Motivational Quotes

Quotations

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

Best Quotes about Quotations

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, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.

Ambrose Bierce

The habit some writers indulge in of perpetual quotation is one it behooves lovers of good literature to protest against, for it is an insidious habit which in the end must cloud the stream of thought, or at least check spontaneity. If it be true that le style c'est l homme, what is likely to happen if l homme is for ever eking out his own personality with that of some other individual?

Smyth, Dame Ethel

The American people would not want to know of any misquotes that Dan Quayle may or may not make.

Dan Quayle

A quotation, like a pun, should come unsought, and then be welcomed only for some propriety of felicity justifying the intrusion.

Robert Chapman

To be amused by what you read--that is the great spring of happy quotations.

C. E. Montague

What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing he knew nobody had said it before.

Mark Twain

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

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

Robert M. Hamilton

10.

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages is preserved into perpetuity by a nation's proverbs, fables, folk sayings and quotations.

William Feather

11.

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

12.

Now we sit through Shakespeare in order to recognize the quotations.

Orson Welles

13.

Some for renown, on scraps of learning dote, And think they grow immortal as they quote.

Edward Young

14.

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

15.

Stronger than an army is a quotation whose time has come.

Gates, W. I. E.

16.

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

George Bernard Shaw

17.

When we would prepare the mind by a forcible appeal, and opening quotation is a symphony precluding on the chords those tones we are about to harmonize.

Disraeli, Benjamin

18.

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.

19.

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

20.

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

Samuel Johnson

21.

A short saying oft contains much wisdom.

Sophocles

22.

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

Kipling, Rudyard

23.

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

24.

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

Brendan Francis

25.

We rarely quote nowadays to appeal to authority... though we quote sometimes to display our sapience and erudition. Some authors we quote against. Some we quote not at all, offering them our scrupulous avoidance, and so make them part of our white mythology. Other authors we constantly invoke, chanting their names in cerebral rituals of propitiation or ancestor worship.

Hassan, Ihab

26.

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

Malcolm, Janet

27.

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

28.

I quote others in order to better express myself.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

29.

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

30.

Too much traffic with a quotation book begets a conviction of ignorance in a sensitive reader. Not only is there a mass of quotable stuff he never quotes, but an even vaster realm of which he has never heard.

Davies, Robertson

31.

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

H. L. Mencken

32.

An epigram often flashes light into regions where reason shines but dimly.

Edwin P. Whipple

33.

People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first.

David H. Comins

34.

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

Andre Malraux

35.

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

36.

Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

37.

Famous remarks are very seldom quoted correctly.

Simeon Strunsky

38.

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

Rudyard Kipling

39.

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

Peacock, Thomas Love

40.

I have suffered a great deal from writers who have quoted this or that sentence of mine either out of its context or in juxtaposition to some incongruous matter which quite distorted my meaning , or destroyed it altogether.

Alfred North Whitehead

41.

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

Cross, Amanda

42.

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes

43.

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

Samuel Johnson

44.

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