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. Where a source document exists, the page names it — the work, the edition, the date, and a link. Where none does, it says so plainly instead of writing “widely attributed to”. 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.