How we source quotes
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The five levels
Every card carries one label. They are defined on the About page and repeated here because a quotation without a level is just a mood.
- Well attested. The sentence is securely the author’s, in their own language, or a close standard translation of a specific passage.
- Paraphrase or translation. The thought is in the source, but the English is a translation, a freer rendering, or a shortened form of a longer passage.
- Summary. The card restates the argument. It is not presented as the author’s sentence, so it is not wrapped in quotation marks and it is not dealt in the misquote game.
- Questionable. There is a real doubt: the wording is late, the book’s authorship is disputed, or the line is only an anecdote.
- Misattributed. The familiar sentence was not said or written by this person. The note names a better source when there is one.
Translations the cards name
When the English is not the author’s, the card names the work and, where the library is leaning on a particular Englishing, the translator. Examples already on the cards: Walter Kaufmann for Nietzsche; Gregory Hays (2002) and the tradition of George Long (1862) for Marcus Aurelius; Justin O’Brien, Stuart Gilbert, Matthew Ward, and Anthony Bower for Camus. Seneca’s page points at Gummere or any translation that names its source. Epictetus is cited as the Enchiridion from Arrian’s notes. Zeno is cited as reports in Diogenes Laertius and Stobaeus, not as a book Zeno left on a desk. If a card does not name a translator, it is still marked paraphrase or translation when the English is not original. It is not silently upgraded to “his words.”
What the notes are allowed to do
A meaning, an application, and a short account of the philosophy are common readings for study. They are not a second source. The source is the work, the section, and the date on the card. The quote of the day never uses a questionable or misattributed sentence. Misattributed lines stay in the library as lessons, and they are gathered on their own topic page so they are not the first thing a reader meets on a home screen.
Report an error
If a citation is wrong, thin, or credited to the wrong person, write. Name the card, the label you think it should have, and the work you are looking at. A feeling that a line “doesn’t sound like them” is not yet a correction. A page number is.