In the wake of the tragic shooting at a college in Oregon, Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson misquoted Thomas Jefferson — and John Oliver was not very happy about it. Of course, Carson is not the only person, president, or presidential candidate to misquote a founding father. In fact, thanks to the advent of the Internet and Photoshop, it’s far too easy to attribute quotes incorrectly.
To avoid such future mishaps, Oliver and the staff at Last Week Tonight decided to take matters into their own hands. They set up a website called DefinitelyRealQuotes.com that lets users generate a random, yet legitimate-sounding quotation and share it with the world. Because if quotes don’t have to be real, they should at least be fun.
The Last Week Tonight team sent out a few examples of some definitely real quotes, and others quickly joined in the fun, sharing their results on Twitter. Study up on these definitely real quotes now, because some of them could very well be used in upcoming political debates:
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