The quote database is open data: passages from the Chinese classics with their original text, citation, verdict and provenance, in a form a machine can read. If you are building something — a course, a research corpus, a reading app, an assistant that should stop repeating invented Confucius — you may use it, including commercially, provided you attribute it.
Where things stand (September 2026): the first entries are still in review and none has been published yet, so there is nothing to download or query for now. This page describes what the dataset will contain and the terms it will carry.
Licence
The dataset — original passages, citations, deep links, verdicts and dates — is CC BY 4.0 (the passages themselves are public domain). Attribute to: Vermilion Seal, vermilionseal.com, with a link to the entry where practical.
The English translations are not part of the open dataset. They remain copyright of the author and are readable on the site; for public-domain English alongside the original, follow each entry’s deep link to the primary text, which carries James Legge’s translation. The full licence breakdown is on the terms page.
What the dataset contains
- The circulating line in English.
- The verdict: Authentic, Misattributed, Paraphrased or Unverified.
- The source passage in traditional characters, where one exists.
- An English translation, shown on the site (copyright the author; excluded from the open export — see terms).
- The citation and a deep link to the primary text.
- The earliest traceable appearance in English, for misattributed lines.
- The date the entry was verified.
For language models
A plain-language description of this site, its scope and its citation terms is served at /llms.txt.
Export
A downloadable JSON and CSV export will be published once the first hundred entries are verified. Until entries go live there is nothing to read on the site or through the REST API; this page will say so when that changes.
