Something ive noticed is how many quotes are just plain misatributed to people. Of course there are other issues with taking quotes out of context or changing their meaning, but sometimes it’s just that the person ita attributed to straight up didn’t say it.

I mean, how many quotes are attributed to Mark Twain that aren’t actually said by him? “Lies travel around the world while the truth is tying it’s shoes,” “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter," etc. Etc. The first I can’t even find an origin for (it’s also attributed to Winston Churchill with no evidence either), the second one is just misatributed from Blaise Pascal.

This also happens with Miyamoto Musashi, so much so that this website (https://www.way-of-the-samurai.com/miyamoto-musashi-quotes.html) was one of the first that pops up when searching “Miyamoto Musashi quotes”.

And like, I guess I kinda get it? It makes you seem better when you quote other people. But…you can have original ideas of your own. I believe in you. You can come up with profound and inspiring things without being dead for 100 years. Because it doesn’t really matter who says it if it’s good. If you got the idea from someone else, yes, you should attribute the quote to them (obviously I’m not suggesting you plaugerize), but you don’t need to make one up if you have a point. Because I’m guessing there’s plenty of Samuel Clemens’s quotes that you wouldn’t want to repeat because you disagree with him (although he was very cool and very based). So since obviously it is not based on who said it, and rather what they say, you don’t need to attribute something to them for no reason and make it impossible to correctly cite who said it first. Also, if you don’t want to cite anyone, we have a thing called popular sayings. No one ever actually quotes “the grass is greener on the other side of the fence,” we just say “as they say…” Ergo, you don’t need to make my life harder actually searching for and through sources if you just…try? Please? (Not you guys, you’re pretty good about it. I’m more just asking the rest of society)

Edit: obviously we deal with it the other way too. Where it’ll be like “I Personally met with Hitler and cuddled with him as we read “on the Jewish problem,” afterwards I agreed to eat all the jews with my big spoon”- Joseph Stalin[1]

[1]-Claimed by disgraced historian who got his degree revoked who wrote a history book where he claimed operation barbarossa was just a romantic spat between the two. His source is that he tool shrooms before sleeping and personally met stalin in hell