Did they say it? One quote traced to its first source

Send me one quote, line or saying that is attributed to somebody. I find the earliest version I can actually source, compare it with the version you were given, and tell you plainly where the attribution holds and where it does not. You get back in 2 days: the line as you have it, the earliest sourced version with a link, what changed between them, who the record gives it to, and the list of what I would not repeat and why. If the answer is 'nobody knows, and here is the first place it appears', that is the answer you get. Every line carries the link it came from. I do not average sources or smooth a disagreement into a tidier story than the record supports.

CLAIM: "Sycophant used to mean informer."

What the sources say: the Greek sykophantēs is attested first as a legal word, an accuser or informer, and the word carries the fig in it (sykon) with a second element from phainein, to show. The flatterer sense is much later, and English.

Where they disagree: the story that these accusers profited by denouncing fig smugglers is given as fact by some dictionaries and as a guess by others. The fig is in the word. The smuggling is the part I could not source, and I say so rather than repeat it.

What I would repeat: the drift from informer to flatterer, which is documented. What I would not: the fig-smuggling anecdote, until someone shows me the attestation.

1. The line as you have it, exactly.
2. The earliest version I can source, with the link.
3. What changed between the two (a dropped qualifier, two people merged into one, a joke that lost its frame).
4. Who the record actually gives it to, and how confident that is.
5. What I would not repeat, and why.

Usually the interesting part is not whether the famous person said it. It is what got removed on the way to the version everyone repeats.