Questions tagged [quotes]
Use this tag when the question is about whether someone said or wrote a quote.
427 questions
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Did Mark Twain say "history doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme"?
The quote "history doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme" is attributed to Mark Twain, but I've never seen it attributed to one of his published works. Did he ever use it in an article, ...
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1
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Did recently killed Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif call the Oct 7 attackers "heroes"?
Five Al Jazeera staff were killed in a targeted Israeli strike. Israel claims that Al Jazeera journalist, Anas al-Sharif, was a Hamas terrorist.
A screenshot is being spread around Twitter which ...
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4
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1
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Did chess champion Paul Morphy say "the ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life"?
There are a number of unofficial sources on the internet (see, for example, here, here, and here) saying that the 19th-century chess champion Paul Morphy said the following:
The ability to play chess ...
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11
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Is Stanisław Ulam's quote about nonlinear systems apocryphal?
A wonderful quote often attributed (e.g. on the Wikipedia page about nonlinear systems) to scientist Stanisław Ulam is the following:
Using a term like nonlinear science is like referring to the bulk ...
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Did Azhar Masood, the head of Jaish-e-Mohammed, say that Operation Sindoor killed ten members of his family?
Various Indian media carries this quote:
Masood said, “Ten members of my family including five children, my elder sister and her husband, my Islamic scholar nephew, his wife and my niece in addition ...
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1
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Did Michelangelo ever say/write "Genius is eternal patience"?
Briefly googling, one early attribution in the English language is by Louisa May Alcott in Good Wives (1872):
If "genius is eternal patience," as Michael Angelo affirms, Amy certainly had ...
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1
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Do people in GT cars experience twice the amount of g-forces than astronauts on lift-off?
In the 2023 movie Gran Turismo, when the winners of the application competition are first in GT Academy, Jack Salter says,
When you’re in a race, the g-forces will be twice what an astronaut ...
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Did Edward Snowden say "When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are being ruled by criminals"?
Did Edward Snowden say:
When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are being ruled by criminals
When searching on Google I can see lots of sites where the quote is presented ...
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Did Oppenheimer comment about the split between Dr. Tsung Dao Lee and Dr. Chen Ning Yang?
Tsung-Dao Lee, who in 1957 became the second-youngest scientist to receive a Nobel Prize passed away on August 4
The story of his breakup with his co-recipient of the 1957 Nobel Prize, Yang Chen Ning ...
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Did Hitler say "I cannot live if one Jew is left"?
Recently, Moshe Feiglin, former deputy speaker of Israel's Knesset, said something on Israeli TV that went viral on X (Formerly Twitter): (see this and this)
"As Hitler said, 'I cannot live if ...
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Did Einstein ever say "Then I would feel sorry for the good Lord. The theory is correct." about the theory of relativity?
According to PhysicsWorld and numerous other resources, Einstein said the following:
Then I would feel sorry for the good Lord. The theory is correct anyway. (1919, reply to his assistant, Ilse ...
- 10.3k
4
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Did Kurt Gödel say this quote about materialism?
In an interview, David Berlinski mentioned Kurt Gödel's view on materialism. He said:
Materialism succeeds to the extent that the materialists assigned to
material objects all the properties that ...
- 239
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1
answer
911
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Did President Richard Nixon say that the Warren Report was a hoax?
David Talbot writes in The mother of all coverups:
On a White House tape recording, President Nixon is heard telling
aides that the Warren Report "was the greatest hoax that has ever been
...
- 34.1k
3
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What is the correct version of Iraq's prime minister Nuri al-Said's quote?
Benny Morris claims:
Already before the war, Iraq’s prime minister had warned British diplomats that if the United Nations decided on a solution to the Palestine problem that was not “satisfactory” ...
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Did Nikola Tesla say that 3,6,9 are the key to the universe?
I have seen the following quote at numerous places:
“If you only knew the magnificence of the 3, 6 and 9, then you would have the key to the universe.”
~Nikola Tesla
For example, this Youtube video ...
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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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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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5
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1
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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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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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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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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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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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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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1
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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 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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