Last modified on 23 May 2012, at 22:47

Wikiquote:Quality and Quantity


In William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, the title character remarks on his love for Ophelia by saying that "forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum." The same logic can also apply to the selection of quotes on a Wikiquote page; the quantity of quotes on a page does not influence its quality, only the quality of the quotes themselves can.

Quality and quantity go hand in hand when making a page on Wikiquote. The subject of a page on Wikiquote should be inherently notable, the quotations on a page should also be sufficiently notable in relation to the page's subject and other factors, and pages should not contain too many quotes (for organizational reasons, or even legal reasons in some cases), so ensuring a balance between the quality and quantity of quotes on a page is crucial to a page's quality as a whole.

Quality of quotesEdit

Quotes by or about individualsEdit



  6. Has the quote stood the test of time?
  7. Is the quote verifiably sourced?

Further discussion of these concepts is set forth below.

Factors of notabilityEdit


As Samuel Taylor Coleridge famously wrote:

Prose is words in their best order;
Poetry is the best words in their best order.



Additionally, quotes should only be attributed to the person or work which coined it. Many works use stock phrases such as "Let's get out of here!" (which appeared in print in William M. Bobo, Glimpses of New York City (1852), p. 191, and may have been used elsewhere before that). Such phrases are by their nature not original to later works, and therefore should not be included on the page for that work or its author, except when such a phrase as part of a larger section of dialogue for which inclusion of the phrase is necessary to display the context of the discussion.

Notability is necessary, but not sufficient, for an article on a personEdit




Fame of the quoteEdit

In some instances a quote will come to far exceed the fame of the author, and will be widely repeated in secondary and tertiary sources. The news may pick up a stray comment that is amusing or interesting in context, and inject it into the public mind. Quotes with pithily express everyday realities (e.g. "A fool and his money are soon parted"; "Measure twice, cut once"; "He who laughs last, laughs best") may become proverbs, sayings, or aphorisms. An author may be notable as the originator of such sayings, but more frequently they arise from sources now unknown, and may be included in articles on proverbs, or on the themes reflected in the quote.


Originality of the quoteEdit

A quote should be attributed to the person who coined it. Many works use stock phrases such as, for instance, "Let's get out of here!" (which was reported at least as early as William M. Bobo, Glimpses of New York City (1852), p. 191; and may have been used elsewhere before that.)

Such phrases are by their nature not original to later works. Although such stock quotes may be included on a general page about a theme that they address, they should not be included on the page for a later work repeating the quote, or for the author of such a later work. Minor variations such as "let's get out of here, Joe", "let's get the heck out of here" or "let's get out of this place" are also not sufficiently original to include on such pages. There are two primary exceptions to this rule. The first is where the occurrence of such a phrase as part of a larger section of dialogue, for which inclusion of the phrase is necessary to display the entire context of the discussion. The second is where the quote has become so widely associated with a person or a work that it merits inclusion for the very purpose of explaining that its actual origination lies elsewhere.

Notability of the subjectEdit



Recentism vs. the Test of TimeEdit







Quotes containing criticism of other peopleEdit


  3. Was the quote made less than ten years ago?
  4. Are either the author or the subject deceased?
  5. Is the quote itself particularly novel and original?
  7. Is the quote verifiably sourced?



Quantity of quotesEdit





Scarlett: No! I only know that I love you.
Rhett: That's your misfortune.


For example, from The Matrix,
Neo: Why do my eyes hurt?
Morpheus: You've never used them before.


Page length and number of quotesEdit

A page shouldn't have too many quotes; the only reason a page should have too many quotes is because the majority of them are unremarkable. The number of quotes on a page for a work be dependent on its length and medium: the average half-hour television episode should only have 2-4 quotes, while a two hour film should only have 10-14 notable quotes. However, these are only maximums; as always, only quotes that are considered notable per the aforementioned guidelines should be used.

Legal considerationsEdit

The length and number of quotes on a page may also be influenced by legal considerations, particularly those involving copyright and the fair use doctrine. Fair use could be claimed for pages containing quotes from copyrighted works, since Wikiquote is a non-profit entity, it is not copying a substantial portion of the work, and curating excerpts from the work using a set of guidelines is a form of criticism and commentary.

The U.S. case Castle Rock Entertainment, Inc. v. Carol Publishing Group ruled that an unofficial trivia book on the TV series Seinfeld, which incorporated 643 fragments (including quotes and expressions of the writers' work on the show's content) from 84 half-hour episodes was deemed too substantial to be considered fair use in this particular case because it wasn't a critique or parody of the show. Nonetheless, the community attempted to use the case (despite Wikiquote being a non-profit who is "critiquing" these quotations through the curation process) as consensus to impose strict limits on the number of quotations for these works. These included specific cases restricting films to 5 quotations per hour in length, television programs to 2 quotations for a half hour and 5 for a full hour, and only 3 quotations for video games, irregardless of length or amount of dialogue.

If a page follows the aforementioned guidelines for determining whether a quote is notable enough for inclusion, it should not have to reach a state with possible legal issues.

Of course, if a work is in the public domain, there should not be any legal issues in having a page containing a substantial number of quotations, leaving the factors of quality as the only concern.

See alsoEdit