“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken” is commonly attributed to Oscar Wilde, but there’s no solid proof he ever actually said or wrote it.

Who is usually credited?

Most quote sites, blogs, and social posts list the line under Oscar Wilde’s name, because it fits his witty style and his known views on individuality and authenticity. In everyday use, if you see the quote on posters, Reddit, or merch, it will almost always say “— Oscar Wilde.”

What do researchers say?

Quote researchers have dug through Wilde’s plays, essays, letters, and reliable collections of his sayings and have not found this exact sentence. Detailed investigations trace the earliest known appearances to around 1999–2001, long after Wilde’s death in 1900, including an unattributed Usenet signature and a later attribution to someone named Gilbert Perreira.

So who really said it?

Because the line appears only in late‑1990s sources and not in Wilde’s authenticated works, many scholars consider it a modern aphorism of uncertain origin that was later “back-attributed” to Wilde. The safest answer is: it’s an anonymous or uncertain modern quote that is popularly (but probably incorrectly) credited to Oscar Wilde.

TL;DR: People say Oscar Wilde said “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken,” but evidence shows it’s a modern quote of unknown origin that was later misattributed to him.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.