As Quoted In
The honest way to cite a quotation you found in a second-hand source rather than the original.
'As quoted in' (also written 'quoted in' or, in some styles, 'as cited in') is the phrase that marks an indirect citation: you are quoting words that you encountered in someone else's book or article, not in the source where they first appeared. The formula names both — the original speaker first, the source you actually read second.
Every major style guide provides for this. Chicago prefers 'quoted in' inside the note; APA uses 'as cited in' with only the secondary source in the reference list; MLA uses 'qtd. in'. The shared logic is that your reader must be able to retrace exactly the path you took, and you cannot honestly send them to a page you have not opened.
The practical rule is: use it, but treat it as a debt. Indirect citation is legitimate when the original is genuinely unavailable — out of print, unpublished, in an archive you cannot reach. It is not a shortcut for skipping a library visit. Most misquotations in circulation survive precisely because chains of writers quoted each other rather than the source.
Common mistake: silently citing the original after finding it second-hand. This is the single most common vector for propagating misattribution, because you have vouched for a text you never inspected.
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
Keep reading the glossary
A formal reference that lets a reader locate the source of a quote.
A later account that reports a quote, rather than recording it directly.
Assigning a quote to the wrong person — the most common error in quotation.
The process by which a quotation gradually shifts to a more famous name through repeated sharing.