Questions tagged [quotes]
Use this tag when the question is about whether someone said or wrote a quote.
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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’...
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2
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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 ...
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1
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Did Leonardo da Vinci say this quote about principles for the development of a complete mind?
I have read on many sites online, like Reddit and Goodreads, the following quote supposedly from da Vinci's notebooks:
“Principles for the Development of a Complete Mind: Study the science
of art. ...
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2
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Did George Biddell Airy write a paper "On Certain conditions under which a Perpetual Motion is possible"?
George Biddell Airy was an English mathematician. He was Astronomer Royal from 1835 to 1881
According to the Bessler Wheel web-site (a site dedicated to investigationg perpetual motion machines, Airy ...
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1
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Did Margaret Mead say that a healed femur is the earliest sign of civilization?
A 1997 issue of the Bulletin of the American College of Surgeons, in an article I could not identify, contains the following story:
The noted, late anthropologist, Margaret Mead, was once asked, "...
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Did Erwin Schrödinger say there is only one mind in the universe?
Blogger Hendrik Wintjen writes:
Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger is known for the phrase “The total number of minds in the universe is one. In fact, consciousness is a singularity phasing ...
user55498
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1
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Did William Pitt the Younger say, "We must yoke up the children to work in the factories"?
Purdy (2016):
skilled adult labour was in such short supply that when his Chancellor of the Exchequer warned Prime Minister William Pitt that businesses were becoming unable to pay their taxes to ...
user55018
6
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3
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Is this quote about the Bhagavad Gita properly attributed to Albert Einstein?
The Bhagavad Gita is Hindu scripture.
The blog of Sivana East claims that Albert Einstein said:
When I read the Bhagavad-Gita and reflect about how God created this universe everything else seems so ...
user55058
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2
answers
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Did Bernie Sanders say that a woman cannot be president?
During the January 2020 Democratic debate at 43:27 the moderator asked Bernie why he said that a woman cannot win an election https://youtu.be/Ppm_mqo9Tyc?t=2607 . Bernie responds by denying that he ...
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Did Alexander Graham Bell write "the unchecked burning of fossil fuels would have a sort of greenhouse effect" in 1917?
Quoting from a clearly low-quality journal:
In 1917 Alexander Graham Bell wrote. The unchecked burning of fossil fuels] would have a sort of greenhouse effect", and "The net result is the ...
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1
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“Don’t take liquor in the bedroom, and don’t stick anything in your ears”
Today’s Guardian says
And if your grandkid ever asks for sage advice, just regurgitate Kurt Vonnegut’s: don’t take liquor in the bedroom, and don’t stick anything in your ears.
I’m scared of being ...
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1
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Did Macaulay address the British parliament about Indian culture?
There is a viral photograph and a passage about Lord Macaulay's address in the British Parliament about India.
"I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one ...
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Did Lenin say "destroy the family, you destroy the country", and if so in what context?
Various publications e.g. "The Parent Care Conversation" (which seems to be a religiously inspired book in some parts at least) attribute the saying "destroy the family, you destroy the country" to ...
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0
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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 ...
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1
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What did Socrates have to say about what strong, average, and weak minds discuss?
Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, and weak minds discuss people.
is widely attributed to Socrates.
I should have thought that if Socrates said it, it would be readily ...
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Did Lenin ever say that you could "destroy society through music"?
I've seen the quote:
"One quick way to destroy a society is through its music."
Vladimir Lenin
on (Russian?) Facebook:
Spanish Twitter:
and is also mentioned in the book The Authentic ...
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Did a Cypriot bishop claim that homosexuality is caused when parents have anal sex?
The August 1, 2019 issue of MetroWeekly ("Washington D.C.'s Best LGBTQ Magazine for 25 Years"), on page 46, provides a "LastWord" quotation section that includes the following:
&...
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3
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Did Hitler say this quote about education?
