Questions tagged [quotes]
Use this tag when the question is about whether someone said or wrote a quote.
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Did Netanyahu say (apparently in 2001) "I actually stopped the Oslo Accords"?
There are a few sources claiming he said this ("I actually stopped the Oslo Accords"), but all of those I found are rather left-wing. E.g. a 2012 opinion piece in Haaretz or a piece in ...
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1
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Is this quote/poem by Mahmoud Darwish? "if they ask you about Gaza.."
A quote about Gaza has become a meme on social media:
And if they ask you about Gaza, tell them that it has a martyr, a martyr helps him, a martyr takes pictures of him, a martyr bids him farewell, ...
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1
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Did Plato say “we can change reality by changing our mind”?
The complete quote is:
Reality is created by the mind. We can change our reality by changing our mind.
I found this quote on Goodreads and on this blog and on Pinterest. However, none of these cites ...
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0
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Did US president Theodore Roosevelt call Democrats "prison vermin"?
According to two very non-primary references, the President called Democrats "prison vermin".
The first is the 1902 Political X-rays, saying that it is quoting from an 8 November 1901 letter ...
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Would US president Theodore Roosevelt refer to his political enemies as "vermin"?
A publication of the Library of Congress says:
Mr. Foulke in his letters reveals an unusual frankness in letting President Roosevelt know of the attitudes of his political enemies -- "small ...
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2
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Did Netanyahu express support of Hamas in 2019?
When discussing the ongoing Israel/Hamas war, the following quotes occasionally come up.
Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and ...
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2
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Did B. R. Ambedkar say it is shameful for women to enter politics?
B. R. Ambedkar was an Indian politician in the 1940s-50s who helped write the Indian constitution.
The Indian government hosts a web-page of his writings and speeches. Vol. 40, Page No. 467 is in ...
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1
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Did Stalin say in 1940 that "the action of the Red Army is also a matter of world revolution"?
The quote appears in a 2001 paper in English... and only there in that exact formulation.
[Stalin's] policies during and after World War II amounted to “National Bolshevism”—the use of the Soviet ...
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2
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Did a soldier who confirmed babies decapitated by Hamas previously call for "wiping out entire Palestinian villages"?
According to Anandolu Agensi [Oct, 12]:
To this day, only one soldier has said he saw babies were beheaded. David Ben Zion of Unit 71, an extremist settler who earlier this year called for “wiping ...
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2
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Did Netanyahu say "We will turn Gaza into a deserted island" in early October 2023?
According to a October 7, 2023 Al-Jazeera article, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said:
“We will take mighty vengeance for this black day,” the Israeli leader said in a televised address. “...
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votes
1
answer
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Did John Steinbeck say "It means very little to know that a million Chinese are starving unless you know one Chinese who is starving"?
I often see the quote attributed to John Steinbeck, "It means very little to know that a million Chinese are starving ...", when explaining the difference between sympathy and empathy, e.g. ...
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votes
1
answer
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Did Richard Dawkins say Pope John Paul II was a hypocrite about Darwinism?
Multiple sources (including Richard Dawkin's own web-site) quote the following from an article by Michael Ruse, which he supposedly wrote for the Playboy magazine.
We who love science must realize ...
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1
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Did Einstein say "Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics, I assure you that mine are greater"?
I've seen the quote below attributed to Einstein in several places
Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics, I assure you that mine are greater.
Even on sites where several other Einstein ...
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1
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Did Bertrand Russell say, "Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, ..."?
Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence,
it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.
—Bertrand Russell
Many books and websites attribute this ...
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1
answer
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Did Voltaire say/write "Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."?
There is a popular saying:
Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be
said.
On the internet, many pages attribute this quote to Voltaire - however, I could not find any ...
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0
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Did Charles Schulz say, "All you need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt"?
The following saying is often attributed to Charles M. Schulz, or to one of the characters in his famous comic strip, Peanuts.
All you need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt.
...
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1
answer
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Did Richard Feynman say that if all of mathematics disappeared, physics would be set back by exactly one week?
The following quip is often attributed to the physicist Richard Feynman:
If all of mathematics disappeared, physics would be set back by exactly one week.
See for example Quote Master, quotefancy, ...
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1
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Did Tsar Nicholas II really call for a "short, victorious war"?
