In the Bible or Not?

Thomas H. Palmer's "Teacher's Manual" (1782-1861) and Frederick Maryat's "The Children of the New Forest" (1792-1848)

Old Scottish proverb

Samuel Butler in his poem "Hudibras" (1663 to 1677)

"And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire" (Matthew 3:10).

Alexander Pope's poem "An Essay on Criticism" (1711)

United States Declaration of Independence (1776)

Sir Edwin Sandys' Europae Speculum (1599)

"Let them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch" (Matthew 15:14).

John Ray's A Collection of English Proverbs (1670)

John Wesley in his sermon "On Dress" (1791)

Edward FitzGerald's "Solomon's Seal" (1852)

Anna Bartlett Warner's hymn, "Jesus Loves Me, This I Know" (1859)

Made up

Misquote of "And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little boy will lead them" (Isaiah 11:6).

John Bunyan's Pilgrim’s Progress (1678)

Thomas Howell's New Sonnets and Pretty Pamphlets (1570)

Thomas Carlyle's Sartor Resartus translating from an earlier German work (1831)

The Coverdale Bible (1535) "After pryde commeth a fall, but a lowly sprete bryngeth greate worshipe" (Proverbs 29:23). Earliest exact wording: John Gill's An Exposition of the Old Testament (1810).

Rewording of "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots? Then may you also do good who are accustomed to do evil" (Jeremiah 13:23).

William Cowper's "Light Shining out of Darkness" (1773). It was set to music as a hymn by Cowper.