Developers

Integrate Verbatims quotes into your applications with the public API.

Overview

The Verbatims API provides programmatic access to our curated collection of quotes, authors, and references. All responses are in JSON format and follow a consistent structure.

Base URL: https://verbatims.cc

Authentication

All API requests require an API key sent via the Authorization header. You can manage your keys from your developer dashboard.

# Replace with your actual key

curl https://verbatims.cc/api/v1/me \
-H "Authorization: Bearer vbt_your_api_key_here"

Rate Limiting

Rate limits depend on your API key's tier. Response headers include your remaining quota:

X-RateLimit-Remaining: 987

X-RateLimit-Reset: 1696000000

free1,000 requests per hour

pro10,000 requests per hour

enterpriseCustom rate limits

Response Format

All responses follow a consistent JSON structure:

{
  "success": true,
  "data": [
    {
      "id": 1,
      "content": "The only way to do great work is to love what you do.",
      "language": "en",
      "stats": {
        "views": 15234,
        "likes": 892,
        "shares": 431
      },
      "featured": true,
      "author": {
        "id": 42,
        "name": "Steve Jobs",
        "fictional": false,
        "image_url": null
      },
      "reference": {
        "id": 7,
        "name": "Stanford Commencement Speech",
        "type": "speech"
      },
      "tags": [
        {
          "name": "inspiration",
          "color": "#3B82F6"
        }
      ],
      "created_at": 1700000000000,
      "updated_at": 1700000000000
    }
  ],
  "pagination": {
    "page": 1,
    "limit": 20,
    "total": 1,
    "totalPages": 1,
    "hasMore": false
  }
}

Endpoints

GET/api/v1/quotes

List approved quotes with pagination, filtering, and search.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`page`	integer	1	Page number
`limit`	integer	20	Items per page (max 100)
`language`	string	—	Filter by language (e.g. en, fr)
`author_id`	integer	—	Filter by author ID
`reference_id`	integer	—	Filter by reference ID
`tag`	string	—	Filter by tag name
`search`	string	—	Search in quote content
`sort_by`	string	created_at	created_at, updated_at, views_count, likes_count
`sort_order`	string	desc	asc or desc

GET/api/v1/quotes/{id}

Get a single approved quote by ID with full details.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`id`*	integer		Quote ID

GET/api/v1/random

Get one or more random quotes.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`limit`	integer	1	Number of random quotes (max 10)

GET/api/v1/authors

List authors sorted by popularity.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`page`	integer	1	Page number
`limit`	integer	20	Items per page (max 100)
`search`	string	—	Search by name

GET/api/v1/authors/{id}

Get a single author by ID.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`id`*	integer		Author ID

GET/api/v1/references

List references (sources) sorted by popularity.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`page`	integer	1	Page number
`limit`	integer	20	Items per page (max 100)
`search`	string	—	Search by name
`type`	string	—	Filter by type (film, book, tv_series, ...)

GET/api/v1/references/{id}

Get a single reference by ID.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`id`*	integer		Reference ID

GET/api/v1/tags

List tags sorted by quote count.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`page`	integer	1	Page number
`limit`	integer	50	Items per page (max 100)

GET/api/v1/search

Search across quotes, authors, or references.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`q`*	string		Search query (min 2 characters)
`type`	string	quotes	Scope: quotes, authors, or references
`page`	integer	1	Page number
`limit`	integer	20	Items per page (max 100)

GET/api/v1/me

Get information about the current API key.

Example

Fetch the 5 most recent quotes in French:

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer vbt_your_key_here" \
  "https://verbatims.cc/api/v1/quotes?language=fr&limit=5&sort_by=created_at&sort_order=desc" \
  | python3 -m json.tool

Error Codes

401Missing, invalid, or inactive API key

429Rate limit exceeded. Check X-RateLimit-Reset header

404Resource not found

400Invalid request parameters

500Internal server error