Back in 2018, an article in the Political Studies Association blog quoted Tsar Nicholas II as saying that what his people needed was a "short, victorious war" prior to the Russo-Japanese War ...
2
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1
answer
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Did the Joint Intelligence Staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff claim the USSR would convince all Japanese?
An opinion piece posted on 10.05.2016 08:46 by Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey on Pravda states that Peter Kuznick claimed:
The Japanese leaders did not know that at Yalta Stalin had agreed to
come into the ...
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2
answers
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Did Hitler say that "private enterprise cannot be maintained in a democracy"?
There are a bunch of sources claiming he said it, but the earliest one I was able to find is a 1968 book The Arms of Krupp, which also gives it in German as "privates Unternehmertum könne in der ...
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1
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Is there documented evidence that George Kennan opposed the establishment of NATO?
I have no trouble believing George Kennan opposed NATO's expansion into Eastern Europe; quotes about that are easy to find, e.g. on Wikipedia, using relatively recent thus accessible sources.
On the ...
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Did Time Magazine publish an article in 1931 explaining how to prepare and roll marijuana?
According to a Feb 3, 2021 blog entry ("Why Is Marijuana Called Reefer?") of Kushfly, a medical cannabis company, Time Magazine published an article in 1931 explaining how to roll a "...
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3
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Did Napoléon Bonaparte ask his wife Josephine not to bathe for several days in a letter before his arrival?
According to British historian Andrew Roberts, Napoléon Bonaparte wrote a letter to his wife Joséphine, in which he wrote "to her, ‘don’t wash for three days’" to spice up their reunion. ...
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2
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Did Richard Feynman say that anyone who claims to understand quantum physics is lying or crazy?
Theoretical physicist, Richard Feynman is often attributed with the quote
Anyone who claims to understand quantum theory is either lying or crazy.
Example of the claim.
Is this apocryphal, or did ...
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2
answers
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Did Lincoln say, "When we buy steel made in America, we get the steel and the money too"?
In "Industrial Policy Comes Full Circle" (Dec. 15), Clyde Prestowitz (Wall Street Journal, 2022-12-11, 2022-22-15 print edition p. R17):
Lincoln said: "I don't know much about tariffs, ...
user62611
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Did Julius Caesar say "If you can't defeat your enemy, have him as your friend"?
In my country (Italy) there's a popular saying that goes "Se non puoi sconfiggere il tuo nemico, fattelo amico", translated to english as "If you can't defeat your enemy, have him as ...
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Did Ferdinand Foch say "This is not peace. It is an armistice for twenty years"?
It is often said (e.g. [1], [2]) that, around the time of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, Supreme Allied Commander Ferdinand Foch said "This is not peace. It is an armistice for twenty ...
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Did Voltaire say/write "In 100 years, the Bible would be a forgotten and unknown book?"
The phrase "In 100 years, the Bible would be a forgotten and unknown book" is attributed to Voltaire in a bunch of Christian sites.
Examples:
Sermon Illustrator
The Destin Log
Does anyone ...
3
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0
answers
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Did herbalist Maria Treben really systematically confuse inulin with insulin?
The widely read Austrian herbalist Maria Treben is frequently said to have fundamentally confused a number of biochemical concepts, theories, or at least names of substances.
As seen with the always ...
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1
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Did Plato and Socrates discuss picking the largest ear of wheat in a wheat field?
There is a widely shared story about Plato and Socrates finding wheat in a field, and using it as a metaphor, generally for love. Examples: Actorsfit.com, David Ding and Love, Marriage, Happiness, ...
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1
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Did Alexander Graham Bell suggest that “Ahoy!” (or some variation of it) be the standard telephone greeting?
This claim is found all over the place. Sometimes the phrase is “Ahoy-hoy!”, sometimes simply “Ahoy!”. In Wikipedia's article about “Ahoy”:
Alexander Graham Bell initially suggested that the standard ...
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1
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Did Louis Pasteur admit on his deathbed "Bernard [the inventor of terrain theory] was right"?
On many 'health' sites defending terrain theory (the theory that the state of the body, not just germs, is the primal factor for disease development) one finds quotes that Louis Pasteur is said to ...
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1
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John Nash quote from A Beautiful Mind
Did John Nash actually said the following?
Alicia: How big is the universe?
