[burkaman]

If we're talking about individual out-of-context quotes, I don't think it's correct to separate the art from the artist. Human language is very imprecise, and knowing the author of a quote can significantly change the meaning of a sentence.

I'm just going to make up an example: let's say the quote in question is "Democracy requires active participation." If I saw this posted by an anonymous internet commenter in a political discussion, I would completely agree. The obvious interpretation is that democracy works better when people vote, speak to your representative, organize, etc.

Now let's say the commenter reveals that this is a quote from a presidential assassin. Well, now I'm a little uncomfortable. Why did they choose this particular quote? Do they agree with the assassin's fringe definition of "active participation"? The intended meaning has completely changed with this new information. The identity of the author is part of the message, because we aren't talking about objectively true or false statements, we're talking about philosophical ideas that are much bigger than the quote provided.