House rules · Non-negotiable

Our method

Every quote is a claim about history. We treat each one like evidence and either find the receipt or say we couldn't.

The verdicts

• Said it True: the attributed person said it.
• Paraphrase Partly true: the idea is theirs, the wording is not.
• Misattributed False: credited to the wrong person.
• Didn't say it False: no evidence they said it.

The rules

1. No receipt, no stamp. A quote is marked verified only with a primary-source link, the exact excerpt, and the date we checked it.
2. Machine-checked. A build step (scripts/verify.mjs) stops the site from deploying if any verified quote is missing its excerpt or source URL. Where we keep a copy of the public-domain source text, the step also confirms the excerpt appears in it word for word.
3. Adversarial review. Before a page goes up, a second reviewer tries to prove it wrong.
4. Public-domain translations only. For ancient and foreign-language texts we name the translator and year. Recent translations, such as Hays's 2002 Marcus Aurelius, are under copyright, so we don't quote them.
5. Secondary research is labelled. When a verdict depends on research like Quote Investigator or the Yale Book of Quotations, we say so next to the excerpt.
6. No faces, no endorsements. Cards are type only. We never use a famous person's image or imply they endorse anything.
7. Unverified means unpublished. If we can't confirm a quote, it stays in the locker below instead of going up as real.

Held back: the evidence locker

These files are drafted but don't meet the rules yet, so they aren't published.

Corrections

Found a mistake? Email the correction desk with your source. We fix the page and add the change to its record.