Questions tagged [quotes]
Use this tag when the question is about whether someone said or wrote a quote.
36
questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
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Are more than half of scientists who have ever lived alive today?
This Washington Post article quotes Brian Nosek as making the claim that:
Brian Nosek offers up a stunning factoid: More than half of the scientists who have ever lived are alive today.
It then ...
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0
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Did JFK say that "you can win with half the people's votes but cannot govern with half against you"?
According to Al Jazeera:
Jose Miguel, president of the Institute of Legal Medicine, told Al Jazeera: "The most worrying thing is the intolerance and deep divisions within the population, so the ...
11
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0
answers
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Did Maggie Smith compare religion to a penis?
This Twitter post (amongst many other online references) attributes the quote to Maggie Smith:
My dear, religion is like a penis. It's a perfectly fine thing for one
to have and take pride in, ...
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11
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0
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1k
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Did Hitler say "Who speaks today of the extermination of the Armenians?"
This article claims that just a week before the September 1, 1939 invasion of Poland, Hitler asked:
Who speaks today of the extermination of the Armenians?
Did Hitler say this quote or something ...
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10
votes
1
answer
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Is "We, the willing, led by the unknowing" correctly attributed to Konstantin Jireček or Mother Theresa?
We, the willing
Led by the unknowing
Are doing the impossible
For the ungrateful
We have done so much
For so long
With so little
We are now qualified
To do anything
With nothing
(...
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10
votes
1
answer
626
views
Did Aristotle say words to the effect of "when you put a message on a blank slate, that first message is critical"?
I want to verify this:
“Aristotle always said, a long time ago, that when you put a message on a blank slate, that first message is critical,” Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for ...
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9
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0
answers
6k
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Did Robert Conquest ever state his "Three Laws of Politics"?
Robert Conquest was an historian who is sometimes quoted for his "Three Laws of Politics":
Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.
Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner ...
7
votes
0
answers
671
views
Were these the last words of Trotsky's assasin?
Ramon Mercader assassinated Leon Trotsky on August 20th 1940. Ramon was jailed by the Mexican government, but was released in 1961. He died in Cuba of lung cancer in 1978. Wikipedia claims his last ...
7
votes
1
answer
3k
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Did Charles Dickens write this quote about Husayn ibn Ali?
Husayn ibn Ali is an important figure in Islam.
Several quotes pages attribute a quote about him to English novelist Charles Dickens:
If Hussain had fought to quench his worldly desires… then I do ...
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6
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0
answers
729
views
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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6
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0
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847
views
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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6
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0
answers
722
views
Did Nikita Khrushchev make this remark about Switzerland?
It is alleged that Nikita Khrushchev said the following:
When all the world is socialist, Switzerland will have to remain capitalist, so that it can tell us the price of everything.
Did Nikita ...
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5
votes
0
answers
6k
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Did Donald Trump say this about his daughter and wife?
If you Google for the phrase "Is it wrong to be more sexually attracted to your own daughter than your wife?", you will find quite a few sites, some of them reputable publications purporting that ...
4
votes
0
answers
755
views
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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4
votes
0
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4k
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Did Mohammad Ali Jinnah in 1945 say, “Muslims who are opposing Pakistan will spend the rest of their lives proving loyalty to India”?
A widely-retweeted Dec 12 2019 tweet by @TonyAshai reads
Mohomad Ali Jinnah said in 1945, “Muslims who are opposing #Pakistan will spend rest of their lives proving loyalty to India” and #Modi and #...
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0
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Did Francis of Assisi say/write "Start doing what is necessary..."?
“Start doing what is necessary, then do what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible” is attributed to St. Francis in thousands of web pages. But books.google.com can't find it in any ...
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4
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0
answers
831
views
Did Confucius punish a correct student for arguing with an incorrect one?
In Indonesia there are various variants of a popular story where two students are arguing over a simple mathematics - like whether 1+1 = 2.
The incorrect student says he will kill himself if he's ...
user4951
4
votes
0
answers
13k
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Did Camus say, "The literal meaning of life is whatever you're doing that prevents you from killing yourself"?
I've seen this quote attributed to Camus on Goodreads, Reddit, random memes, etc. It is a poignant rephrasing of some of Camus' philosophy of absurdism, but one that I think adds some emotional color. ...
