Yes, and the book where I checked that quote said it wasn't actually Goering. But if I'd said "in the words of Hanns Joechst", no one here has ever heard of him, so I'd have had to get into explanations about who he was. I imagine that is the reason why quotes from obscure people get reallocated to famous ones.

So I wrote my way round it, as Wolfgang noticed, avoiding actually ascribing it to Goering.

That quote about "I never heard a horse sing" was very likely actually said by some bloke noone has ever heard of, but people like to have a name and a face and an image to attach to a remark like that, which isn't quite a proverb.

And even where the quotes are correctly ascribed, the chances are more often and not that they'd picked them up from someone talking on the bus or whatever. And when they are wrongly ascribed, it' only too likely that the one who is said to have come up with them did actually say them at some later time.

As they say: "I wish I'd said that" "You will, Oscar, you will."