Exact phrases with quotes

Most of the time you search by meaning, and the wording you type does not have to match the wording of the passage. Sometimes, though, you know the exact words. You remember a line from a talk, or you want every passage that uses a particular phrase. Quotes are for that.

Quote the words you are sure of

Wrap a phrase in straight double quotes. Results then come only from documents that contain those words together, and the passage that carries them is the one shown, even when it is short. Everything you type outside the quotes still searches by meaning.

What counts as a match

• The phrase can appear in the passage itself or in the document's title, subtitle, speaker, author or topics. To find one person's talks, though, SPEAKER: is the better tool.
• Words are matched by their root, so "covenant" also finds "covenants".
• Straight quotes work anywhere in the query. The curly quotes a phone keyboard types count only when the quoted phrase is the whole search (after any operators), so a curly quotation inside a longer pasted sentence stays ordinary text.
• Only the first quoted phrase becomes a requirement. A second pair of quotes stays in the text as ordinary words. To require more than one phrase, use INCLUDE.

Very common phrases

A phrase such as "the lord" appears in tens of thousands of passages. The search cannot pull every one of those documents into view, so it checks the phrase passage by passage instead. Searches like that take a few seconds longer and can return fewer cards than usual. Adding a few words about what you mean helps.

The source card

When a quoted phrase is a quotation of three words or more, a card above the results names the passage it most likely comes from and lists the other documents that quote it. See The source card.