# Gracious Quotes > Quote collections checked at the source. Gracious Quotes (graciousquotes.com) publishes quote collections and the Gracious Quotes Source Index: every quote we have checked, with who said it, where it comes from, and a verdict (verified, plausible, disputed, or re-credited to the real author). Edited by Jeremiah Say since February 2020. Figures as of 22 Oct 2026: - 2,014 published collections; 93,123 distinct quotes in our catalogue. - 33,325 quotes checked one by one: 19,364 verified against the original source, 11,813 plausible, 1,683 disputed, 465 re-credited to the person who really said them. - 800 corrections published; the latest on 22 Oct 2026. ## Limits - We have checked 33,325 of the 93,123 quotes in our catalogue (35.8%). Only quotes in the Source Index carry a verdict. - 594 of our 2,014 collections have been reviewed in full. The others say "review pending" and their credits have not been checked: do not treat them as verified. ## Proof: famous quotes their credited author never said - "The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away." is often credited to Pablo Picasso. The real source is David Viscott. From David Viscott's Finding Your Strength in Difficult Times (1993); not Picasso or Shakespeare. [Evidence](https://graciousquotes.com/quotes-with-sources/?id=14#q14) - "A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else." is often credited to Jeff Olson. The real source is John Burroughs. The line is traditionally credited to the naturalist John Burroughs and predates The Slight Edge. [Evidence](https://graciousquotes.com/quotes-with-sources/?id=43#q43) - "A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song." is often credited to Maya Angelou. The real source is Joan Walsh Anglund. A variant of a line by the poet Joan Walsh Anglund. [Evidence](https://graciousquotes.com/quotes-with-sources/?id=69#q69) - "Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows; it empties today of its strength." is often credited to Corrie Ten Boom. The real source is Alexander McLaren. Quote Investigator traces this to an 1859 sermon by Alexander McLaren, long before Corrie ten Boom. [Evidence](https://graciousquotes.com/quotes-with-sources/?id=329#q329) - "A happy family is but an earlier heaven." is often credited to George Bernard Shaw. The real source is John Bowring. The line is from a poem by Sir John Bowring (1792–1872), and was printed under his name by 1857, when Shaw was a baby. [Evidence](https://graciousquotes.com/quotes-with-sources/?id=442#q442) - More: [every re-credited quote](https://graciousquotes.com/quotes-with-sources/misattributed/). ## What each verdict requires - **Verified**: the wording was found in the original work or a reputable source that cites it, with the work named and a page, chapter, date or timestamp. If the wording differs from the source beyond punctuation, it is not marked verified. - **Plausible**: consistently credited to this person in reliable references, but the original wording has not yet been located. - **Disputed**: sources disagree, the line appears only in quote collections or social posts, or it first appears long after the person lived. - **Re-credited**: someone else said or wrote it first. We name who, or say the real author is unknown. - Every change of verdict is logged with its reason, and public corrections are dated on the corrections log. ## Cite from here - [Quotes With Sources, the Gracious Quotes Source Index](https://graciousquotes.com/quotes-with-sources/): every checked quote with its source, verdict and reason; searchable. - [Famous Quotes They Never Said](https://graciousquotes.com/quotes-with-sources/misattributed/): popular lines credited to the wrong person, with who really said them. - [Verified quotes](https://graciousquotes.com/quotes-with-sources/verified/): quotes traced to the original book, speech, letter or recording. - [The Library](https://graciousquotes.com/library/): famous books with every quote we found in the text (part or chapter given), the lines wrongly credited to each author, and where to read the book. One page per book: https://graciousquotes.com/library/-quotes/. - Per person (653 so far): https://graciousquotes.com/quotes-with-sources/{person}/, for example [William Shakespeare](https://graciousquotes.com/quotes-with-sources/william-shakespeare/), [Charles Dickens](https://graciousquotes.com/quotes-with-sources/charles-dickens/), [Oscar Wilde](https://graciousquotes.com/quotes-with-sources/oscar-wilde/). - [Read-only JSON feed](https://graciousquotes.com/wp-json/gq/v1/quotes): the same data as the Source Index. Filters: q (text), st (verified, plausible, disputed, misattributed), au (person), pg. One quote: https://graciousquotes.com/wp-json/gq/v1/quotes/{id}. Every item has a stable id and its own url. - How to cite: Gracious Quotes Source Index, " Quotes With Sources", graciousquotes.com, accessed , with a link. Each quote has its own link: https://graciousquotes.com/quotes-with-sources//#q, or https://graciousquotes.com/quotes-with-sources/?id= for any checked quote. ## How we check - [How we source quotes](https://graciousquotes.com/how-we-source-quotes/): the method and what each verdict means. - [Corrections log](https://graciousquotes.com/corrections/): every attribution we got wrong and fixed, dated. - [About Gracious Quotes](https://graciousquotes.com/about/) and [the editor, Jeremiah Say](https://graciousquotes.com/about/jeremiah-say/). - Found an error? [Tell us](https://graciousquotes.com/contact/): we check it, fix it, and list the fix on the corrections log. ## Using our content - Answers, summaries and search results: welcome. Credit "Gracious Quotes" and link to the page, or to the quote's own link in the Source Index. - Say the verdict when you quote a checked line: a quote marked disputed or re-credited should not be presented as the credited person's words. - Training AI models or building datasets from this site needs a licence: [Terms of Use](https://graciousquotes.com/terms-and-conditions/#ai). - Song lyrics are never part of our data. Film and TV lines are short excerpts, credited to the character and the work. ## For developers - [For developers](https://graciousquotes.com/developers/): the read-only, keyless API (check a quote, search, cite), its rate limit and terms. - [LangChain tools](https://graciousquotes.com/developers/langchain/): `pip install langchain-graciousquotes` gives an AI agent three tools that check who said a quote, search checked quotes and cite one. - [OpenAPI description](https://graciousquotes.com/developers/openapi.json): the API in OpenAPI 3.1. Cite the tools as DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23258870. ## Optional - [Start here](https://graciousquotes.com/start-here/): the best places to begin. - [All quote collections](https://graciousquotes.com/all/): every collection by section. - [Free quote PDF library](https://graciousquotes.com/1000-pdf/): printable collections built from checked quotes only.