Motivational Quotes

Quotations

Life itself is a quotation.

- Jorge Luis Borges

Best Quotes about Quotations

A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

There is not less wit nor less invention in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that thought.

Pierre Bayle

If you have any doubts that we live in a society controlled by men, try reading down the index of contributors to a volume of quotations, looking for women's names.

Elaine Gill

Quotation... A writer expresses himself in words that have been used before because they give his meaning better than he can give it himself, or because they are beautiful or witty, or because he expects them to touch a cord of association in his reader, or because he wishes to show that he is learned and well read. Quotations due to the last motive are invariably ill-advised; the discerning reader detects it and is contemptuous; the undiscerning is perhaps impressed, but even then is at the same time repelled, pretentious quotations being the surest road to tedium.

Fowler, Henry W.

A book of quotations . . . can never be complete.

Robert M. Hamilton

A fine quotation is a diamond in the hand of a man of wit and a pebble in the hand of a fool.

Roux, Joseph

The next best thing to saying a good thing yourself, is to quote one.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

The profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until an equal mind and heart finds and publishes it.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.

Marlene Dietrich

10.

Quotations in my work are like wayside robbers who leap out armed and relieve the stroller of his conviction.

Benjamin, Walter

11.

Next to being witty yourself, the best thing is being able to quote another's wit.

Bovee, Christian Nevell

12.

Fidelity to the subject's thought and to his characteristic way of expressing himself is the sine qua non of journalistic quotation.

Malcolm, Janet

13.

I not only use all the brains I have but all I can borrow.

Wilson, Woodrow T.

14.

Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it.

Alfred North Whitehead

15.

Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.

Samuel Johnson

16.

Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.

Samuel Johnson

17.

In the dying world I come from quotation is a national vice. It used to be the classics, now it's lyric verse.

Waugh, Evelyn

18.

What's the use of a good quotation if you can't change it?

Doctor Who

19.

I am reminded of the professor who, in his declining hours, was asked by his devoted pupils for his final counsel. He replied,'Verify your quotations.'

Sir Winston Churchill

20.

Why are not more gems from our great authors scattered over the country? Great books are not in everybody's reach; and though it is better to know them thoroughly than to know them only here and there, yet it is a good work to give a little to those who have not the time nor means to get more.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

21.

I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.

George Bernard Shaw

22.

I think we must quote whenever we feel that the allusion is interesting or helpful or amusing.

Fadiman, Clifton

23.

He wrapped himself in quotations- as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors.

Rudyard Kipling

24.

After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations.

H. L. Mencken

25.

In quoting of books, quote such authors as are usually read; others you may read for your own satisfaction, but not name them.

Selden, John

26.

What is an epigram? A dwarfish whole, its body brevity, and wit its soul.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

27.

He presents me with what is always an acceptable gift who brings me news of a great thought before unknown. He enriches me without impoverishing himself.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

28.

A short saying oft contains much wisdom.

Sophocles

29.

He wrapped himself in quotations -- as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors.

Kipling, Rudyard

30.

Be careful -- with quotations, you can damn anything.

Andre Malraux

31.

A quotation in a speech, article or book is like a rifle in the hands of an infantryman. It speaks with authority.

Brendan Francis

32.

When a thing has been said and well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.

Anatole France

33.

The essence of a quote is the compression of a mass of thought and observation into a single saying.

Morely, John

34.

A quotation at the right moment is like bread to the famished.

Talmud, The

35.

Quotes from Mao, Castro, and Che Guevara... are as germane to our highly technological, computerized society as a stagecoach on a jet runway at Kennedy airport.

Alinsky, Saul

36.

Though collecting quotations could be considered as merely an ironic mimetism -- victimless collecting, as it were... in a world that is well on its way to becoming one vast quarry, the collector becomes someone engaged in a pious work of salvage. The course of modern history having already sapped the traditions and shattered the living wholes in which precious objects once found their place, the collector may now in good conscience go about excavating the choicer, more emblematic fragments.

Sontag, Susan

37.

I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.

Seneca

38.

I never have found the perfect quote. At best I have been able to find a string of quotations which merely circle the ineffable idea I seek to express.

Caldwell O'Keefe

39.

I might repeat to myself slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound - if I can remember any of the damn things.

Dorothy Parker

40.

Have you ever observed that we pay much more attention to a wise passage when it is quoted than when we read it in the original author?

Philip G. Hamerton

41.

That is the point of quotations. One can use another's words to be insulting.

Cross, Amanda

42.

Famous remarks are very seldom quoted correctly.

Simeon Strunsky

43.

When one begins to live by habit and by quotation, one has begun to stop living.

Baldwin, James

44.

The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotation.

Benjamin Disraeli

45.

I quote others in order to better express myself.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

46.

Immortality. I notice that as soon as writers broach this question they begin to quote. I hate quotation. Tell me what you know.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

47.

I pick my favorite quotation and store them in my mind as ready armor, offensive or defensive, amid the struggle of this turbulent existence.

Burns, Robert

48.

A fine quotation is a diamond on the finger of a man of wit, and a pebble in the hand of a fool.

Joseph Roux

49.

Great speeches have always had great soundbites. The problem now is that the young technicians who put together speeches are paying attention only to the soundbite, not to the text as a whole, not realizing that all great soundbites happen by accident, which is to say, all great soundbites are yielded up inevitably, as part of the natural expression of the text. They are part of the tapestry, they aren't a little flower somebody sewed on.

Noonan, Peggy

50.

A book that furnishes no quotations is no book -- it is a plaything.

Peacock, Thomas Love