A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

This saying is widely attributed to Mark Twain, but modern quotation scholarship has not found a reliable Twain-era source for it in his published works, letters, notebooks, or contemporaneous newspaper reporting. The sentiment, however, is older than Twain and appears in various 18th–19th century forms, often credited to other figures (notably Jonathan Swift). The “truth putting on its shoes” imagery seems to be a later elaboration that helped the line circulate in 20th-century quotation collections and popular media, where Twain’s name was frequently attached to pithy aphorisms regardless of provenance.

The aphorism contrasts the speed and ease with which falsehood spreads against the slower, effortful process of verifying and disseminating truth. “Travel half way around the world” evokes rumor’s viral reach, while “putting on its shoes” personifies truth as needing preparation—evidence, checking, and careful communication—before it can move. The line remains resonant in modern information ecosystems: sensational claims propagate rapidly because they are emotionally compelling and frictionless to repeat, whereas corrections require attention, trust, and time. Its enduring appeal lies in compressing a complex social dynamic—misinformation’s advantage—into a vivid, memorable image.

1) “Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it.”
2) “A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on.”
3) “A lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on.”