QUOTE_AUTHENTICITY — fake/floating quote policy (Epictetus)

Epictetus is one of the most misquoted Stoics; the meme field (motivational
cards, "Stoic mindset" threads) is dense. This page is the предохранитель.

Statuses

  • verified_primary — verbatim (whitespace-normalized) in the ingested corpus
    (sources/encheiridion_long_pg10661.txt); a > blockquote in this vault may
    only carry this status.
  • verified_secondary_only — attested in the Discourses/Fragments but not in the
    ingested Encheiridion corpus.
  • translation_variant — genuine idea, but the popular English wording is a
    different translator (Carter, Higginson, Oldfather) and is not a substring
    of the Long corpus — quote only in the Long wording, note the variant.
  • popular_but_unverified — circulates widely, no edition trace found.
  • misattributed — verifiably not Epictetus.

Verification rule

Every blockquote in concepts/, principles/ and chains/ must be a
whitespace-normalized verbatim substring of the Encheiridion (Long) source,
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 — and if the idea
is genuine but the wording is another translator's, it answers with the Long
wording, flagged translation_variant.

Starter list

Quote (common form) Status Note
"Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of things" translation_variant Genuine (Ench. V), but this is Carter's wording. Long corpus form: "Men are disturbed not by the things which happen, but by the opinions about the things" — use the Long form.
"It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters" misattributed / popular_but_unverified No edition trace in this wording; a modern paraphrase pinned on Epictetus. The genuine kin is Ench. V (sudzhdeniya-ne-veshchi).
"Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants" verified_secondary_only / popular_but_unverified Not in the Encheiridion corpus; often attributed to Epictetus without trace. Nearest genuine: Ench. XV / XXIV on wanting little. Reject the popular form by default.
"First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do" verified_secondary_only Discourses III.23, not in the Encheiridion corpus.
"No man is free who is not master of himself" popular_but_unverified No trace in the corpus; the corpus master/slave passage is Ench. XIV (svoboda-cherez-otkaz-ot-vneshnego) with different wording.
"We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak" misattributed Zeno tradition / apocryphal; not Epictetus, not in corpus.
"Only the educated are free" verified_secondary_only Discourses II.1, not in the Encheiridion corpus.
"Lead me, O Zeus, and thou O Destiny…" verified_primary but not Epictetus' own voice Ench. LII — verse by Cleanthes that Epictetus quotes. Mark as quoted material, never as Epictetus speaking.
"Anytus and Melitus are able indeed to kill me, but they cannot harm me" verified_primary but Socrates' voice Ench. LII — attributed to Socrates. Persona/quotation, not Epictetus direct.

Pipeline hooks

  1. scripts/verify_quotes.py — whitespace-normalized substring gate over every
    blockquote (0 failures required before publish).
  2. Translator check — because meme quotes circulate in Carter/Higginson/Oldfather
    wordings that are not substrings of the Long corpus, any near-quote must be
    re-fetched in the Long wording before it can be blockquoted.
  3. Voice check — the Ench. LII quotations (Cleanthes' hymn, Socrates' line) carry
    a persona note; they are never presented as Epictetus in his own voice.
  4. Two-pass critic (GENERATE_PKB_v2 Phase 14) over principle glosses vs anchors —
    see CRITIC_REPORT.md.