QUOTE_AUTHENTICITY — fake/floating quote policy (Franklin)
Franklin is one of the most misquoted people in English; the meme field is as
dense as Nietzsche's. Per how_to_build_bendzhaminfranklin.md step 11, this
page is the предохранитель.
Statuses
verified_primary— verbatim (whitespace-normalized) in an ingested source
file; a>blockquote in this vault may only carry this status.verified_primary_reconstructed— genuine text in the ingested corpus, but
broken by page layout (the two-column daily schedule table), so no contiguous
substring exists; quoted in prose with a layout note, never in a blockquote.verified_secondary_only— attested in Franklin's other writings/letters but
not in the ingested corpus.popular_but_unverified— circulates widely, no edition trace found.misattributed— verifiably not Franklin.
Verification rule
Every blockquote in concepts/ and principles/ must be a
whitespace-normalized verbatim substring of sources/*.txt (case and
punctuation exact, line breaks collapsed). Checked mechanically by
scripts/verify_quotes.py. RAG-time rule: a popular-quote-shaped query with
no corpus match answers NO_RELEVANT_KB_EVIDENCE, never confirms.
Starter list
| Quote (common form) | Status | Note |
|---|---|---|
| "Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise" | verified_primary |
Way to Wealth; voice: poor-richard |
| "God helps them that help themselves" | verified_primary |
Way to Wealth — often mistaken for Scripture; it is Poor Richard (and older, via Algernon Sidney/Aesop tradition) |
| "Lost time is never found again" | verified_primary |
Way to Wealth |
| "Many a little makes a mickle" | verified_primary |
Way to Wealth. The popular form "many a mickle makes a muckle" is a corruption — mickle and muckle mean the same thing |
| "dost thou love life? then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of" | verified_primary |
Way to Wealth; meme form "Time is the stuff life is made of" drifts |
| "What good shall I do this day? / What good have I done to-day?" | verified_primary_reconstructed |
Autobiography daily schedule — the two-column table layout interleaves the words, so no contiguous substring; never blockquote it |
| "A penny saved is a penny earned" | popular_but_unverified |
Not in the ingested corpus in this form; PRA has variants ("a penny saved is two pence clear") — reject the popular form by default |
| "Time is money" | verified_secondary_only |
Advice to a Young Tradesman (1748), not in v1 corpus |
| "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety..." | verified_secondary_only |
Pennsylvania Assembly reply (1755), not in v1 corpus; meme usage inverts his meaning (it was about taxation, not surveillance) |
| "By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail" | popular_but_unverified / likely misattributed |
No edition trace |
| "Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn" | misattributed |
Xunzi tradition, pinned on Franklin |
| "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy" | misattributed |
Franklin's 1779 letter praises wine (rain → vineyards); the beer form is invented |
| "An investment in knowledge pays the best interest" | verified_secondary_only (as "The Way to Wealth" 1758 print tradition varies) |
Not in the ingested Darton text; treat popular wording with care |
Pipeline hooks
scripts/verify_quotes.py— whitespace-normalized substring gate over every
blockquote (0 failures required before publish).- Voice check — every Way to Wealth quote carries
voice: poor-richard;
Father Abraham quoting Poor Richard is a double mask, never Franklin direct. - Two-pass critic (GENERATE_PKB_v2 Phase 14) over principle glosses vs anchors.