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

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

Samuel Johnson

Quotations are useful in periods of ignorance or obscurantist beliefs.

Debord, Guy

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

Rudyard Kipling

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

Samuel Johnson

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

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

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

Robert M. Hamilton

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

Oscar Wilde

10.

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

11.

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

George Bernard Shaw

12.

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

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

13.

Misquotations are the only quotations that are never misquoted.

Hesketh Pearson

14.

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

Seneca

15.

Our best thoughts come from others.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

16.

Famous remarks are very seldom quoted correctly.

Simeon Strunsky

17.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

18.

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

Edward Young

19.

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

20.

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

21.

A short saying oft contains much wisdom.

Sophocles

22.

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

Cross, Amanda

23.

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

Malcolm, Janet

24.

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

25.

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

Alfred North Whitehead

26.

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

27.

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

Wilson, Woodrow T.

28.

There are two kinds of marriages -- where the husband quotes the wife and where the wife quotes the husband.

Odets, Clifford

29.

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

David H. Comins

30.

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

31.

Write a wise saying and your name will live forever.

32.

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

Gates, W. I. E.

33.

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

Doctor Who

34.

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

Edwin P. Whipple

35.

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

Talmud, The

36.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

37.

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

38.

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

Benjamin Disraeli

39.

I quote others in order to better express myself.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

40.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

41.

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

Peacock, Thomas Love

42.

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

43.

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

44.

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

45.

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

Anatole France

46.

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

47.

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

48.

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

Benjamin, Walter

49.

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

Andre Malraux

50.

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