant: “Truth is stranger than fiction but not so popular.” Then there is:
Mark Twain’s Corollary. Truth is stranger than Fiction. but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t (’Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar’ in Following the Equator 1897).
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