Questions tagged [quotes]
Use this tag when the question is about whether someone said or wrote a quote.
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Did L Ron Hubbard say "The way to make a million dollars is to start a religion."
I have heard various versions of this meme and was tempted to quote it in a comment on another thread. This site appears to do a fairly decent job of investigating the claim but leaves the conclusion ...
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votes
1
answer
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Did the computing term "bug" come from a moth stuck in a computer?
The story goes like this:
Back when computers still consisted of vacuum tubes, a system
went down one day and people started investigating the cause. They found that a moth
was stuck in the ...
user6204
14
votes
1
answer
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Did Roger Ailes say "the truth is whatever people will believe" or something substantially similar?
The below image popped up on Facebook apparently alleging that Roger Ailes, president of the Fox News Channel, said:
"The truth" is whatever people will believe.
The peculiar placement of the ...
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12
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1
answer
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Did Oscar Wilde declare his genius to a customs officer?
A famous quote atributed to Oscar Wilde is that, when he was asked by a customs officer in New York if he had anything to declare, he answered:
I have nothing to declare except my genius.
Does ...
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3
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Did Einstein say "if you can't explain it simply you don't understand it well enough"?
A very popular quote attributed to Albert Einstein but did he really say it? If so, what is the original document containing the original explanation of it?
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Did Desmond Tutu criticize African missionaries for stealing land?
The following quote has been widely attributed to Desmond Tutu:
When the missionaries came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had the land. They said “let us close our eyes and pray.” When we ...
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1
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Did Eleanor Roosevelt say that the Jews brought the Holocaust on themselves?
Glenn Beck this morning claimed that Eleanor Roosevelt made the argument at the time of WWII that the Jews had brought the German actions on themselves because of their control of finance and media.
...
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Did George Bernard Shaw convert on his death bed?
I've seen this quote floating around all over the place. It's often used in popular Christian-lite reading (see the first page of the Google Books search for the quote), but is it true? I have never ...
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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?
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Did Drauzio Varella say this quote?
I have come across this quote (in French), on Facebook, attributed to the Brazilian oncologist Drauzio Varella, winner of a Nobel Prize in Medicine:
In today's world we are investing five times more ...
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1
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Did William Shakespeare say "I always feel happy..."?
Is the attribution of this quote to William Shakespeare correct?
I always feel happy. You know why? Because I don’t expect anything from anyone. Expectations always hurt… Life is short… So love ...
- 2,069
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1
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Did Matsuo Bashō compose a haiku about Matsushima where he was at a loss for words?
Lonely Planet's "Discover Japan" claims that Matsuo Bashō wrote a haiku where he was at a loss to describe Matsushima Bay.
Wikipedia says the supposed haiku is roughly translated as:
Matsushima ...
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30
votes
3
answers
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Did Marcus Aurelius say "Live a good life"?
Is the attribution of this quote to Marcus Aurelius correct?
Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on ...
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Did Hippocrates say "The soul is the same in all living creatures, although the body of each is different"?
The quote is attributed to him in many many animal rights banners. Is this attribution accepted by historians or philosophers?
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Did Einstein say the "if you judge a fish" quote that many are attributing to him?
The quote:
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to
climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is
stupid.”
I'm just not confident that this is ...
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1
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Did Lucretius write about evolution and natural selection?
Robert Krulwich of NPR claims that Professor Stephen Greenblatt claims that Lucretius (around 99-55BC) said:
... moving randomly through space, like dust motes in a sunbeam, colliding, hooking ...
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4
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Was this quote on a clay tablet about unruly kids written by an Assyrian?
I've been sent an email saying that every generation thought that kids were too stupid or unruly, with this text as evidence:
"Our Earth is degenerate in these later
days; there are signs that ...
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3
answers
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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 ...
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13
votes
2
answers
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Did Alexander the Great say the following quotation?
A common quotation attributed to Alexander the Great is as follows.
Bury my body, don't build any monument. Keep my hand outside so that the world knows, one who won the world had nothing in hand ...
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3
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Did Bill Gates say 640k ought to be enough for everyone?
This is a quite famous quote:
640k ought to be enough for anybody.
Did Bill Gates say this?
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Churchill's quote: "This is just the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put."
Did Winston Churchill say, as some on the 'net claim, in response to being told he should not end a sentence with a preposition, something like "This is just the sort of nonsense up with which I will ...
- 17.9k
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Did Martin Luther King, Jr. say that "I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy"?
Did Martin Luther King, Jr. say
I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy
It's been going around the tweeterwebs today in ...
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Did the Swiss not produce anything of importance aside from cuckoo clock?
Today's claim to be skeptical about comes to us from a fairly infamous speech in a movie "The Third Man ":
in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and ...
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votes
1
answer
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Did Tesla say that one could get or transmit energy through thin air [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Can you create energy out of nowhere ?
I recall reading that Nikola Tesla suggested that electricity could be created from the air. This claim is stated in the following quote ...
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56
votes
5
answers
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Is a writer named Lisa Holst responsible for the belief that everyone eats eight spiders a year?
If you're reading this there's a good chance you're fan of Snopes.com, and I certainly count myself as the same. However, an issue recently came up a with particular Snopes article that was invoked on ...
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