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Words with Provenance

If we can’t verify it, we don’t print it.

We trace every line to its original source — the book, the edition, the author. When the experts disagree, we tell you. That standard is the entire reason Quoteiac exists.

“…so the art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.”

William James · Principles of Psychology, 1890
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Sourced to the original

Traced to a real text, edition, and author. Not a Pinterest caption.

Verified & cited

The citation lives on every product page, including a note when the attribution is contested.

Substance over slogans

We choose lines for the thought behind them — ideas worth carrying around, not filler that happens to fit a mug.

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The Quoteiac Journal

Marie Curie in her laboratory

Marie Curie: Two Nobel Prizes, One Relentless Mind

Her notebooks are still radioactive. Marie Curie won two Nobel Prizes in two different disciplines, survived institutional sexism and wartime, and built the science she needed from scratch — because no one had built it before her.

Read more
Concentric brass arcs expanding outward on deep charcoal — evoking the widening circles of Rilke's Book of Hours, 1905

Rainer Maria Rilke and the Life That Moves in Circles

Rilke wrote the poem before he wrote the famous letters. The Book of Hours (1905) is where "I live my life in circles that grow wide and endlessly unroll" comes from — and what it actually means.

Read more
Epictetus portrait, from Les Morales de Plutarque, 1653, Indian ink

Epictetus: The Stoic Who Had Nothing and Knew Everything

Born a slave in ancient Rome, Epictetus built a philosophy around the one thing no one could take from him: his response to what happened. His teachings have outlasted every emperor who ignored him.

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Good to know

Questions, answered

Are the quotes actually verified?
Yes — that’s the whole point. Every line is traced to its primary source: the actual book, the edition, and for translated work, the translator and year. If we can’t verify it, we don’t print it. When scholarship is genuinely divided, we say so on the product page. We’d rather lose the sale than put the wrong name under a line.
Why is this quote credited to someone I’ve never heard of?
“Be the change you wish to see in the world” traces to Arleen Lorrance in 1974, not Gandhi. “Do not go where the path may lead” is Muriel Strode, 1903, not Emerson. When the true source turns out to be an unexpected name, that’s not us getting it wrong. That’s verification doing its job.
What do you do with disputed or misattributed quotes?
We sort every quote into one of three buckets. Verified: traced to a primary source, clean attribution. Commonly attributed: widely linked to a name without a solid source. We’ll only produce it if we disclose that. Disputed: real evidence of misattribution. We don’t sell it under the false name, full stop.
What does “Words with Provenance” mean?
Provenance is the documented origin of a thing — where it came from, and how you know. For us it means every line on every product can be traced back to a real source. If we can’t show you where a quote came from, we don’t sell it.
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