The short answer
How is this different from asking an AI?
Same question, different method — and a different failure mode. Three differences, and that’s the whole list.
Three differences
We cite a source you can open
An AI answers from what ranks. For quotes, what ranks is quote sites copying each other without citation — so you get the most-repeated claim, not the best-evidenced one. Every page here names the earliest document that actually carries the words, with the edition, the date, and a link. Go and check it. “Trust us” is not verification.
We can tell you we don’t know
An AI always produces an answer — that is what it is built to do. But certainty is a spectrum, and on a large share of these quotes the trail goes cold. When it does, we mark the quote Attributed or Disputed and say so, rather than manufacture a confident answer. A tool that can’t fail can’t tell you when to worry.
We answer the copyright question
“Who said it” and “may I publish it” are different questions. An AI answers the first with unearned confidence and doesn’t attempt the second at all. Every page states a rights status separately from the attribution — because a quote can be correctly attributed and still not yours to reproduce.
The full standard — what “verified” means, the three confidence states, and how rights are assessed — is on How we verify.