The Good, Better, Best Chant › Who said it
Who Really Said "Good, Better, Best, Never Let It Rest"?
Quote sites credit a 4th-century saint and a Spurs power forward. The record says: nobody famous. Here is what we can actually document.
The short answer
Nobody knows who wrote it. "Good, better, best, never let it rest, 'til your good is better and your better is best" is a traditional English rhyme that was already in print, and apparently already familiar, in the 1890s. The two names most often attached to it, St. Jerome and Tim Duncan, are both wrong, and for documentable reasons.
The St. Jerome claim
St. Jerome (c. 347–420) translated the Bible into Latin. He is credited with this rhyme on thousands of quote pages, posters and school banners. There is no evidence for it.
- No text of Jerome's contains it. A researcher who searched his complete works for any sequence of good/better/best found nothing (Fauxtations).
- The rhyme only works in English. "Best" and "rest" don't rhyme in Latin, and Jerome didn't write English, which did not exist yet.
- The oldest book that credits Jerome dates to 2009, and it calls it "a popular saying attributed to St. Jerome" without a source (Fauxtations).
When the saying appeared on a Dallas district banner credited to Jerome, a local writer flagged it as a "fake motivational quote" (D Magazine). That's the right call.
The Tim Duncan claim
Tim Duncan, the San Antonio Spurs Hall of Famer, did say it, often, and it appears under his name on PassItOn and similar sites. But Duncan never claimed to have written it. At his 2021 Hall of Fame induction he called it "the mantra that my mom instilled in me" (VI Consortium, KENS 5); his mother, Ione, a midwife in St. Croix, taught it to him and his sisters as a nursery rhyme (Encyclopedia.com). He was born in 1976. The commenters on the PassItOn page include people who learned it in elementary school in the 1950s, one who learned it from a grandfather in 1959 who had learned it from his own grandfather in 1901, and one whose great-grandfather used it with his students between 1872 and 1924 (PassItOn comments). A Mississippi church newsletter tells the same story: the writer's mother sent him off to first grade with it, decades before Duncan was born (Mt. Olive Baptist).
Other names you'll see
Thomas Hardy, on at least one quote aggregator, with no source and no match in his published work. Adlai Stevenson, in a reader comment, also unsourced. A version crediting "unknown" is the only honest one.
What we can actually document
| Year | Where | Wording / note |
|---|---|---|
| 1897 | Christian Work: Illustrated Family Newspaper, vol. 62, p. 195 (via Google Books) | Given in a way that suggests it was already a well-known saying (Fauxtations) |
| c. 1898 | Furphy water carts, Australia | Reported as cast into the carts' end plates: "Good, better, best; never let it rest, till your good is better, and your better, best." The oldest surviving photo is from 1920, so the date is not certain (Latin Discussion) |
| 1904 | The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs citation; Hobart Mercury advertisement | Used by a Tasmanian timber merchant in an ad (Fauxtations) |
| c. 1900s | Julia Richman, New York City school superintendent | "Good, better, best: never let them rest until the good is better and the better is best" (Latin Discussion) |
| 1950s–60s | American elementary classrooms | Multiple first-hand recollections of teachers using it (PassItOn, Values.com) |
| 1970s | Ghana | Recalled from a primary school (Values.com) |
| 1980s | St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands | Ione Duncan teaches it to her children; Tim Duncan carries it into the NBA (Encyclopedia.com) |
| 2008 | USC Digital Folklore Archives | Collected as a proverb from an Australian family (USC) |
| 2021 | Naismith Hall of Fame | Duncan quotes it in his induction speech and credits his mother (KENS 5) |
| 2025 | Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears | Makes it a post-win chant; see where it came from |
Two things stand out. The earliest firm print dates cluster in the 1890s and 1900s in both the United States and Australia, which is what you'd expect of a rhyme that was already traveling by word of mouth. And every early use is either a schoolroom or an advertisement, which is where short moral rhymes lived in that era.
Found an earlier printing? Tell us and we'll add it with credit.
So how should you credit it?
"Traditional" or "Anonymous." If you want to say more: "an English schoolroom rhyme, in print since the 1890s." If someone insists on St. Jerome, this page is the reply.
A credit line you can copy
FAQ
Did St. Jerome say "good, better, best, never let it rest"?
No. None of his writings contain it, the rhyme only works in English, and the earliest book crediting him is from 2009.
Did Tim Duncan write "good, better, best"?
No. He quoted it often and credited his mother, Ione. People who learned it in school in the 1950s predate him by decades.
How old is the good, better, best rhyme?
At least the 1890s. It appears in an 1897 American newspaper and in Australian advertising around 1898–1904, apparently already as a familiar saying.
Who should I credit when I quote it?
"Traditional" or "Anonymous." It has no known author.
Is the good, better, best quote in the Bible?
No. It's sometimes linked to St. Jerome, the Bible's Latin translator, but it is not scripture and is not in his works.