evidence: Her power is sometimes almost Shakespearian. Like Shakespeare, she gives us a large number of wise sayings, expressed in the pithiest language. The following are a few:— "It is never too late to be what you might have been." [...] From this mistaken notion arose such adages as: "It is never too late to be what you might have been." It would be nearer the truth to say: "It is always too late to be what you might have been." With each advancing year, this becomes an absolute truth in the case of the vast majority who have reached the age of twenty. [...] In conclusion, QI speculates that the quote attributed to George Eliot is traceable to the line written by Adelaide Anne Procter: "We always may be what we might have been". In this scenario Procter’s statement would have been rephrased and then reassigned to Eliot. This process may have occurred in the mind of the individual who sent the quote to "Literary News". Alternatively, the transition may have occurred in multiple steps. Perhaps future research will uncover these intermediary steps. Of course, other hypotheses are not ruled out.