Way back in school, I was taught to pepper any speech with quotes to lend weight to whatever I was speaking about, especially when it came to public speaking. Which essentially put paid to my career as a public speaker. I mean, if you start off with "As Shakespeare said, 'Neither a lender...', blink owlishly, swallow, and start again, 'Neither a...', look piteously at the audience and, then, find that, leave alone the quotation, you have totally forgotten what your speech was supposed to be about. No wonder I never set the audience on fire, except the once when they had rotten tomatoes at hand.
Later in life, I came across this logical fallacy called 'Authority bias'. Apparently, to assume something is right, because someone who you consider is an authority said it, is a logical fallacy. Fat chance that people are going to be convinced about it considering that, since childhood, they have been trained to quote authorities to strengthen their arguments.
The funny thing is that you need not even be an authority on the subject matter at hand. I mean, like, it's enough that you are a movie star for people to quote your words on politics or, even, black holes. Or, indeed, a physicist for your opinions about any given movie to be solemnly quoted. All that is needed is that your opinion should validate the opinion of the one doing the quoting.
The strangest thing is the way you can become an authority merely by being in the opposite camp. You may be the nut to end all nuts, and be called out for your extreme nuttiness. But the moment you say something that opposes the prevalent opinion of 'your side', you'll be raised to instant authorityhood, if I may coin a word. Suddenly, everyone in the opposite camp will start saying, "Even he said....". There. You can continue to be as stupid as you ever where. All that's needed is for you to reverse the direction of your idiocy.
Knowing all that never helped me become a public speaker of note. I'd either forget the quotation, or the person who said that quotable thing, or...You get what I mean. Now that I have given up on the dratted thing, people have made it easy. Just my luck.
NOW, all you have to do is remember the quote. You can always attribute it to the most impressive name that you can remember offhand.
Talk about putting words in people's mouths!
