5 thoughts on “The Phony Quotations Strike Again

  1. National Review has a founding-father’s phony quote test which I did really, really bad at.

    Tell me it’s the founding father’s, give it a vaguely King James Bible cant, and I’m totally sucked in and fooled. But now I know — google it, don’t bamboozle it.

    1. I got all of them correct, because I assumed that the ones that sounded ideological were phoney unless they felt like something I’d read in a reliable source (Lincoln’s quote about the Declaration of Independence) or really seemed to fit the speaker (Hamilton’s about people disliking something because it wasn’t their idea). The commonplace onces were real, because there’s no reason why someone would bother to fabricate a quote about Jefferson ordering hams.

  2. I cannot tell a lie; those who believe in giving up a little essential liberty to receive the temporary illusion of safety will find their blood refreshing the tree of liberty, which, divided against itself, will surely hang separately.

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