On How Hitler Stopped Homeschooling they say Hitler said this:
“The youth of today is ever the people of tomorrow. For this reason we have set before ourselves the task of inoculating our youth with ...
user50066
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Did AOC ever make this statement about daylight savings time and global warming?
If we change our times with the sole intent of increasing the amount of daylight we receive, that's an extra hour of sunshine that will warm the planet. That's one extra hour per day of extra heat ...
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Did Henry Ford ever say "any color he wants as long as it’s black"?
It's a common quote to attribute to him. Did he ever actually say/write it?
A customer can have a car painted any color he wants as long as it’s black.
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Did Lincoln tell Stowe "So you're the little woman that started this great war!"?
I have decided to give Uncle Tom's Cabin another read. A famous quote that surrounds this book, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, in general, is that when she met Abraham Lincoln, he told her
So you're ...
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Did Jhering coin the bon mot "In Germany everything that is not allowed is forbidden"?
On a website collecting aphorisms, we find:
In Deutschland ist alles verboten, was nicht erlaubt ist;
in England ist alles erlaubt, was nicht verboten ist;
in Rußland ist alles erlaubt, was ...
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Did Einstein say this about philosopher Peter Deunov?
Multiple sources and books about Peter Deunov state that Albert Einstein said this:
"The whole world bows to me, but I bow to the Master Peter Deunov of
Bulgaria."
I cannot find any context or ...
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Did Newton say that humanity would be able to travel at 40 miles a hour
I've received a text that says:
"The chariots storm through the streets, rushing back and forth through the squares. They look like flaming torches; they dart about like lightning." - Nahum 2:4
...
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3
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Did Mussolini say the state controlled three-fourths of the Italian economy?
Three-fourths of the Italian economy, industrial and agricultural, is in the hands of the state. And if I dare to introduce to Italy state capitalism or state socialism, which is the reverse side of ...
user50066
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1
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Did Lenin say he made a mistake, their actions caused oppression and massacres and what Russia needed was ten Francis of Assisi?
I have found claims about Vladimir Lenin saying near end of his life:
"I have been mistaken. It was necessary, I suppose, to liberate the
multitude of oppressed people, but our method only ...
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1
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Who wrote “A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.”?
Literature.SE is one of many (query credit to @Glorfindel) SE sites that run community promotion ads. One such ad (below) includes a quote by Samuel Johnson.
Ad credit to @Rand al'Thor (font choice) ...
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Was this Communist Party Directive from 1943 genuine?
When certain obstructionists become too irritating, label them after
suitable buildups as fascist or Nazi or anti-Semitic and used the
prestige of anti-fascist and tolerance organisations to ...
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Did Aaron Levenstein say 'Statistics are like bikinis'?
From a Cross Validated (better known as Stats.SE) answer with 117 upvotes:
Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.
-Aaron Levenstein
As @Dikran ...
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1
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Did the creator of Unix say "One of my most productive days was throwing away 1000 lines of code."?
Various books and web pages claim that Ken Thompson said:
"One of my most productive days was throwing away 1000 lines of code."
It's found for instance in The Art of UNIX Programming by Eric S. ...
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1
answer
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Did Rudyard Kipling describe any drink as "from the clippings and shavings of angels' wings"?
Use any search engine with the search query '"from the clippings and shavings of angels' wings" Kipling' and you will find many results. For example:
Rudyard Kipling described the powerful ...
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1
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Did Ayn Rand use the term "ineptocracy"?
"Ineptocracy" as can be googled today is a certain criticism of democracy. One book (titled Far-Right Fantasy: A Sociology of American Religion and Politics) seems to say that Ayn Rand used the term:
...
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2
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Was the debris of a missile presented by India authentic?
In February 2019, Indian officials presented the alleged wreckage of an AIM-120C5 AMRAAM missile as evidence that Pakistan used an F-16 in the shooting down of IAF jets (as only an F-16 could fire ...
