PastWisdom
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PastWisdom Quote Verification - Verify the source behind famous quotes ⭐

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PastWisdom now verifies the origins and attribution of famous quotes. Instead of simply showing who a quote is credited to, we research books, speeches, interviews, archives, and other published sources to determine whether the attribution is accurate. Each quote is labeled Verified, Attributed, Unverified, Disputed, or Misattributed, with its source, context, wording variants, and an editorial explanation. It’s a more trustworthy way to discover, share, & cite words that shape our thinking.

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Maker
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Hi everyone! 👋 One thing kept bothering me whenever I searched for famous quotes online: the same quote would be confidently attributed to someone on one site, credited to someone else on another, and often neither provided any evidence. So we built Quote Verification. For every quote we research, we trace it back to books, speeches, interviews, archives, and other published sources whenever possible. Based on the evidence, each quote is labeled as Verified, Attributed, Unverified, Disputed, or Misattributed, along with an editorial explanation describing what we found. Our goal isn’t just to collect quotes—it’s to make them trustworthy. This has been a much bigger challenge than we expected. Many famous quotes have dozens of wording variations, conflicting attributions, or no reliable primary source at all. We’ve spent countless hours digging through books and historical records to separate fact from folklore. I’d love to hear your feedback: * Is the verification status useful? * What would make you trust a quote even more? * Are there any famous quotes you’d like us to investigate? Thanks for checking it out, and I’m happy to answer any questions! 🙏
OpenAI
OpenAI Day
What could you build with GPT-5.6 that wasn’t practical before?
Maker
A quote source verification to streamline the verification process.PastWisdom traces where quotes actually come from: 24,000 quotes, ~700 authors, each assigned Verified, Attributed, Disputed, or Misattributed against a primary source. The blocker was judgment under uncertainty. Verification means holding distinctions earlier models flattened: a line that exists in a translation but not the original, a chronicler's rendering versus the speaker's own words, and above all, that failing to find evidence isn't evidence of fabrication. Models folded that last one constantly, either downgrading real quotes or inventing citations to fill the gap. GPT-5.6 lets me run verification as a single reasoning pass over conflicting sources and trust the output enough to publish it. That's the difference between 50 quotes and 24,000. On July 23 I'd ship the full corpus with every entry showing its evidence chain.