Source Center
Research records for quotation wording, popular variants, dates and primary documents. We distinguish a verified excerpt from a familiar paraphrase instead of treating every shared sentence as verbatim.
How verification works
Research records
This collection brings together researched passages from letters and dependable archival records. New records are added only when the evidence is ready.
“No day without a line ... will surely lead to something.”
The wording appears in the scholarly English translation of letter 120. The ellipsis marks a transparent shortening of the surrounding sentence.
Open source record“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?”
The familiar “courage to attempt anything” wording is a popular paraphrase. Letter 194 contains the documented question shown as the verified wording below.
Open source record“Nothing is more solid than “handiwork”.”
The short form preserves the central wording of the scholarly translation; the full clause explains that Van Gogh means literal work with the hands.
Open source record“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”
The widely shared sentence is a polished variant. The scholarly English translation of letter 274 uses the documented wording shown below.
Open source record“Every cloud has a silver lining, it gives one more time for study.”
The sentence appears in the scholarly English translation of letter 805. The shorter form omits only the opening “Yes”.
Open source record“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
Einstein used the bicycle-and-balance comparison in a letter to his son Eduard. The familiar “life is like riding a bicycle” sentence is a polished English variant rather than the documented wording.
Open source record“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
The familiar short sentence appears verbatim in the 1929 interview. Einstein’s complete documented thought continues by contrasting limited knowledge with imagination that encircles the world.
Open source record“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
No reliable writing, speech, letter or interview connects this sentence to Albert Einstein. Closely matching wording appears in recovery literature decades after his death.
Open source record“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
Will Durant wrote the familiar two-sentence wording in The Story of Philosophy (1926) while summarizing Aristotle’s ethics. Aristotle argues that moral character is formed through habituation, but his surviving works do not contain Durant’s exact sentence.
Open source record“Comparison is the thief of joy.”
No reliable Roosevelt speech, book, letter or contemporary record has been identified. Ray Cummings printed the close precursor “A third thief of joy is comparison” in 2003. Curt Cloninger printed the exact phrase in 2004 but introduced it as an anonymous saying.
Open source record“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
No reliable Mark Twain book, speech, letter or contemporary report has been identified. An anonymous bank advertisement printed the close precursor “Half the game of getting ahead is getting started” in December 1923, thirteen years after Twain’s death. Evan Esar printed the exact familiar short sentence in 1968 without establishing a Twain source.
Open source recordEditorial scope
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