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Did Paul Offit, MD, say that aluminum plays an important role in the development of a healthy fetus?
The following quote is attributed to Paul A. Offit, MD, by a number of websites and books; they can be found by Googling for the exact quote in quote marks (screenshot below)
Aluminum is considered ...
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0
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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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Did new Brazilian president Bolsonaro say he'd rather have a dead son than a gay one?
There has been a lot in the global news media recently about the new President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, and the highly controversial things he is alleged to have said in the past.
Some quotes are ...
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Did Einstein say: "I'm doing just fine, considering that I have triumphantly survived Nazism and two wives"
The book "How to think like Einstein" (Isbn-13 978-1-4926-2627-5) has a number of quotes in it that are attributed to Albert Einstein
On page 28 of that book, it claims
"Einstein Thinking"
"...
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Authenticity of Quote - Eating with fork and knife like love via interpreter [closed]
I have found on numerous websites the quote "Eating with knives and forks is like making love through an interpreter" attributed to a Shah of Iran.
Is this a genuine quote?
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Did Charles Dickens say “The New Testament is the very best book that ever was or ever will be known in the world.”?
So I know anyone with an internet connection can invent a quote and stick a name next to it. I came across this quote recently and was a little skeptical. I found numerous references but none with ...
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Did Alan Turing ever say “Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine”?
Goodreads lists the quote under Alan Turing but I always thought it was merely from the movie (The Imitation Game) and couldn't find anything similar in his published works
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Did Otto Warburg make this claim about diseases in an alkaline environment?
I came across the following quote, alledgedly by the biochemist Otto Warburg:
No disease, including cancer, can exist in an alkaline environment
or its German counterpart:
Keine Krankheit kann in ...
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1
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Did Trump say “going loco”? [closed]
The following site as well as other websites state that President Trump used the expression “going loco” referring to the Federal Reserve Bank and their interest rate policy.
“The problem I have is ...
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Did Martin Luther King Jr. say "Do you know that Negroes are 10 percent of the population of St. Louis and are responsible for 58% of its crimes?"
According to 54,900 Google results, Martin Luther King Jr. said in 1961:
Do you know that Negroes are 10 percent of the population of St. Louis
and are responsible for 58 percent of its crimes? ...
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Is Youtube primarily a male domain?
This is a quote from Jordan Peterson. I've provided two examples, one in which he qualifies the major viewership as being "young" males, in the other it's a generalised statement about all ...
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Did Lord Kelvin say "If you can not measure it, you can not improve it"?
AZquotes claims that Lord Kelvin (or William Thomson) said this:
If you can not measure it, you can not improve it.
But there is no such a quote in his Wikiquote page. So did he actually say this?
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Did Senator Biden deny that FBI investigations can add anything to the SCOTUS confirmation process?
On September 27, 2018 at the confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh, during his opening remarks, Senator Grassley claimed that FBI investigations can add nothing to Senate confirmation hearings and ...
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Did a Harvard teacher recommend thanking God to be happier?
I got a WhatsApp chain letter which reproduced the text in this Linked In blog article:
Did you know that at Harvard, one of the most prestigious universities in the world, the most popular and ...
user4951
5
votes
0
answers
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Did Giordano Bruno say what is reported in this quote?
I recently saw an image where this quote
Non temete nuotare contro il torrente, è d'un anima sordida pensare come il volgo, perché il volgo è in maggioranza
is attributed to 16th Century Italian ...
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6
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Is the Gregorian calendar the "most accurate calendar ever devised"?
This statement comes from a Joe Rogan show episode where he chats to Neil de Grasse Tyson. His statement is about the Gregorian calendar, and goes as follows:
"Point is, this was hard-earned, and ...
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Is "C'est pour cela que je suis née" a real quote from Joan of Arc?
I have found a very beautiful song, which is part of a soundtrack and numerous people claim that the lyrics consists of several quotes from different people.
One part of it is:
"C'est pour cela que ...
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