Modern Post.
Close enough isn't good enough. Why getting your facts right matters.
If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” – Henry Ford
Heard this one before? The trouble is there’s no evidence he ever said it. We all like a good quote to kick off a pitch or proposal but it’s worth checking where these quotes actually come from. Take another favourite: “Creativity is seeing what everyone else has seen, and thinking what no one else has thought.” – Albert Einstein. Perfect, right? Except he didn’t say it. It’s actually a rephrase of a quote from Albert Szent-Györgyi, a Hungarian scientist who discovered Vitamin C.
And then there’s this one: “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” – Steve Jobs. Jobs did say it, claiming Picasso said it first. But Picasso never said it either. It’s actually a paraphrase of something T.S. Eliot wrote in 1920: “The immature poet imitates; the mature poet plagiarises.” It’s easy to think accuracy doesn’t matter in these moments. But it does.
We’re living in an age of fast-spreading misinformation, from AI-generated content to deepfakes. And brands aren’t immune. Unlike individuals who can delete a post, companies face lasting consequences when they get facts wrong. Getting the basics right in the small details says something about how you’ll handle the bigger ones. Sharing a misattributed quote isn’t just about spreading misinformation – it reveals something about your standards, attention to detail and your relationship with accuracy, too. And in a world where trust is currency, these details matter more than ever. Edelman’s Trust Barometer reveals that 88% of consumers believe trust is as important as price and quality. When it only takes a few seconds to check before you hit send – why are we accepting “close enough” as good enough?
Here’s the thing: checking your facts isn’t optional anymore. In marketing, your relationship with accuracy directly shapes how people see your brand. Get the small stuff wrong, and people start questioning whether they can trust you with the big stuff. The solution is straightforward: build fact-checking into your content workflow. Use tools like Snopes, Quote Investigator, or simply search for the quote’s origin before publishing. Take the extra 30 seconds to verify. If you’re going to steal, at least steal accurately.