About Us

Quote.org is an encyclopedic quote resource for journalists, academia, students, and the general public. In an era of widespread misinformation and disinformation, this site is a timely reference for properly sourced quotes and helps identify unverified, misquoted, misattributed, and apocryphal quotes.

As a encyclopedic reference site for quotes, quote.org has several unique features and capabilities:

  • Scale. Quote.org has more than 1.5 million quotes, more citations, more topics, more authors, and more relevant metadata than any other online or offline quote resource. By comparison, the largest quote textbooks have ~20,000 quotes and ~3,700 authors.

    More important than the numbers is the quality of the quotes and authors. New authors, quotes, and citations are added weekly from dozens of reputable sources including news sites, periodicals, books, video and audio sources, blogs, newspapers, and academic papers. Users with a quote.org account (free) can enter their own quotes or seamlessly contribute quotes using our QuoteCapture Browser Extension [coming 2025] to capture quotes from webpages, with citations, in seconds.
  • Citations. Quote.org has more citations than any other online site, and orders of magnitude more citations than even the largest quote reference textbooks. The majority of quote.org citations use primary sources (see Quote Types below). When possible, citations include a link to an online source.
  • Topics. We use AI to analyze our quotes to make them more discoverable and searching more accurate. Quote.org has more than 600,000 topics making it easier to find very specific quotes without having to page through hundreds or thousands of quotes to find the perfect quote. Quotes tagged with a very specific topic, such as [Government Retirement Benefits], are also tagged with the more general topic – [Government] in this example – to enable both broad and narrow search patterns.
  • Context. Context is provided for quotes that require additional information to clarify the author’s intent, provide relevant situational or historical information, or provide broader context in which the quote is found. See an example here. Context is sometimes used to provide variant versions or translations.
  • Authors can be searched by name, alias, pseudonym and title. Many authors are known (and quoted) using different names, pseudonyms, or titles, which can make finding a specific quote more difficult. Quote.org seamlessly locates authors using names, titles, aliases and pseudonyms. Common misspellings of author names are also searched.

    The practice of people changing their names or adopting different titles has been common throughout history, serving various social, legal, religious, political, and personal purposes. Rulers commonly adopted new names when ascending a throne or position of authority – e.g. pharaohs, emperors, medieval kings, etc. Romans often took new names to recognize military or political success. Even Greek philosophers often adopted honorary names (e.g., Plato, meaning "broad," was a nickname). Name changes associated with monarchical titles, nobility, and heraldry were common. Many religious traditions include name changes to signify spiritual transformation or positions of authority (e.g., popes, saints, martyrs, etc). Theatrical performers, writers, musicians, and composers have often used pseudonyms for artistic or social reasons (Samuel Clemens wrote as Mark Twain). Before the turn of the century, it was rare for a woman to write under her own name rather than a male pseudonym (e.g., Mary Ann Evans wrote as George Eliot). Pseudonyms remain a common practice today among artists, musicians, actors, and writers.
  • Author Biographies. The majority of our authors have detailed biographies including backgrounds, nationalities, professions, a photo, and birth/death dates. Biographical data can help frame what they said and why. Biographies are added and updated weekly.
  • Quote Types. Not all quotes are equal. Quotes are grouped into the following 6 categories:
    • Unverified. The quote was captured by our system but hasn’t yet been sourced. Create a quote.org account if you would like to help find quote citations.
    • Verified. The quote has been verified with a citation to a primary source. Primary sources include such things as books, articles, papers and journals, written by the author. Quotes from first-person interviews also qualify. Some citations may include video or audio clips which definitively authenticate the author as the quote source. Citations from 3rd party sources which do not cite a primary source are generally not considered verified.
    • Misquoted. Quotes that are commonly misquoted or taken out of context. A corrected (verified) quote is provided in the Context or in another linked quote.
    • Attributed. Commonly believed to have been stated by the author, where no definitive proof exists, but is plausible they said it.
    • Misattributed. Mistakenly believed to have been stated by the author. Often these quotes were first said by someone else.
    • Apocryphal. Statements widely attributed to modern or historical figures but lacking solid evidence they said it. In some cases, an apocryphal quote may have some counter-evidence, for example, "I cannot tell a lie ,” attributed to George Washington, was invented by biographer Mason Locke (Parson) Weems. An apocryphal quote is considered less likely to have been said by the author than an attributed quote. Apocryphal quotes suffer from the proving-a-negative problem.
  • Audio & Video Sources. Some quotes come from audio or video sources - video broadcasts (TV, Cable, etc.), streamed interviews, radio interviews, podcasts, etc. In many cases, these quotes include an embedded player or direct link to the audio or video source as part of the citation. See example here.
  • Quotes About. Need to find a quote about a specific person? Use the Quotes About feature to find quotes about an individual even if they are not specifically named in the quote.
  • Linked Quotes. Some quotes are closely related. Misquotes often link to the actual verified quote; some quotes are part of a back-and-forth between people; some quotes are part of a closely-related series of quotes. Linked quotes allow seamless navigation between closely related quotes. See an example here.
  • Quote Chains. [Coming in 2025] Quote Chains provide a chronological sequence of quotes about a specific topic from the same author or a series of related authors. Chains are useful to see conceptual or ideological shifts, contradictions, and philosophical convergence or divergence over time.
  • Comments. Users with a quote.org contributor account (free) can provide feedback on individual quote and author pages which we use to improve the site. Comments are not visibly publicly but are used internally to assist in data curation.
  • Private User Quote Collections. [Beta] Users with a quote.org account (free) can create personal quote collections of existing quote.org quotes, enter their own quotes, or capture quotes to their collection using the QuoteCapture Browser Extension. User quote collections can leverage all quote.org capabilities including tagging (assigning quotes to topics), indexing, searching, etc.
  • User-submitted Quotes. Users with a quote.org contributor account (free) may add their favorite quotes to their personal quote collection. When approved by quote.org staff or volunteers, the quote becomes visible in the general system in addition to the users personal collection. At the user’s option, approved quotes with citations display a quote attribution in the general website. See an example here.
  • QuoteCapture Browser Extension. The browser extension (Chrome, Safari) enables rapid quote and citation capture from a website. You must have a quote.org account to use the extension. See QuoteCapture Browser Extension for more information.