David Lane (white nationalist) (1938–2007) American white supremacist, convicted felon
Revolution by Number
A misreporting of an actual quote praising the trustworthiness of a colleague: "His verbal contract is worth more than the paper it's written on". The identity of the colleague is variously reported as Joseph M. Schenk in Paul F. Boller, John George, They Never Said It (1990), p. 42, or as Joseph L. Mankiewicz in Carol Easton, The Search for Sam Goldwyn (1976). Goldwyn himself was reportedly aware of - and pleased by - the misattribution.
Misattributed
David Lane (white nationalist) (1938–2007) American white supremacist, convicted felon
Revolution by Number
“An ounce of algebra is worth a ton of verbal argument.”
J. B. S. Haldane (1892–1964) Geneticist and evolutionary biologist
As quoted in his obituary by Maynard Smith http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/maynardsmith/pdf/1965.pdf in Nature 206 (1965), p. 239
“It isn't worth it. No money is worth this… [walks out].”
Orson Welles (1915–1985) American actor, director, writer and producer
The Findus Foods "Frozen Peas" Session Out-Takes
“Standards are paper. I use paper to wipe my butt every day. That's how much that paper is worth.”
Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker
Discussing a "fix" in the memcpy() that broke flash, 2010-11-30, Bugzilla, Red Hat, Torvalds, Linus https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=638477#c129, <br class="br">2010s, 2010
“if a book isn't self-explanatory, then it isn't worth reading.”
Paulo Coelho book The Zahir
Source: The Zahir
“Strong words outlast the paper they are written upon.”
Joseph Bruchac (1942) American children's writer
Source: Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two
“Constitutions have to be written on hearts, not just paper.”
Margaret Thatcher book Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World
Source: Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, p. 256