Nash: Infinite.
Alicia: How do you know?
Nash: I know because all the data indicates it's infinite.
Alicia: But it hasn't ...
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1
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Did Konrad Adenauer claim that Europe and Asia encounter at the Elbe?
According to James Hawes1,
Konrad Adenauer, its first postwar chancellor and founding father, made Westbindung (“binding to the West”) the heart of West German politics. Adenauer came from the deeply ...
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2
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Did Henry Kissinger say this about forced vaccinations?
I found a quote online in the form of a photo from what looks like some newspaper:
The photo contains an alleged quote from Henry Kissinger's speech to the WHO Council on Eugenics on February 25, ...
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1
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Did Churchill say "Generals are always prepared to fight the last war"?
I've seen the quote "Generals are always prepared to fight the last war" be attributed to Winston Churchill by several sources, but none of them actually give a primary source (such as a ...
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Did Denzel Washington say this quote claiming people who criticize are doing less than you?
The B2B Revenue Leadership Show shared a post with a quote about criticism allegedly said by Denzel Washington. Was this said by Denzel Washington?
Quote and image below
You'll never be criticized by ...
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1
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Did former US Ambassador, Chas Freeman, say “The CIA programs in Tibet, which were very effective in destabilizing it, did not succeed in Xinjiang.”?
In a highly-upvoted Quora answer, Godfree Roberts quotes US Ambassador Chas. H. Freeman [sic]:
The CIA programs in Tibet, which were very effective in destabilizing it, did not succeed in Xinjiang. ...
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1
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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 ...
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Did these politicians say these quotes regarding rape?
DISCLAIMER: IMAGE CONTAINS QUOTES THAT RELATE TO SEXUAL ASSAULT AND RAPE
I recently saw a meme on Quora that claims to show quotes from conservative politicians arguing against abortion in the cases ...
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1
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Did Albert Einstein say that if he could live his life again, he would study the Talmud?
This BBC News article says:
In his book, the Complete Idiot's Guide to the Talmud, Rabbi Aaron Parry says that when, shortly before his death, Einstein was asked what he would do differently if he ...
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0
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Is this quote from Lenin: "Make them swallow the word, they will swallow the thing"?
Éric Zemmour, the far-right probable candidate for the 2022 French presidential election said (in his book La France n'a pas dit son dernier mot but also in many meetings, example) that Lenin has ...
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1
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Did John Wayne create his 5 rules for life?
Did the actor John Wayne create these rules? They're widely attributed to him, but I couldn't find when and where he said them.
They seem to be widely attributed to him
Here
Also here
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Did Napoleon say: "Man will believe anything, as long as it’s not in the Bible"?
The phrase "Man will believe anything, as long as it's not in the Bible" is attributed to Napoleon on many sites but there are no further details (date, context,etc.) available, nor a trace ...
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1
answer
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Did Capablanca accuse members of the House of Commons of cheating in chess in 1919?
There is a quote attributed to Cuban world chess champion José Raúl Capablanca after he gave a simultaneous display in the UK House of Commons in 1919 which is repeated on many Russian-speaking ...
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2
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Is the quote "Your mind is software. Program it. Your body is a shell. Change it. Death is a disease. Cure it." attributable to Peter Thiel?
The source is in this tweet by Tim Ferriss dated Sep 10, 2014. I've listened to the podcast referenced there (correct link) and searched the transcript of that podcast on YouTube, but couldn't find ...
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Did Truman say this about helping whichever of Germany and Russia were losing during the war?
Taken from Good Reads:
If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don't ...
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1
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Did Stephen Hawking say the most important knowledge he learned was in nursery?
According to this website (in Chinese, my translation to English follows, original Chinese below)
In 1988, 76 Nobel prize winners gathered together, including the 46 year old Hawking. The interviewer ...
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1
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Did Hippocrates make a statement similar to "like cures like"?
A number of homeopathic websites include the quote, "By similar things a disease is produced and through the application of the like is cured," but not one of them gives a source for the ...
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Did Fauci argue that gain-of-function research is worth risking a global pandemic?
In a related question, it's asked whether the Wuhan Lab conducted gain-of-function research, as claimed by Sean Hannity of Fox News.
But moments later in the same piece Hannity says that Anthony Fauci ...
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