Questions tagged [quotes]

Use this tag when the question is about whether someone said or wrote a quote.

The repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts.

This tag is appropriate for questions where the authenticity of a quote is being questioned rather than questions where a quotation is the source of a claim. In other words, the underlying claim is about the authenticity of the quote itself rather than any claims made within the quotation.

Example appropriate questions for the tag
  • Famous Person X claims in his recent book that Famous Person Y gave a speech claiming that the sky is green. Did Famous Person Y really give a speech in which he claimed that the sky is green?
  • Smith (2019), in a paper published in Science, claims that his assertion that "x is bounded by the lesser hyperbola when n < 3" is a quotation from a paper by Johnson (1995), but I cannot find this paper anywhere. Does it really exist and does it in fact contain the claimed mathematical assertion?
Example inappropriate questions for the tag (choose a more appropriate tag)
  • Famous Person Y claims that the sky is green, is it really green?
  • A paper by Johnson (1995) claims that "x is bounded by the lesser hyperbola when n < 3". Is x actually so bounded? The proof that Johnson provides appears very specious, and I have these specific concerns about it specifically....
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Did Rockstar Games post this tweet about EA games?

There has been a photo circulating everywhere claiming that RockStar, producer of the famous game GTA V, tweeted the following: I saw it on my twitter feed, on this forum and on this website. I also saw it here under the title of Rockstar Games…
user25733
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Did Margaret Sanger say "The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it"?

This quote appeared on my Facebook feed. It was attributed to Margaret Sanger who founded the organization that later became Planned Parenthood. "The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it" Did…
Amob
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Did Einstein ever remark on compound interest?

In personal finance articles I frequently find quotes injected to attribute some further relevance to one's position. Over the years, I've read Einstein quoted as saying that 'compound interest was one of man's greatest inventions', or other…
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Did Freeman Dyson say that atoms have awareness?

A video uploaded on YouTube, Richard Dawkins irritated by irrationality, pictured a debate with Richard Dawkins and Deepak Chopra on whether God exists or not. Chopra: You said that atoms get together to create complexity, how does it get …
George Chalhoub
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Did Trump promise to bring back waterboarding?

According to the Wikipedia article Guantanamo Bay detention camp § President Trump's statements on the camp: President Donald Trump has vowed to keep the prison open and to use it to detain "bad dudes". Trump has stated, "I would bring back…
gaazkam
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Did Einstein comment on feeling the presence of Jesus while reading the Gospels?

Einstein is purported to have said the following quote: No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life. This quote is mentioned in the book…
Morgoth
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Did Mahatma Gandhi say “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians."?

I have widely heard that Gandhi has said, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." Is there any evidence of this? Where is this recorded?
Gabriel Fair
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Did Donald Trump say that muslims should be visibly marked?

Donald Trump has been reported in the news and over the internet for suggesting that Muslims should wear some visible id or badge of some sort. Raw Story headlined with: Trump crosses the Nazi line: Maybe Muslims should wear special ID…
Tomáš Zato
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Did Obama say the USA is "no longer a Christian Nation"?

In 2007, did Barrack Obama declare that the USA "was no longer a Christian Nation"? This was in an email asking Christians to band together against Obama.
Mark
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Are these quotes by Malcom X, Albert Einstein, Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict correct?

I've seen this image on Facebook, often these image macros are just made up, or misattributed quotes, what about in this case? Image content: #Free Palestine The Zionist argument to justify Israel's present occupation of Arab Palestine has no…
dwjohnston
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Did Oppenheimer quote the Bhagavad Gita after the Trinity test?

There is an often repeated story that Robert Oppenheimer, one of the leaders of the Manhattan Project, quoted the Bhagavad Gita after witnessing the first nuclear test. One version of the story is told here: Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist who…
matt_black
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Was the name "Wendy" created for Peter Pan?

I ran across something odd today... I have an iPhone app that lists facts, trivia, and other useless information (it's called Cool Facts, downloaded from iTunes). So far, nothing I've found on it has been terribly inaccurate. However, flipping…
Monkey Tuesday
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Did Malcolm X say that Islam has shown him that a blanket indictment of all white people is wrong?

The true Islam has shown me that a blanket indictment of all white people is as wrong as when whites make blanket indictments against blacks. It can be found here and here, but this answer on Quora claims he said, “history will prove the white…
Sakib Arifin
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Did Trump salute 600 times at the West Point commencement exercise before using two hands to drink water?

At the Tulsa rally of June 20th, Donald Trump defended his apparent difficulty tilting a glass of water with his right hand by saying his arm was tired from saluting 600 times. “They said you couldn’t lift your hand up to your mouth with water,”…
anongoodnurse
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Did Einstein say this quote about blind belief in authority being the "greatest enemy of the truth"?

There is a quote/image circulating Facebook (please don't get me started on the source), quoting Einstein: Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth I would like to avoid getting into the validity of the quote in the context its…
Möoz
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