Vol. 06 · Misquoted ·Poetry ·61 of 348
"Do not go gently into that good night."
They never said that.
What people say
"Do not go gently into that good night."
What was actually said
"Do not go gentle into that good night." Dylan Thomas — "Do not go gentle into that good night" (1951)
Why it stuck
Thomas used the adjective "gentle," not the adverb "gently," deliberately making "gentle" parallel to "good" ahead of "night." The -ly flattens the grammar.
The poem is a villanelle for Thomas's dying father. The misquote turns a refusal of death into a driving instruction.
Know another line by heart?
Play the duel and see how many you can spot. Or browse the whole shelf.