Quote Verification
Quote Verification
Investigating whether sayings attributed to religious teachers, philosophers, scientists, writers and public figures are authentic, misquoted, paraphrased, unsupported or fabricated.
Each investigation separates two questions: whether the person actually said or wrote the words, and whether the words accurately represent that person's documented views.
The rule
A familiar saying is not evidence of authorship.
TBR separates the wording of a quotation from its attribution. Primary texts, authoritative editions and identifiable translations are preferred over quote websites, memes and unsourced compilations.
Browse verified voices
People in the quotation archive
Select a name to see the quotations currently associated with that person.
The Buddha
11 verified quotes
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Aristotle
10 verified quotes
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Epictetus
10 verified quotes
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Marcus Aurelius
10 verified quotes
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Marcus Tullius Cicero
5 verified quotes
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Plato
5 verified quotes
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Socrates
5 verified quotes
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Quotation library
Search the evidence
“All men naturally desire knowledge.”
Aristotle
Hugh Tredennick translation, Perseus Digital Library
“It is through wonder that men now begin and originally began to philosophize.”
Aristotle
Hugh Tredennick translation, Perseus Digital Library
“Nature gives us the capacity to receive them, and this capacity is brought to maturity by habit.”
Aristotle
H. Rackham translation, Perseus Digital Library
“Moral or ethical virtue is the product of habit.”
Aristotle
H. Rackham translation, Perseus Digital Library
“Similarly we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.”
Aristotle
H. Rackham translation, Perseus Digital Library
“Men become builders by building houses, harpers by playing on the harp.”
Aristotle
H. Rackham translation, Perseus Digital Library
“Virtue then is a settled disposition of the mind determining the choice of actions and emotions.”
Aristotle
H. Rackham translation, Perseus Digital Library
“An expert in any art avoids excess and deficiency, and seeks and adopts the mean—the mean that is not of the thing but relative to us.”
Aristotle
H. Rackham translation, Perseus Digital Library
“Man is by nature a political animal.”
Aristotle
H. Rackham translation, Perseus Digital Library
“The good life then is the chief aim of society, both collectively for all its members and individually.”
Aristotle
H. Rackham translation, Perseus Digital Library
“First, that no harm be done to anyone; second, that the common interests be conserved.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Walter Miller translation (1913), Perseus Digital Library
“Nothing is generous, if it is not at the same time just.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Walter Miller translation (1913), Perseus Digital Library
“There is nothing so characteristic of narrowness and littleness of soul as the love of riches.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Walter Miller translation (1913), Perseus Digital Library
“We must keep ourselves free from every disturbing emotion.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Walter Miller translation (1913), Perseus Digital Library
“Nothing is more commendable, nothing more becoming in a pre-eminently great man than courtesy and forbearance.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Walter Miller translation (1913), Perseus Digital Library
“Some things are in our control and others not.”
Epictetus
Elizabeth Carter translation, MIT Internet Classics Archive
“With every accident, ask yourself what abilities you have for making a proper use of it.”
Epictetus
Elizabeth Carter translation, MIT Internet Classics Archive
“Never say of anything, "I have lost it"; but, "I have returned it."”
Epictetus
Elizabeth Carter translation, MIT Internet Classics Archive
“Remember that you must behave in life as at a dinner party.”
Epictetus
Elizabeth Carter translation, MIT Internet Classics Archive
“Remember that you are an actor in a drama, of such a kind as the author pleases to make it.”
Epictetus
Elizabeth Carter translation, MIT Internet Classics Archive
Verification method
What TBR checks before calling a quotation verified
Find the source
Locate the primary text, speech, recording, canonical text or authoritative scholarly edition.
Check the wording
Identify the exact passage and record the translator or edition when the words originated in another language.
Check the attribution
Separate authorship, reported speech and traditional or canonical attribution from later paraphrase or invention.
Continue researching
Move from a quotation to the evidence around it
A quote should be an entry point into a person's ideas, source texts and the wider evidence—not an isolated slogan.
ThinkersExplore philosophers, religious figures and influential minds.
SourcesTrace claims to texts, documents and source records.
GuidesRead durable explanations and foundational TBR conclusions.
FindingsSee evidence-led conclusions reached elsewhere on TBR.
ArticlesFollow current analysis, investigations and developing ideas.
Belief SystemsPut religious quotations into the tradition that preserved them.