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4
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0
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1k
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Did Stalin say "...Roosevelt explained that democracy is the power of American people"
There's a quote going on in some discussions in Russian. The quote itself is well-known and have about 100k hits if you sum different variations on Google.
Я всегда думал что демократия — это ...
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4
votes
0
answers
460
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Is Amin al-Husseini's memoir being accurately quoted concerning eradicating Jews?
A variety of sources are stating that in a memoir Amin al-Husseini, once the Mufti of Jerusalem, wrote:
Our fundamental condition for cooperating with Germany was a free hand to eradicate every ...
- 105k
3
votes
0
answers
290
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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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3
votes
0
answers
492
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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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3
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0
answers
3k
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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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3
votes
0
answers
429
views
Did John Earle Sullivan invite Proud Boys on stage at a rally and said he wants to work with them?
The Salt Lake Tribune writes (Jan 16) about John Earle Sullivan:
In June 2020, John attended his first Black Lives Matter event, according to Lex Scott, the founder of the Utah chapter of the group. ...
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3
votes
0
answers
334
views
Did China say that war with the US over the South China Sea dispute is now a "reality"?
According to this article from the Daily Star, published on the 29th of January, 2017,
CHINA has declared war with the US is now a “reality” as military
commanders rallied their forces to be ...
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3
votes
0
answers
445
views
Did Gary Johnson not know who Harriet Tubman was?
I've recently been seeing articles on Facebook and Google about 2016 US Presidential Nominee Gary Johnson being escorted into a room named after Abolitionist and US Civil War spy, Harriet Tubman. He ...
- 198
2
votes
0
answers
295
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Did Theodor Herzl adhere to Spinozism?
The following are found among a list of Theodor Herzl quotes on the Web site of the World Zionist Organisation:
When I say God I do not mean to offend the freethinkers. For my part
they can say ...
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2
votes
0
answers
772
views
Did Vinayak Damodar Savarkar say, “Nazism proved undeniably the saviour of Germany”?
The Shillong Times:
The greatest admirer of Hitler and Mussolini was Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, a leading RSS member who coined the term Hindutva and advocated reconversion of the converted Hindus ...
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2
votes
0
answers
1k
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Did Omar Khayyam say this about religion?
Atheistrepublic.com made the following meme which claims:
lf instead of studying religion, men would have
devoted to develop mathematics - algebra.
lf logic of science would have occupied ...
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2
votes
0
answers
462
views
Did Thomas Edison say the "...faith in fiction is a damnable false hope" quote?
Did Thomas Edison say the following quote? :
To those searching for truth—not the truth of dogma and darkness but the truth brought by reason, search, examination, and inquiry, discipline is ...
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1
vote
0
answers
116
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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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1
vote
0
answers
506
views
Did the Mayo Clinic in the 1900s find 4-5 quarts (~4 litres) of raw milk a day to be healthy?
According to this claim by realmilk.com,
THE MILK CURE: In the early 1900s, the Mayo Clinic administered the “Milk Cure,” which consisted in drinking 4-5 quarts of raw milk per day, obtaining ...
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1
vote
0
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5k
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What is the origin of this quote: "Humans live on one-quarter of what they eat; on the other three-quarters lives their doctor."
There is a website about fasting that claims that this quote has been found on an "Egyptian pyramid inscription" in "3800 BC". This makes it extremely dubious: at that time the Egyptians have not yet ...
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1
vote
0
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22k
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Did Muhammad al-Arifi describe non-Arab Muslims as cowards?
The following photo was posted in the Citizens for secular democracy, Pakistan Facebook group.
It claims Saudi author Muhammad al-Arifi said:
ARABS are the true Muslims
and the true ...
- 15.7k
1
vote
0
answers
282
views
Did Steve Jobs compare Apple's market share with BMW, Mercedes-Benz's and Porsche?
From The Register: Apple CEO Cook: 'We're not in the junk business'
Steve Jobs reprised nearly that exact argument in a 2004 interview.
"Apple's market share is bigger than BMW's or Mercedes's or ...
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1
vote
0
answers
242
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Did Rousseau say that equality of conditions is not possible without slavery?
I just read What is Property, written in 1840 by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.
At the end of the book he attributes a paraphrased quote to Jean-Jaques Rousseau:
The communistic republic of Plato ...
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