37
votes
Accepted
Did John Steinbeck say "It means very little to know that a million Chinese are starving unless you know one Chinese who is starving"?
Yes, Steinbeck wrote the 1941 film The Forgotten Village and then published a book version with 136 photos from the film.
The preface of the book version has the quote:
A great many documentary films ...
- 109k
25
votes
Accepted
Did Native Americans call European people "pale-face"?
According to the US government publication 14th Annual report of the Bureau of Ethnology (1896):
It is very doubtful if the "pale face" of romance ever existed in the Indian mind
Instead, the ...
- 109k
24
votes
Accepted
Who wrote “A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.”?
This quote (with minor changes in wording) is from American writer Elizabeth Yates:
What is a good book? I suggest it is any book that enriches experience and helps us to live more understandingly, ...
- 1,767
17
votes
Accepted
Is the name "Ahmad" mentioned in the dead sea scrolls?
This is discussed in Wikipedia, discussing Isaiah 42:1:
The first verse begins with: "Behold my Servant, whom I uphold; mine Elect...". The Hebrew word which was translated to "whom I uphold" is "...
- 109k
15
votes
Accepted
Does the asteroid 16 Psyche contain this much gold?
Likely close to that much, yes.
We don't know the precise amounts of these trace precious metals in Psyche, merely that the main constituents are nickel and iron.
Our understanding of the amounts of ...
- 11.2k
13
votes
Did Alexander Solzhenitsyn say “they know we know they're lying, but they keep lying to us, and we keep pretending to believe them”?
I was tempted to close this question, because you already have an answer.
On the one side, is a non-notable claim from your confused friend.
On the other, Goodreads provides a specific reference to an ...
- 145k
12
votes
Is the novel "Sleepers" a true account?
According to the author, at least some details were changed.
A key point being disputed in the book is when Michael, the member of
the quartet who has been working in the Manhattan district ...
- 47.3k
11
votes
Accepted
Are the ingredients listed in "Macbeth" common plants?
Macbeth dates back to around 1606.
Tongue of Dog
While the most common name for the plant seems to have been hounds tongue, there are a few instances of it going by another name: Dogs tongue.
I found “...
- 34.1k
10
votes
Did Sir Arthur Conan Doyle call J.B. Rhine a "monumental ass" in print?
This has now gone unanswered for seven years. I've always been intrigued by the "authorized" part of the title, The enchanted voyager: the life of J.B. Rhine, an authorized biography.
I obtained ...
- 47.3k
9
votes
Accepted
Was there a person made the quote about poetry that Poincaré responded to?
Poincaré did say the one quote:
We have just seen, through an
example, the importance of words in
mathematics, but I could cite many more cases.
It is scarcely credible, as Mach said, how ...
- 34.1k
8
votes
Did Lincoln tell Stowe "So you're the little woman that started this great war!"?
We only have Stowe's family members' testimony.
Scholars continue to describe the quote as "apocryphal", originating from the Stowe family but from neither Harriet Beecher Stowe herself nor ...
- 11.2k
8
votes
Is the name "Ahmad" mentioned in the dead sea scrolls?
The claim is completely nonsensical, and while I did take a few minutes to watch the film, you can see why it’s nonsensical just by looking at the screenshot that you have provided in your question.
...
- 294
6
votes
Is this the Oath to become a Master Mason?
The same oath also occurs in Morgan's Exposure of Freemasonry, on pages 47 and 48. However, it seems that Freemasonry has never confirmed any of the exposures. Therefore, we can never know for certain....
- 1,264
5
votes
Is the name "Ahmad" mentioned in the dead sea scrolls?
A very firm no.
No Jewish scholar would accept that, no Christian scholar neither, and one can be confident that no serious Muslim scholar would accept that. Or agnostic or atheist for that matter. ...
- 44.1k
4
votes
Accepted
Does "the captain's daughter" refer to a whip/cat o' nine tails?
According to the 1949 book It's an Old Cape Cod Custom :
One shanty had a line suggestive of the old Cape Cod custom of bundling— “ I wish I was in bed with the captain's daughter . ”
Here, the ...
- 109k
4
votes
Was there a person made the quote about poetry that Poincaré responded to?
The original citation by Poincaré is from Science et Méthode (translated in English as Science and Method), chapter II “L'avenir des Mathématiques”.
Nous venons de voir, par un exemple, quelle est ...
4
votes
Was the Education of Little Tree written by an ex-Klansman?
Salon published an article detailing the timeline, the available evidence and the witnesses - it's pretty clear cut. The headstone story (which in the Q reads like 'some rando ripped out a headstone, ...
- 1,686
2
votes
Did Niccoló Machiavelli advocate to fake one's own death?
Apparently not. Searches turn up no real references, just vague allusions to it unsourced. Some have suggested that it comes from the symbolism of the fox in The Prince, because foxes sometimes play ...
- 121
2
votes
Did William Shakespeare help make the KJV bible?
The translation of King James was a big project that took at least 47 scholars six years to complete. The translators and revisers were organised in 6 teams, overseen by the Bishop of Canterbury (...
- 776
2
votes
Does "the captain's daughter" refer to a whip/cat o' nine tails?
My answer is almost the same as Dave's but I find that the intended meaning is erotic.
... I recall ... an old halliard shanty whose chorus forthrightly announces: "I was in bed with the captain'...
- 47.3k
1
vote
Did Alexander Solzhenitsyn say “they know we know they're lying, but they keep lying to us, and we keep pretending to believe them”?
No.
After extensive searching, I am unable to find any evidence that Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) ever said or wrote any such thing. (Same with Quote Investigator, 2023).
As usual, it's difficult to ...
- 399
1
vote
Did the first Mughal emperor of India, Babur, write love poems for men?
The first Mughal emperor did express his feelings, frankly, through poems. And some of them indeed highlight his infatuation with a young man:
... Babur writes of the travails of being a king, of his ...
- 337
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