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Topic : Re: Is it okay to quote a saying, even if i don't know who said it? If it is okay to quote then how should i quote it. For example, "Many wealthy people are little more than janitors - selfpublishingguru.com

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In these days of googling, it's sloppy to not find the source of a quotation.

That said, there are quotes that have unclear origins, and for those, I guess you have some wiggle room. I think the "as someone once said," formulation is less than ideal because it feels casual and suggests that you just haven't bothered to investigate the origins of the quotation. This may be a time for the passive voice, ie. "It has been said that", or it may be more appropriate to directly acknowledge the ambiguity, with a line like "It is unclear who first said "Yabba Dabba Do," but the words have been repeated often enough to suggest that they express a universal truth."


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